Sometimes, I wonder if it is fear that makes people live without ever fully taking a stand. They haggle with choices, refusing to stick to one so they do not miss out on another. While they enjoy the benefits of one, they keep themselves open to another. I call them half-lovers: people who want one thing without letting go of others.

It may probably be because the world is loud now but that can be a convenient excuse. The world was always loud and men have always been men. They want to have what they want but not at the cost of anything. That is sad, because life is not like that. Everything has a price.

The cost of solitude is aloneness. The cost of success is hard work. The cost of companionship is accountability. And the cost of freedom is responsibility.

There is nothing that goes on in life without an opposite.

I recently told my friend that it hurts to see young people live empty lives. It is like they do not have principles: they do not know what to say no to and what to agree with. They want to be responsible and still enjoy the freedom of a loose person. They want to be hardworking and still be chill. They want to learn to be alone but still say yes to every invitation.

But that is not freedom, that is just a fear of missing out.

If you want to do anything, then be prepared to pay the price. Or, just don’t. You are not going to achieve much in any endeavour in life if you always look back, or allow yourself to have excuses. I know this for a fact.

Usually, you have to force yourself into another dimension of life. If you want to improve your life, you have to force it into another standard. It does not just happen automatically. You make it happen.

And the sad thing is a lot of people expect life to just generally hand them what they want. Life is not fair like that. Most of the time, you are required to do the lifting. Because life expands or shrinks to how you want it to. This is the reason why no two people have the same lives.

They might come from the same family and have the same life experience but end up with different realities. One may have a more successful life than the other. Why?

Because one would love their dream fully and refuse a small life while the other would not bother. And the funny thing is, they might not start out like that. Sometimes, the one who would end up more successful would struggle more than the other. Because what they want is bigger. They want. a bigger life that is not only harder to get but takes longer time to attain. So while others may be already comfortable, they would be slaving for their dreams. It may take a long time but the rewards far outweigh an average life.

The older I get, the clearer I see this everyday. You must have a solid resolution to reject whatever you do not want in whatever form. The minute you make a decision that you do not want something, that is when it starts flooding into your surrounding. It is like life tests you to see if you really were serious about your decision or you were just saying it.

You would get all sorts of distractions. People, things, and events that are contrary to your decision will happen to you. But it is really important that you hold to that decision firmly. Because whatever action you take reinforces your mental image about who you are. This is to you as it is to me.

I have realized that you must say no a lot. You must continually say no. No. No. And no. Because only if you keep rejecting what you do not want will you get what you want. It may take a long time but you will definitely get it.

The harder part of doing this is making people close to you understand. Others may not understand you and that will not bother you a lot. But having your family misunderstand will hurt you.

They may not get your reasons. They may even fight you. Because to them, you are unreasonable. But what they do not know is what they encourage you to be —reasonable — is the most dangerous thing. Being reasonable gets you nowhere. It only placates those who are close to you.

On multiple occasions, people have called me an overly serious person. Because I am always busy and always working on a project. They text me and I am formal, so they assume I am no fun. They say I am too serious. But I have never understood what that means.

Should I not be serious about my life?

Should I not bother that I may waste my life?

They do not understand it is because you have given yourself away to something else. You have given so much of you that anything else seems like a distraction. And because I cannot half-love, I am obsessed with whatever I am doing. Because I know that whatever I am doing comes with a price. And if the price is being misunderstood, so be it.

I do not love half-lovers for the same reasons I hate worry. It is not the most godly representation of the God in us. Your life is not something you should half-love. Do not love half-lovers.

There is the need to have things figured out in a second. You see it everywhere, someone is mildly irritated that they don’t have the answers they want right now; that they don’t get a joke the moment it leaves someone’s mouth. They are obsessed with figuring anything out instantly.

And that has become the plaque of my generation: our inability to embrace with discomfort. We are always rushing to fill the silence with something. While being productive is great, your time cannot and should not always be filled. The moment you become obsessed with being busy, you have made busyness your identity. And busyness is different from productivity. Even if it was, not every productivity in fact, makes a difference in your life.

The reason a lot of people will not make it is not because they are not hardworking. A lot of hard working people are still living hand to mouth. It is not because they are not smart, or intelligent, or honest. It is simply because they think in short-term. While others are thinking in decades, they are thinking in weeks or at most, months.

Now, I wrote in I Will Take The Shortcut that I will take the shortcut. I want to be clear, taking the short cut does not mean bypassing processes. In that context, I meant working smarter. I meant finding a way to achieve the results we want in the shortest amount of time possible. That may also seem contrasting to the point I am making here but tag along.

It takes a long time to master anything. And not only that, it takes a long time to be recognized for something, or even paid for it. But life works in a dramatic way: for the longest period of time, you might be unnoticed or ignored, and then suddenly one day, everyone knows you. You suddenly sound like the best thing that has happened, all while doing the same thing you were always doing.

This works in anything, even in business. Things go slow, painfully slow, then one day, they go so fast you need helping hands.

And this is exactly why a lot of people will not make it. Because the hardest part is continuing to do the same boring thing over and over and over again. When no one is watching you. When no one is paying you. When no one cares.

That is why the drive you have must be void of human approval or praise. Because if anything you do is tied to it, you will one day not wake up to it.

Your drive must be internal. It must come from something that no one can touch. Something nothing can reach. Something only you can understand. Because in a world that easily gives approval and easily takes it, the only thing you own is yourself. And if you trade your core for validation, you will leave an empty life.

But people expect everything to be now. That is why there is literally a short cut for anything you want right now. You need to look fit? Forget about going to the gym, just pad yourself up. Forget about thinking, just use AI.

Forget about hearing you are wrong, defend. Forget about building wealth, fake it. Forget about accountability, say “that is who I am”. Forget about self development, say, “I accept myself and I’m okay the way I am”. You feel horny, forget about discipline, order some sex. Forget about reading or writing, scroll. Forget about accepting you don’t know, argue. Forget about truth, argue on X.

And we wonder why men have lost values. Why nothing means nothing to anyone right now. Why are children suddenly making videos of them smooching?

Why children are shameless online. Why the only authority anyone has over any matter is, “do you have more money than me?”.

We want the end results of the work we don’t want to do, and wonder why our lives are not changing. But it is because the end results were never the point. The training was the point. Becoming the type of person that will go to the gym whether they are tired or not is the point. Becoming the person that will publish their writing even when they know it is not their best work is the point. Becoming the person that will not sleep around is the point. Becoming the person that will rather build something and reap the efforts, rather than scamming or cheating is the point.

And this is what society is losing these days. It feels like we are in a race to extinction. It is why ads are filled with the language of rushing: Get … in just five days.

There is nothing I do in a rush. Yes, I might work fast because I believe in urgency, I do not believe in rushing. I am not going anywhere I will not get to. Great things take time.

So whatever you are doing, be ready to go the extra mile. Be prepared to be patient for it to yield the kinds of fruits you want to see. Because if there is a reason you will not make it, it is because you keep on digging the seeds you plant.

For example, people sit and write that when they are 40 or 45, they should be billionaires. I don’t o that. It is risky, I think.

One is because you are setting yourself up for a life of misery. If you have a particular date for when something in your life should happen, everything you do would only be a means to an end. You would only do life as a response to what you would be getting. And that is just a terrible way to live. You wouldn’t do things for the sake of doing them because then, everything would need a reason or strategy. But you are not a robot.

Secondly, let us be honest, you might not end up becoming that, at that age or ever. Would that mean you failed in life? Would that make every other thing you did in life a failure?

To be honest, I don’t now how or why people set those kinds of goals but I don’t.

Why?

These are things you can’t control. You can’t control how life happens to you. You can only control what you put into it. You can only control what you do and how you do it.

A lot of the things we set as goals are just us trying to know exactly what will happen in our lives and by when. It’s just us trying to make exact sense of life. But I don’t think life is something to make sense of. It’s something to live and conquer by your mind. But not to always be able to define.

I have a mental image of how I want my life to turn out. I know the kind of person I want to be. I know the kind of person I’m becoming. I know the kinds of places, the kinds of people and the kinds of things I want to create in the world. But I don’t have an exact of image of it. I don’t think I need to. I’ve left some details for God — I believe in God — to fill in.

I’m leaving some details for miracles. And I’m telling you that life has never been sweeter. I wake up everyday expecting some miracle. I wake up expecting everyday to be different from the next. Because I just know that something may happen. I might meet my future business partner. I might meet the future godfather of my children. Or I might just run into a unicorn.

And because I expect a miracle, I’m always optimistic. But I don’t have a picture of the shape and form it will be. That’s up to God. This is why most times, I’m as surprised as people are when some things in my life happen. Some one recently asked me if I’ve always wanted to be a doctor, and I said I knew I was going to be one. But I didn’t know which one exactly or how. It just happened. But not without me passing the necessary school work before and during medical school of course.

I played my part. Then I let the rewards take the shape providence felt was best for them.

I don’t plan life. Life is something to be explored and enjoyed. It’s not chess that I always have to know the next move. No. I refuse to live like that.

A minute ago, he sent me his portrait. How I love working with fast people. How I love seeing an idea add flesh little by little till it becomes a reality. How I love working.

I thought about how easy it was to get him to say yes. What could have been the reason?

Sure, it might be because of the way he saw me, the reputation I had in his eyes, or the fact that though we had not met we knew each other. But I think beyond those factors, there’s a more important one: he was the right fit.

We try so hard to secure opportunities, and to get clients, especially as entrepreneurs. And one of the most common things you’d hear on the entrepreneurial path is nos. It’s almost like the most common thing a lot of people have in common: their abilities to say no to you.

And we often walk around proud of how we tolerate these nos. How calmly we take them. How, sadly, we even expect them.

In fact, I remember someone once advising entrepreneurs to be careful of hearing so much nos that they fail to see the possibility of a yes.

But I think this is a blunt truth in life: in any endeavour, when you’re struggling to get someone to say yes to you, it’s usually a sign they aren’t a good fit.

It doesn’t mean they may not get to work with you but it still is a sign that they don’t perfectly align with what you’re proposing. And yes, there’s the chance that no one or a lot of people at first won’t perfectly fit into your proposal.

But a lot of the strategies we use to get people to say yes to us aren’t necessary. They’re usually an indication of our lack of ability to not only properly articulate the vision — whether that be a problem we’re solving in society or how our services can make their lives easier — but to make people see it.

So it’s almost always a skill issue. With the right skill, or the right amount of it, you’ll get in front of the right people first and properly articulate your service. You’d do so in a way that they can’t help but say yes. And even when — because it’ll happen — you do meet the crowd that isn’t for you, you’ll still be able to articulate your vision. Yes, you may not get the response you would from the right people.

But the question to ask now is: do you still get no even with the right amount of skill?

I believe yes. That still happens. However, it’ll be in a decreasing quantity because you don’t only know how to meet your ideal clients, you also know how to sell to them. And you only need to do this so much before you realize that you’re almost surrounded by the right people. Because the more you meet and sell to the right people, the more you hang around the kinds of places they’re in. That means you’ll meet their friends, and you’ll get referred also.

That’s why it’s not only unwise to stay around the wrong crowd, it’s self-destructive too. This is in anything, whether you’re selling, dating, or building anything. The wrong crowd has the propensity to attract exactly what they are: the wrong crowd. So you must be ready at all times to say the same thing they’d eventually say to you: no. And you may even get proposals from them too, because remember, the same way you’re trying to sell something is the same way they’re trying to sell something too.

(Note: Selling something here applies to anything: getting clients, a relationship, an opportunity, or an invitation).

You must learn to not be desperate in anything you’re doing. You must learn to only agree to things that align to your vision. You may not get a perfectly aligned opportunity at first, but staying open to those who are close to it — just like how you convince clients who need a similar service to yours but not exactly to work with you — will open you to fitter ones.

So hearing no and saying no are skills to getting you to your yeses and are as important, if not more, than hearing and saying yes. I really hope you understand this. Sadly, not a lot of people see the relationship. In fact, I may even argue that how fast you get your yeses are dependent on how fast you are able to step over the nos that are thrown at you and how fast you learn to throw those nos back.

But when you’re starting out, you shouldn’t always be fixed on why they’re saying no to you, sometimes ask yourself why you feel you must extract a yes out of them.

There are people who, sadly, grew up with no one and nothing. Their lack of trust in anything wasn’t intentional; they just never found meaning.

And then there are those whose lack of trust wasn’t intentional either, but a matter of convenience. They found it so convenient not to tie their soul to anything that they failed to realize that absolute freedom destroys.

When you can do anything you want with no one to care or caution, do you call that true freedom or slavery?

Aren’t you a slave to your pleasures and desires then?

And these kinds of people are sadly the ones who end up carrying the world on their shoulders. They failed to understand that with accountability (to others) comes the privilege of sharing your burdens with them.

People want easy lives. Then they have them and turn around and complain. Why? Because they forgot that the hard things in life are what make it beautiful. Joy wouldn’t mean anything if there wasn’t sadness. There’d be no laughter if there were no tears. And life wouldn’t mean so much if death didn’t exist.

Who do you trust?

The answer to this question will tell you so much about yourself. And if you don’t know the answer, that says something about you too.

If you live your life based on the premise of gathering material things, you’ll someday have everything and find out you’ve lost everything. Because what matters isn’t what you gather. It’s not prestige. It’s not what people say about you. It’s what your soul looks like. It’s what’s on the inside of you.

It’s whether that quiet voice that tells you when you’re doing something wrong still talks, or you’ve beaten it into submission.

If you live your life feeding on people’s approval, someday they’ll betray your trust. And it will be on the day you need it the most. When everyone is against you and you need just one person to be with you. One person to testify that you have good intentions. To say you’re a good person, or at least to say, "Pardon him." That’s when you’ll realize that people are like seasons; none of them stay forever.

Who do you trust?

Humans, who can change? A divine power? Or money that doesn’t buy happiness?

And I know what most people will say when they hear "money doesn’t buy happiness." They’d say, "Yeah, right," or, "It’s because you have it." But to be honest, money only buys you a temporary high. You could be depressed and rich. Money doesn’t solve any of this. It doesn’t cleanse your soul. It doesn’t fulfill it.

The happiness some people think money buys is convenience. The ability to wake up and do what you want, go where you want, and have what you want.
It’s a beautiful thing. Probably one of the most beautiful things in the world. But it doesn’t fulfill you.

I can’t say I have money yet, but I’m not so foolish as to throw away everything in pursuit of it. Because I’ve understood that you can still get things the patient way. You can still have what others break their backs and necks for: the things they destroy themselves chasing now, and will regret later, while you, who did no damage to yourself, can simply walk into them.

You can have everything they’re rushing toward now. But you have to be patient. And patience is hard in its one way too. But time? Time is your greatest ally.

So, who do you trust?

People who change like seasons and leave when you need them most or money that doesn’t fulfill you?

He was complaining about being delayed by some lady officer, who even though was supposed to be there by 8 am, was still not present by 10:55 am.

Another guy seated next to us was lamenting about how he came early. He said that was his first time being early and more than two hours later, we hadn't started.

“I don't mind honestly, she can keep us here till 5pm" I said chuckling.

"Anytime you say that, I feel like smacking you”, my friend said after I'd made that statement for the third time.

I laughed.

“Can you do anything about it?”, I asked.

“No but we have places to go and things to do, man”, he said

"Yes, but is it your fault? Why stress yourself about it?"

The woman was already late. We were already delayed. And yet, they chose to worry about it. As if complaining could change a single thing.

My logic was simple: do you like being delayed? No.

Can you do something about it? Yes.

Leave or wait for her.

Fine, you've decided to wait for her.

Why put yourself through more misery while doing that?

Isn't it better to just enjoy your time while you're there?

Oh, and when she comes, can you do something about it?

Yes, you can talk to her about it.

That's a plan for the future. What do you do with the present? Complain about her not coming or just wait for her to come?

Complaining wasn't going to make her come any faster.

We used to be cheerful. We didn’t worry about anything. Our expectations were only the ones our parents gave us. Then we became adults, and suddenly, we act like the world is against us and it’s our responsibility to carry it.

I don't know if this is how it's always been for other generations but I can't understand mine. We're so easy to agitate. So much that we invented a word for it: rage bait. So easy to react that we invented a word for that too: crash out.

Everyone has to be so defensive, as if someone is out to get us. As if we have a bounty on our heads. These are free men and women.

And it's simple, ironically: we've all learned the art of overcomplication. Everything has a conspiracy. Every action has a motive. Every word means something.

And yes, this may be true but we've made it our responsibility to decode everything.

God forbid someone says something to you that you don't understand or agree with. You’d spend the whole day thinking about it. You'd call your friends in the evening to tell them so they can analyze if there's a hidden message behind it. You'd wake up the next day to still think about it and not till you've spent 72 hours going over every angle of it, would you conclude it's nothing. Such a waste of time and energy.

We can't accept that things can just be as they are. That people can just say things. That people are just people. We can't.

And even though I don't think life is black or white, I still believe it's simple. You can live without attaching unnecessary meaning to things. You can let people be wrong about you without having to defend yourself. You can say no without explaining or feeling guilty. And you can do things just because you want to do them.

What isn't your fault shouldn't be something you agitate over. If you can do something about a situation, do it. And if you can't, then use your time for something more productive than worrying.

Not everything has to have a plan. Not everyone needs to understand you. You don't need to understand everyone. And not everything you see or hear from others has to mean something to you. You can just live your life like a bird.

It saves you so much time and effort. Instead of trying to understand everything and everyone, try to understand yourself.

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You have just one chance at this. One go at doing something with this gift. And people live like life’s some egg to be pampered. Fear.

When I used to play games, I know how I was when I was down to the last life. I didn't run with fear. I didn't attack thinking, what if I fail? There was none of that for me. I just thought, I only have one chance to make this work.

And sure that might have made me lose more games than I won. It may even be the reason I haven't played a game in years, but I always thought, what's the worst that can happen?

That's how I live my life.

What's the worst that can happen? Death? I'm not scared of that. If I leave now, I wouldn't be worried. I've lived a good life, I've left something with everyone I met. Either I inspired them, or I taught them something, or I just loved them. But I can't think of a time I left someone with something to regret meeting me. No. So what should I be scared of death for? My family is happy with me.

This is how I live. I make adequate use of my free will. That's what God gave me. I create things, I start projects, I walk up to people, I dream big dreams, I work towards them.

So I'm really not interested in hearing anything that doesn't align with what I want to do with my life. I've decided I'm not going to waste my youth doing a job I don't like or anything I don't find interesting. If I'm going to do anything, I might as well love it. I might as well be ready to die for it. It should be something I'd be happy if I fell down dead doing it.

And the way I live, I feel so at peace with it. It's like there's a future me smiling and clapping because I'm doing exactly what I should be doing. But that's only because I'm not afraid.

You can only take the right steps when you are not motivated by fear. But like I said earlier, a lot of people live this life forgetting there's only one of it. They live with fear. They follow every single rule society gives them, then they grow old with regrets because they are half-lived. Everything they ever did was what society assigned to them. There was nothing they started just because they wanted to see how it would go. They did everything only with the expectation that society would reward them for it or at least, be happy with them.

But who am I to say another man's living his life wrongly?

If you're happy just doing what everyone's doing, that's fine. If you're fine not giving yourself permission, cool. If you're okay with your whole life— what you can say, do or even post — controlled by another man, good for you.

However, for people like us, we want to see just how far we can go. We're eager to show God the strength of his creation. We want to make this world a little better by being here. That's why we are different.

We have to be. We can't be like you. You're too malleable to people. You allow life to happen to you anyhow it wants. You only react to things happening, you don't make them happen. You think growing up is forgetting your dreams.

We aren't too patient. We aren't always likable. We aren't always understanding. We aren't motivated by the need to make a living. We don't do things so this world will reward us. We don't expect acceptance. We live and do what we want. We don't care about fame, being liked or included.

Because we’ve realized none of these things matter, we just want to make God happy with his creation. We can’t do that living with fear.

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No, it doesn't work that way. Anything you focus on magnifies. And if you choose to focus on the complexities of life, not only will you be confused, you will be miserable.

A lot of our worries come from our inability to just accept that we don't know some things. And that some things are beyond our power.

But no, we want to understand the outcome of everything. How every conversation will turn out. What every relationship will lead to. How our future will be. What will happen, and what won't.

So we don't live in the present and we don't live in the future— not possible. We grab the past with one hand and try to negotiate the future with the other. But while we do that, time slips by us in the present.

It sounds so simple, but the honest truth is: you have to just trust. Whatever you trust, you have to hold it firmly.

Some people trust in themselves, some trust in a higher power, some trust their family, others trust money, and then there are those who just…float. The last set is the most miserable. Sure, what you trust in may fail but having no place of solace in this cold world is not promising too.

The most basic formula to life is that you won't know. You won't know everything. You won't know where you'll end up. You won't know who you'll end up with. And you won't know who you'll end up becoming.

And while you may have an inkling of the kind of person you want to be and the kind of place you want to end up in, I've always found it comforting that every action I took didn't necessarily take me to where I wanted to be.

But in hindsight now, it always took me somewhere better. Sure, I might be saying that because I didn't live the other options and because I've just learned to enjoy where I am. But by experience, and much more important, by instinct, something in me tells me it was supposed to happen the exact way it all happened.

Why?

Because I trust. I don't in the least, doubt what I'm becoming. I don't have any doubt that I will live the life I'm supposed to and be who I'm supposed to. I'm not scared of the future. I'm not pensive. And that probably is why everything's falling into place.

Because I trust. This is the second time I'm saying this.

There's an artful free spirit-ness that comes with just trusting and letting things work out. You do what you can do now, but still leave space for miracles to happen. For life to collide in your favour. You gather the right puzzles but allow the picture to take its shape in due course.

Everyday becomes a miracle when you live like that. You step into each day with the expectation of good things happening to you, no matter how small they seem. You open yourself up to all possibilities.

And before you realize it, it starts to happen. You meet people that make introductions that change your life. You stumble on ideas that improve your life. Random dots connect in a way you can't explain. A stranger becomes a friend. A slight inconvenience turns into a memorable experience. Everything just happens in your favour.

That's why trying to know and plan everything is just too much work. You can't plan life. The world is too big for you to carry.

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His text came in two days later. He said he had been looking all over the place for me. He had even gone to my former area to ask about me.

We spoke and I told him I have just been busy. I changed my contact, and I don't go to a lot of places anymore. Somewhere in the middle of texting, I got busy and didn't reply to his messages anymore.

Another of my friends, who's more like a colleague at work, and who I talk to like once a week told me I always time her. She said I'd tell her I'd call by a time and tell her when I'd leave. I didn't give an excuse. And even when I tried explaining, she said there was no need for that. But I did.

Time management was something I was forced to learn in medical school. There was a time for lectures, to talk to friends, to go on walks, or political meetings and to read. If one schedule entered into another's time, that meant my plans were scattered. And time management was the difference between graduating med school or not.

I've noticed this is a period of my life where I can't talk anymore. I just can't. I've tried it and it doesn't work. No matter how much I want to talk to you, anytime I jump on the call, I just keep quiet. And it's usually because I'm either thinking about work, or just trying to relax after a long day— I obviously wouldn't call in the afternoon.

And even though some people understand, some don't. I've spoken to people these days and they've all said, “You don't reply to messages". I always say, "I'll stay in touch” but the truth is, I can't. I don't have time to always stay in touch.

The only people I consistently call are my parents, and it usually doesn't last more than three minutes. Except of course, they're worried about something or my dad wants to be clear about something I'm doing. If I miss a day, then I call them the next.

I'm not bragging, honestly, I just can't talk. I'm nobody and that's precisely why I can't talk or text a lot. I have things to do. Lots of things.

As a matter of fact, I've noticed even posting on my status is another form of distraction. Every time I start posting consistently on my WhatsApp, it invites more texts or comments. It's like people want to talk to me more because they know I'm active.

And when I start talking a lot, it's a sign to me that I'm losing focus. Talking dilutes my focus. It distracts me from what I should be doing. Because to me, that's not what matters now.

That's why sometimes I see some texts and I don't reply because replying pales in significance to the work I'm doing. I don't want to talk, I want to build.

If I have a call now, it's work related. Either I'm talking about collaboration, work, meeting someone building a cool product or a prospective client.

So if you text me and I don't reply immediately or at all, it isn't personal. I just have things to do. And if I don't do them, I won't feel fulfilled. I won't feel alive. And to be fair, the only reason you think I'm someone worthy to talk to is because I'm doing something with my life. I can't always be available, because like Nehemiah said, “I'm doing a great work".

But this is the time for it. I have to do this now. Maybe someday, we'll have time to talk.

A lot of people still think they need alot of things to start. I have been there before. But the truth is, that's either your ego or just ignorance.

I do understand that some skills or adventure — I call them adventure because whatever you intend to start is an adventure — need some level of basic tool or experience. But most times, the basics aren't acquired by waiting, they're acquired by starting.

For example, if you want to write, the basics is reading. If you can read, then you can write. And if you can write the most basic sentence, then you are already a writer.

You don't need to watch “How to be a writer" YouTube videos, or ask writers how to be a writer. You just pick a pen and write. It's as simple as that.

Someone recently asked me how to build his Medium. I told him he could either purchase my book, or just publish here and engage with other writers. It really is as simple as that. There's no secret formula that we are hiding. Sure we might know how to collapse a year's experience into 6 or 3 months, but that underlying basic is that you just have to write and publish it.

And to be honest, this has, in a way, always been my secret power. I haven't always done it right. But I have always done it. And that's always the right thing.

I pick anything I am interested in and just start doing it. I come back to it again and again. And as time goes on, I meet more people who are either starting out in the same thing or ahead of me. I try to observe what they are doing differently, what I can copy and learn from them. Sometimes, I just ask them. And this always shortens my learning curve by half.

But the prerequisite to meeting the people who are already doing what you want to do is to start doing the thing. Just start. That is the only thing that will enable them either helping you or giving you a listening ear.

Because you cannot be in the same room as people you have no single interest with. It's not possible. If you are in church, it is because you are Christian, or you want to be. If you are in school, you are either a student, a teacher, or a student's parent, but you must have something that ties you to that school. Something must connect you to other people in the room you are. And that is why you must do the thing you want to, because the similarity you have with those ahead of you is doing the thing.

How do you start?

There is no perfect way to start anything. You can listen to everyone give your advices online. But if you never start any action, you will always be at ground zero.

And honestly, it's not that complicated. We have just learned the art of complicating things.

You want to learn something and you think you need a lot of courses, books, YouTube videos, or a community of a thousand people.

Those are great, important sometimes, but not always necessary.

Besides, you won't always have all of them instantly. And if you need all of those to start, even when you get them, you won't start.

Because it's not about what you have or don't have. It's about whether any reason is enough to stop you.

Pick that skill you want to learn, or that business you want to start. And start looking at yourself as someone who does it.

Treat yourself as someone already inside that niche even before people recognize you in it. Do not call yourself an “aspiring writer" or "aspiring marketer”, “aspiring entrepreneur" or “aspiring" anything. Give yourself the title and walk in it. A year from now, that's what everyone will call you.

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