Don't Let Life Beat The Fierceness Outta Lie

I can only call what I've built my magnum opus.

Not because I know it will be the greatest thing I will ever build.

How the fuck would I know that?

Tomorrow isn't promised to me.

I can only account for the man standing here now, for the work sitting in front of him now, for the things his hands have managed to create up until this exact point.

And right now, that thing is WeSelling.

My best work yet.

So I treat it like one.

Every nerve.

Every brain cell.

Every sinew.

Every ounce of ingenuity I can squeeze out of myself goes into it.

Because if I knew with certainty that I had another fifty years, perhaps I'd comfortably say:

This isn't my magnum opus. I'll make something better someday.

But who promised me someday?

Nobody.

That's the fucking thing about being alive.

Life Is Malleable

Life will punch you squarely in the mouth.

And then, almost disrespectfully, it might do it again.

You will have your ventures.

Your travails.

Your failures.

Things you were certain would work won't work.

Things you poured yourself into will sit there and stare back at you without giving you the result you expected.

You'll lose money.

You'll lose opportunities.

You'll miscalculate.

You'll overthink.

You'll over-engineer.

You'll spend too long perfecting something that probably needed to meet another human being three fucking weeks ago.

You'll get comfortable shipping.

Shipping.

Shipping.

Building.

Polishing.

Fixing.

Another feature.

Another improvement.

Another clever abstraction.

And building is good.

God knows I love to build.

But eventually you have to ask yourself:

Am I still building—or am I hiding inside building?

Because you can perfect something forever when the terrifying next step is simply walking outside and saying:

I built this.

Would this help your business?

That's a different kind of engineering.

And maybe that's where I am now.

I've built.

Now I have to go outside.

I have to meet the businesses.

One by one if that's what it takes.

Talk to people.

Listen.

Pitch.

Get rejected.

Explain it better.

Come back.

Change something.

Go again.

Because a product sitting beautifully on a server isn't the finished product.

The fucking thing has to meet the world.

All About My Business

I've always wanted to put myself out there.

Write.

Post.

Talk.

Meet people.

Be vocal.

But there was always this strange question sitting underneath it:

About what?

What am I supposed to talk about?

Post for the sake of posting?

Manufacture opinions because the algorithm demands another talking head?

Nah.

These days, I have my answer.

I'm all about my business.

And I mean that almost literally.

I'm all about what I'm building.

The problems I'm trying to solve.

The businesses I'm trying to help.

The things I'm learning.

The things that aren't working.

The things that finally fucking work.

The code.

The product.

The mistakes.

The ideas.

The venture.

That's reason enough to speak.

Building something is reason enough to walk up to somebody and start a conversation.

"I built this."

There's your opener.

You're getting your hands dirty.

You're attempting to pull something that previously existed only inside your skull into the physical world.

Yesterday there was nothing.

Then there was an idea.

Then some code.

Then a product.

Then, hopefully, somebody somewhere uses the thing and their life becomes slightly easier because you existed.

There's something almost divine about creation in that sense.

Not that you're God.

But you participate in that ancient act:

There was nothing here. Now there is something.

That's not mere.

So why the fuck would I be squeamish about talking about it?

I'll be ardent about my business.

I'll be vocal about it.

I'll speak about it energetically.

I'll tell people what I built.

I'll tell people why I built it.

I'll tell businesses what I think it can do for them.

I'll listen when they tell me I'm wrong.

I'll learn when they tell me what they actually need.

I'll improve the thing.

And I'll come back again.

Life Is Beating on You. Beat Back.

Because life is malleable.

Not infinitely malleable.

I'm not selling myself that bullshit.

There are cards you're dealt that you never asked for.

There are things you cannot negotiate with.

There are losses that don't care how optimistic you are.

But there is still something in front of you that can be shaped.

So beat it.

Beat life into a shape you love.

Hammer that motherfucker.

Again.

Again.

Again.

Until something pleasant begins to emerge.

Because while you're trying to shape life, understand something:

life is shaping you too.

That's the fight.

Life is beating on you.

You better be beating on life.

And if you're not careful, life can beat something particularly dangerous out of a man.

His fierceness.

Don't Let Life Beat the Fierceness Outta You

It rarely happens all at once.

That's what makes it dangerous.

A confident man gets rejected.

Then rejected again.

Then embarrassed.

Then disappointed.

Then he starts thinking twice before speaking.

A courageous man gets punished enough times and starts calling his fear wisdom.

A dreamer fails enough times and starts calling surrender being realistic.

A builder ships things nobody uses and eventually becomes afraid to show anybody the next thing.

Little by little.

Punch by punch.

Life beats the fierceness outta him.

Until the man who once tried and failed becomes something worse:

the man who doesn't try.

Fuck that.

I don't want to lose everything and then become confident because suddenly there's nothing left to lose.

What use is courage then?

When the business dies, then I become bold enough to sell?

When the opportunity disappears, then I know what I should've said?

When the door closes, then I discover I had the courage to knock?

Nah.

I need that motherfucker now.

While there's something worth fighting for.

While there's something worth selling.

While there's something worth building.

While there's still something on the table.

Fake the Confidence If You Have To

And if you don't have the confidence yet?

Fuck it.

Borrow some.

Feign it.

People shit on fake it till you make it, but sometimes pretending is practice.

I'd rather know deep down that I'm scared and walk into the room feigning confidence than let fear make every decision for me.

Stand straight.

Speak.

Look people in the eye.

Tell them what you built.

Put your shit on the table.

Because maybe confidence isn't something you wait to receive.

Maybe confidence is something you accumulate evidence for.

You act confidently.

Somebody listens.

You do it again.

Somebody takes you seriously.

Again.

You survive rejection.

Again.

You close something.

And somewhere along the way you realize:

Wait.

Maybe I can actually fucking do this.

The confidence you were pretending to possess starts collecting evidence for its own existence.

Eventually the costume fits.

Remember When We Couldn't Fucking Code?

Think about programming.

None of us came out of the womb knowing this shit.

Syntax error.

Reference error.

Type error.

Logical error.

And Christ, the logical errors.

Everything compiles.

Everything runs.

Nothing crashes.

And the bastard is still wrong.

Did we interpret every error as a divine message that we weren't destined to become programmers?

Of course not.

We debugged it.

We read documentation.

We broke something else.

We fixed that.

We introduced three bugs while fixing one.

We spent six hours hunting some catastrophic problem that turned out to be one stupid line.

And somehow—

we became programmers.

Before we became programmers, we first decided:

I'm going to become a programmer.

The decision preceded the competence.

Then came the errors.

Then adaptation.

Then more errors.

Then competence.

So why do we treat life differently?

Your business doesn't sell?

Debug that shit.

Your pitch doesn't land?

Debug it.

Nobody signs up?

Debug it.

People don't understand the product?

Debug it.

Your pricing is wrong?

Debug it.

Your strategy was stupid?

Good.

Now you know.

Maybe the product isn't good enough.

Maybe nobody knows it exists.

Maybe you're talking to the wrong people.

Maybe you've spent too much time perfecting and not enough time selling.

Maybe you genuinely weren't good enough.

Fine.

Improve.

Compile again.

Run the motherfucker again.

Nobody Knows What the Fuck They're Doing

We make five-year plans.

Start businesses.

Fall in love.

Have children.

Choose careers.

Make investments.

Move cities.

Build products.

And somewhere inside all this uncertainty, we behave as though somebody gave us the fucking script.

Nobody did.

You don't know your destiny.

Neither do I.

You don't know whether the next phone call carries good news or bad news.

You don't know whether what you're building right now becomes the thing that changes your life or another beautiful failure you'll someday laugh about.

You don't know whether you're three years away from everything you've been fighting for—

or three conversations away.

That's important.

Because we know one thing with considerably more certainty.

We die.

The Grim Reaper doesn't particularly give a fuck about your five-year plan.

One day he bids you welcome.

That's the guarantee.

Everything between this moment and that one?

Uncertainty.

And everybody hears uncertainty and asks:

What if it gets worse?

Motherfucker—

what if it gets better?

Both possibilities live inside the same unknown.

Tomorrow could punch me squarely in the mouth.

Tomorrow could also contain the conversation that changes the trajectory of everything I've built.

I don't know.

Neither do you.

That's the beauty of it.

It Can Get Worse

And let's not romanticize this shit.

It can get worse.

I hate that empty motivational line:

"Don't worry. It can't get any worse."

Oh yes, the fuck it can.

You can reach rock bottom and hear somebody knocking from underneath.

So when you notice life beating the fierceness outta you, treat it like a warning light on the dashboard.

When you're becoming unusually timid.

When you're constantly second-guessing yourself.

When an opportunity appears and your first instinct is retreat.

When you've stopped asking.

Stopped publishing.

Stopped pitching.

Stopped selling.

Stopped trying.

When you've become very good at explaining why now isn't the right time.

Pay attention.

Especially when fear begins disguising itself as maturity.

Fight back.

Not stupidly.

Not recklessly.

Intelligently.

With every nerve.

Every sinew.

Every fucking brain cell you've got.

Every lesson failure was rude enough to teach you.

Every connection.

Every resource.

Every opportunity.

Every ounce of stubbornness.

If the wall won't move, find a door.

No door?

Find a window.

No window?

Maybe you've been staring at the wrong fucking building.

Adapt.

Adaptation isn't surrender.

You can change the entire strategy without changing the destination.

Put the Fucking Venture Out There

This one is for me as much as anybody reading it.

Put the venture out there.

Not just on the internet.

Out there.

Talk to people.

Build it.

Write it.

Publish it.

Pitch it.

Send the email.

Walk into the business.

Shake the hand.

Make the call.

Apply.

Launch.

Ask.

Let people see you trying.

Let them see you fail too.

You made something.

That's already a reason to speak.

That's already a conversation starter.

You don't need to wait until you're successful enough to talk about the journey.

The fucking journey is happening now.

Maybe they love what you made.

Maybe they don't understand it.

Maybe they ignore you.

Maybe they laugh.

Maybe they tell you exactly why it sucks.

Maybe somebody pays you.

Maybe one conversation exposes a problem you've been solving incorrectly for six months.

Maybe it changes your life.

You don't know until the thing leaves your hands and encounters another human being.

You build.

The world responds.

You listen.

You adapt.

You build again.

That's the game.

Rage

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I've always loved those words.

But rage doesn't have to mean anger.

Sometimes rage is simply refusal.

Refusal to become passive.

Refusal to let disappointment domesticate you.

Refusal to let embarrassment make you invisible.

Refusal to become squeamish about the very thing you've spent your life force creating.

Refusal to wait until you've lost everything before becoming the person you needed when there was still something to save.

Life can beat wisdom into me.

Good.

Life can beat patience into me.

Fine.

Life can beat humility into me.

God knows, let it.

But don't let life beat the fucking fierceness outta me.

And if I notice it happening?

That's not my cue to surrender.

That's the warning.

Fight back.

Charge

There's a scene from Game of Thrones I keep coming back to.

Jon Snow.

Alone.

Sword in hand.

Men on horses charging straight toward him.

That's life sometimes.

The horses are already fucking coming.

You don't get to negotiate with them.

The failure already happened.

The money is already gone.

The rejection already arrived.

The plan already collapsed.

And there you stand.

Now what?

You can reverse?

There is no reverse.

So you draw the sword.

Not because you're guaranteed to win.

That's never been the fucking point.

You draw it because you're still here.

You use every brain cell you've got.

You adapt.

You improvise.

You beat at life while life beats at you.

You hammer that malleable motherfucker into whatever shape your hands can manage.

And when it punches you squarely in the mouth—

spit the blood.

Adjust your stance.

Raise your fucking sword.

And charge.

Maybe WeSelling is my magnum opus.

Maybe it ain't.

Maybe the greatest thing I'll ever build, write, become, or experience is still somewhere ahead of me.

I hope it is.

But I'm not promised the privilege of finding out.

So the best thing I've built yet gets the best of me now.

Every nerve.

Every sinew.

Every brain cell.

Every conversation I was too timid to start.

Every room I was afraid to walk into.

Every ounce of fierceness life hasn't managed to beat outta me.

Because the light hasn't died yet.

The program is still running.

The story is still being written.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow I go outside.

The horses are coming.

No reverse.

Charge.

Rage, rage.