The more I tried to be liked by everyone, the more I lost the ability to be genuine with anyone.
You cannot be genuinely known and simultaneously keep yourself shapeless to avoid any friction. Choose to be known. It is the only version of belongi…
Being liked by everyone requires becoming nothing distinct. Real connection requires being some…
I put a significant amount of money into something I did not fully understand because I was afraid of missing out. The market obliged my ignorance.
The first rule of investing is understanding what you own. The second rule is not forgetting the first one when everyone around you seems to be getti…
Never invest significant money in something you cannot explain clearly. Confidence borrowed fro…
I was not lying in bed unable to move. I was working seventy hours a week to avoid feeling anything. Both are depression.
If you are filling every moment because the empty ones feel unbearable, that gap is worth looking into. Productivity is not always a sign that things…
Depression does not always look like collapse. Sometimes it looks like relentless activity - an…
In every relationship I had been in, I was the one who cared more. Understanding why that was changed everything.
The relationships that feel most electric are not always the ones that are best for you. Sometimes intensity is just the sensation of an old wound be…
Examine the pattern before you examine the person. If the dynamic repeats across relationships,…
I had spent years believing I was eating well. A blood test and an honest dietitian told a different story.
Healthy eating habits built on incomplete information are still incomplete. Get the blood work done. It is the most honest feedback your body can giv…
What you believe about your health and what is actually happening in your body are sometimes di…
I thought meditation was for people who had too much time. Then I ran out of other tools and tried it out of desperation.
Remain genuinely open to changing your mind about things you have categorised without fully testing. Your younger certainties deserve examination.
The tools you are most certain will not work for you are sometimes worth trying - particularly …
From primary school to postgrad, my grades told me who I was. The day that system stopped working was the most disorienting of my life.
Academic excellence is a capability, not an identity. The earlier you learn to separate the two, the more stable your sense of self will be when the …
Your value is not a grade and no institution can issue it. Build an internal measure of worth t…
I did not love him the way I should have. But the thought of rebuilding everything from scratch was more frightening than staying.
The fear of starting over is not a reason to stay. It is a feeling that does not accurately represent how capable you are of beginning again.
"Staying in the wrong relationship to avoid the difficulty of leaving trades a temporary discom…
When I left South Africa, I discovered very quickly which friendships had been built on proximity and which had been built on something real.
When your geography changes, your friendship group will reveal itself. The ones who remain are the ones who were always real.
Distance is the most honest test a friendship can take. It removes everything except the will t…
I spent two years keeping my boss happy. I should have spent them developing myself.
Manage upward well - but never at the expense of managing your own development. Those are different jobs and both require deliberate attention.
Your manager's approval is necessary but not sufficient for your growth. You are responsible fo…
I had the spreadsheet, the market research, and the investor interest. What I did not have was a real product that real people wanted to use.
Customer discovery tells you what problems exist. Only sales cycles tell you which ones people will actually pay to fix. Run them earlier than you th…
A real problem is not enough. The people with the problem must want to solve it badly enough to…
I spent years criticising how my mother handled things - until I caught myself doing exactly the same things in exactly the same ways.
You cannot fully know your parents as people until you find the same patterns in yourself. When you do, let it be the beginning of forgiveness.
"We spend years escaping our parents only to find them living in our own habits. The discovery …