I’ve lived in multiple countries, built four businesses, and I’m currently on my fifth.
Some worked and some failed. A few taught me lessons I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but I’m grateful for them now.
I’ve made decent money and lost it. I’ve chased validation, confused busyness with purpose, and learned that success doesn’t automatically produce peace.
I love Jesus. That reality has shaped far more of my decisions than most people see from the outside.
What follows isn’t advice from someone who has it all figured out. It’s a collection of raw advice I wish someone had told me in my 20s or honestly, advice I wish I had taken seriously earlier.
Who you become matters more than what you build.
Most people don’t care about what you wear, what you do, what you create, or what your dream is.
Read that again.
Your close friends and family might not even care either.
In business, you often minimize who you really are the actions you take, the ideas you share, even your faith because you’re worried about what others might think which leads to you half-assing it.
The sooner you stop overthinking and start accepting yourself, the sooner you’ll notice a shift toward peace.
If you are genuinely not scamming people, hurting people, driving people toward sin, dividing people, or exploiting others but are honestly trying to do some level of good in the world through your vocation.
It is going to take longer but be bigger than you think please just keep going.
You don’t need permission.
We compare our 20-year-old selves to people in their 40s and 50s and wonder why we feel behind.
It’s better to pay the ‘success tax’ which means to go out, suffer, fail, and learn.
Comparison quietly erodes courage and clarity.
You’ll be far more satisfied when you realize that paying the success tax is actually good, because the real reward is who you become.
When you’re stuck in the doom loop of comparison, your mind shifts toward quick wins and shortcuts that make you appear successful instead of becoming someone of substance.
I’ll leave this quote here:
Some people are so poor, that all they have is money.
I’ve done plenty of all-nighters. 2am nights. Some were fun. Many were absolutely crushing.
Looking back, I can see a sick heroic complex I had trying to impress others, chasing public thank you messages, proving something.
There were seasons where my diet was trash, hydration nonexistent, and fast food was just fuel to survive back-to-back meetings.
You can still be exceptional without destroying yourself. You just have to manage your time and how much of your identity you want to give to thing you are building.
Set some boundaries, touch some grass, get sun, and take a day off.
Entrepreneurship is a game of stamina so take care of yourself. It is already hard don’t make it harder with a poor routine.
I wish I had started much earlier asking close friends, mentors, and even customers a simple question:
“What is it like to be on the other side of me?”
What you hear will surprise you.
It will reveal blind spots in your personality, emotions, leadership style, and approach to conflict. Once you see them clearly, those blind spots can become a compass for better mentoring, coaching, and formation.
The same applies to opportunities and to romantic or business relationships.
It’s important to zoom out and honestly assess situations for what they actually are.
This is especially hard in romantic contexts, where our eyes and minds play tricks on us around connection.
The truth is, sometimes we fall in love with something or someone that never really existed.
That’s okay. We’re human we create realities we wish to exist in at times.
Consistency beats inspiration. Humility beats ego.
Life is sales not in a manipulative way, but in a human one.
Learn how to build rapport, face rejection, and find the right customers.
There are bad customers in business. Avoid them. No amount of money is worth it.
View selling as coming alongside someone, sitting on the same side of the table, and genuinely trying to help. Read Rob Snyder’s work and learn why people actually buy.
Selling done well is servanthood.
For my first couple of businesses, I genuinely wanted to change the world but I had shallow, almost nonexistent understanding of business fundamentals. You can have the desire to change the world and still should try.
What might have been better? Solving boring, local problems.
laundry
junk removal
painting
self-storage
couch flipping
I would’ve learned real systems, real margins, and real discipline. Instead, I let ego get in the way of starting small.
Small base hits build wisdom and confidence.
When revenue is low or the bank account is tight, it creates constraints.
Constraints are good for creativity.
Too many founders driven by ego or idealism don’t build viable economic models for either their for-profit or nonprofit ventures. I’m guilty of this and continuing to learn it is sobering every time.
Taking time to think through how something works long-term is healthy. Your spreadsheet forecasts will be wrong (for better or worse), but a robust business must be profitable and have systems that don’t rely solely on you fulfilling it to survive.
Partnership at the business level is like a marriage. You end up giving equity to people, sign agreements, and genuinely seek to build something meaningful.
If your business partners are not people of integrity don’t do business with them. They are going to be an extension of your venture and anyone who interacts with them will know what they are associated with when things take a turn for the worst.
You are setting yourself up for extreme failure if you over-index on skill and not consider character.
You want people who aren’t going to quit, well-rounded, coachable, and want more success for you than just themselves.
If you are lucky to have good co-founders please reward them when success comes cause its better to feast together always.
Distance reveals great mysteries and clues you can’t see up close.
If you’re able, move somewhere else.
You can almost always come back.
I moved to Argentina when I was 25 for a few months. Since then, I’ve traveled all over the world for business, perspective, and joy.
Without those experiences, I don’t think I’d know what I want in a future home life, who I want to raise my kids around, future partner, or which problems I actually care about solving.
If you can’t move countries, work remotely from a different town. Take the bus. Drive somewhere new.
Opportunity often hides in conversations you almost didn’t have.
Almost every good thing in my life has come from connecting with strangers through kindness, simple compliments, handshakes, or sitting next to someone in a café.
Those moments have led to dates, jobs, businesses, friendships, and unexpected prayer.
Sometimes it leads nowhere and thats cool too.
Connection compounds in ways you’ll never track.
Your future is shaped by who has access to you.
For a long time, I thought having lots of friends made me better.
It doesn’t.
Better is better.
Distance yourself from people who drain your energy, gossip, envy others, or consistently pull you away from who you’re becoming.
Those voices will be the ones whispering doubt in your mind during your biggest decisions.
Protect your inner circle and don’t look back.
They were people before they were parents.
Chris Williamson recently shared that we’ve demonized our parents too much and I agree. Watch the first 10 minutes of his video.. its humbling as he talks about the parental attribution error..
I haven’t always honored mine for what they did right, or for what their shortcomings developed in me for the better.
With time, I’ve learned to hold both gratitude and grace.
Success without peace is still failure.
I’m not asking you to become some perfect Christian. Those don’t exist lol
Life is hard.
Distraction is in an abundance today its everywhere and numbing out is easy.
We aren’t meant to do life alone.
One of the most grounding practices I’ve found is asking trusted people to pray for me when I’m anxious, uncertain, impatient, grateful, or joyful.
More often than not, I’ve received encouragement and language that only comes through prayer.
Sometimes I’d even get unexpected calls from people who felt prompted to pray.
Prayer doesn’t have to be reactive to the negative things in our life and I’d urge you to pray when good things are happening with praise and gratitude too.
AI and voice agents can’t do this I hate to break it to you so get real people around you ASAP.
In my early 20s, I made a lot of decisions focused purely on money.
In the process, I hurt people. I demanded too much from teams. I tied output/worth to performance.
There was lots of unhealed stuff driving all of it.
Business will have good and bad seasons.
Remain a venture of integrity. Seek first the Kingdom of God.
The inheritance that comes from that posture is worth far more than an acquisition, higher MRR, a vacation home, a stock ticker, or magazine headlines no one remembers.
Quiet obedience over the long term leads to deeper peace.
We aren’t in control and lets be honest building our own safety nets is exhausting.
I’m not asking you to live in fear by any means just trusting that God has a plan is a far more peaceful way to live.
Matthew 6:33 reads:
Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
