Systems & Growth

When I was in my early 20s, I believed that passion was the single most important factor in choosing a career. I thought:

• If I work in an area I love, I’ll stay motivated.
• Even if it doesn’t pay well, I’ll figure it out.
• And if I make it to the “top” of the industry, I’ll be fine.

My passion was sports. I wasn’t an athlete, but I wanted to work in the sports industry. I was willing to grind it out, even working for free to get experience—just like countless others trying to break in.

What I didn’t realize back then was that passion alone isn’t enough. There are other forces that shape your career trajectory—forces that are much bigger than your own motivation. Over time, I came to understand three of them: geography, competition, and value creation.

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The Geography Factor

Where you work matters more than I ever imagined. Certain industries are highly concentrated in just a handful of cities. Sports is one of them—there are only so many teams, league offices, and opportunities.

And this goes the same for other industries too. Tech has Silicon Valley. Finance has New York and London. These hubs create dense ecosystems of opportunity. I wasn’t in any of those cities—and that alone limited my options, no matter how passionate or capable I was.

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The Competition Factor

I underestimated the difficulty of making it to the top. Sports attracts young, passionate people who are willing to work for free just for a chance. The supply of labor is endless, and the demand is limited. That imbalance keeps pay low, even for higher-level positions.

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The Value Creation Factor

This was my biggest realization.

In sports, the core value is created by athletes. Without NBA players, there is no NBA. That’s why they earn unbelievable salaries. League office staff and executives add value, but they’re not the reason fans buy tickets or tune in to watch. Even top roles at the league office pay a fraction of what you might expect.

I remember seeing a job posting for a director-level position at the NFL league office. The salary? $100,000–$160,000. Sounds decent, until you compare it with other industries.

A Palantir engineer intern makes about $120,000.
A Jane Street engineer intern makes $250,000.

At first, I thought: that’s just tech and finance vs. sports. Different industries, different economics. But then it hit me: those engineers are part of the core value creation in their companies.

Palantir is a software company. Without engineers, it doesn’t exist. Jane Street is a quantitative trading firm. Without technologists and quants building the algorithms, there’s no business.

In other words, engineers in those firms are the equivalent of NFL players. They’re the ones driving the value engine.

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A Story That Stuck With Me

Dharmesh Shah, CTO and cofounder of HubSpot, once told a story that hammered this point home for me. Early in his career, he worked as a tech in a traditional industry. He quickly became the best at what he did. But a senior colleague told him: “It won’t matter how good you are in this industry because tech isn’t the main value driver here.”

That was a wake-up call for him—and it became one for me too.

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The Big Lesson

If you want outsized returns in your career, it’s not enough to be good. You need to be good at something that sits at the core of value creation in your industry.

• In sports, that’s being an athlete.
• In tech, that’s being an engineer or founder.
• In finance, that’s being a trader, quant, or engineer.
• In healthcare, that’s being a physician or innovator.
• In entertainment, that’s being the artist or creator.

Everyone else can still have fulfilling careers, but the leverage—and the money—will always flow to the core.

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Looking Back, Looking Forward

If I could go back to my 20s, I wouldn’t tell myself to abandon passion. Passion matters. It keeps you going when things get tough. But I would tell myself this:

“Make sure your passion intersects with value creation. That’s where you’ll find both meaning and upside.”

That’s the framework I carry with me now—whether I’m evaluating industries, jobs, or even side projects. And it’s the one piece of advice I’d give to anyone just starting out.

Growing up, I was told a lot of things — mostly by adults, mostly my parents.

They were bound by their own experiences, the experiences that shaped the lives they live today.

But looking back, I see now that many of these lessons were just fears.
Their fears reflected onto my life.

And slowly, I started to believe them.

• You have to be great at math to work in tech.
• You can only go so far in another country because you’re not a citizen.

Maybe some of these statements were true in certain contexts. But I took them as universal truths, without questioning, without research.

As I grew older, the list of these inherited “truths” kept piling up.

It wasn’t until I passed the age of 35 that I realized most of them were just mindsets, not realities.

They’re like tiny shackles on an elephant’s leg — placed there when it was young, so it grew up believing it couldn’t break free.

Looking back, I can see how many of my decisions—or failures to decide—were shaped by these invisible chains.

Here’s the truth: they are not real.

You can find paths in this world that no one has traveled before.
Whether you actually reach the destination is irrelevant.
The only thing that matters is that you take the first step… and keep walking.

That’s all that matters.

I grew up in a family that didn’t own a lot of things.

We lived a decent life and I have wonderful memories of my childhood—but it was never about getting toys whenever I wanted or buying things just because.

My parents, hardworking middle-class employees, always emphasized the value of effort. “Put in the work, and life will take care of you.” That belief became the foundation of how I approached everything in my early years.

For a long time, I thought effort was the whole game. And to be fair, effort matters—it puts food on the table, pays the bills, and gives you stability. But what I failed to realize, at least until the age of 35, was that effort alone doesn’t take you all the way.

The missing piece was ownership.

Assets.

Leverage.

Because while hard work ensures today’s meal, ownership ensures tomorrow’s without you having to clock in for it. Ownership is what allows growth to compound instead of staying flat.

Looking back, I see why my progress felt linear. I was over-indexed on effort, blind to the idea that building or owning something is what creates freedom.

Now, I understand: hard work is the foundation, but ownership is the multiplier.

If you want to get good at something, the first step is to demystify it.

What I mean is: don’t look at a subject or skill as something completely different from what you’ve already mastered. And definitely don’t look up to the people already succeeding in the field as if they’re untouchable.

You are just as worthy as they are. The only real difference is that they’ve put in more time. That’s it.

Here’s why this matters: the moment you put someone on a pedestal, your subconscious starts whispering: “They’re above me. I’m beneath them. I’ll never be as good as they are.”

And eventually, you start to believe it.

But the truth is—the goal isn’t to be as good as them.

It’s not about learning just enough to reach parity. Because in any field worth exploring, expertise isn’t static. It’s dynamic.

The moment you reach the level of the person you idolize, the field will have already shifted. The skills you just worked so hard to master may no longer matter in the same way.

So what should you do instead?

Treat the field like a playground. Treat the people in it like playmates. Approach it with curiosity, not worship.

That curiosity will take you further than any single skill ever could. And in the end, curiosity is the only thing that really matters.

I’ve always approached learning in a very linear way:

1. Figure out what I need to know.
2. Read books or watch videos.
3. Practice.
4. Master the skill.

That formula has worked for me for years. There’s a clear start, a clear end, and a sense of completion.

But when I started building my own projects, that approach broke down completely.

Because building isn’t linear—it’s iterative.

• You Google.
• You ask ChatGPT.
• You test something.
• You break something.
• You fix it.
• You repeat.

And that’s normal. Not knowing is normal. Figuring things out as you go is normal.

But for me, it’s been incredibly frustrating. I’m used to mastery, not messiness. Even though I’m not programming—I’m just using WordPress—the sheer number of details and unknowns has been overwhelming.

What I’m slowly realizing is that the first step isn’t about mastery at all. It’s about getting comfortable with not knowing. Accepting that you’ll figure it out along the way.

Because if you wait until you’re an expert, you’ll never start.