Rewind to summer of 2021. The pandemic shifted my worldview. So did my 30th birthday and some career turbulence. I had jumped from one career ladder to another at 27, and was considering doing it again at 30. I wanted a ladder I could stay on long enough to reap the long term benefits of compounding growth. However, I had serious anxiety about starting over again.

Somewhere in the midst of that, I heard a story about a 50 year old woman who had always wanted to be a vet. She didn't even have a college degree. Her mindset was that the next eight years were going to pass no matter what. She could be a vet in eight years, or not. She went to undergrad, was accepted to veterinary school, and became a vet at 58 years old.

Around the same time I read a quote from one of my idols, Naval Ravikant. "Reading science, math, and philosophy one hour per day will likely put you at the upper echelon of human success within seven years."

The vet story calmed my anxiety about starting over. The Naval quote gave me a timeline. I made a mental note to evaluate the state of my life in 2028. I was ready to take the long route.

Although I was working standard hours during that time, my work weighed heavily on my mind constantly. I carried a monthly quota that felt constantly out of reach. If I failed to hit, I took it personally. I didn't know at the time my failure is baked into the business plan. How shitty is that feeling? I'm expected to fail, but that's not what I expect of myself. I was anxious and worried all the time. I didn't have a strong grasp of the things I could control and the things I couldn't. I knew I needed another career change.

I started exploring different career paths, trying to understand what different people actually did day to day. I wanted to work on hard, technical problems. A career that capitalized on my natural technical ability and problem solving skills. I settled on software engineering.

The next steps weren't steps, it was one huge leap of faith. I quit my job, enrolled in a coding bootcamp, and started learning to code. Four months in the bootcamp, three months of job searching after that. Seven total months of unemployment and faith that I'd find a way to make a living. I got a job offer on the last day of my honeymoon in April 2022. It felt serendipitous.

After a couple years of programming, I started interviewing for other software engineering roles. I wanted upward career trajectory. My mental model for how that works is find a new job with more responsibility and more pay. Move on up the ladder. I realized it's the same game over and over. Find a new job with higher pay, outgrow that job, find a new one, repeat. Sure, there's growth, but I knew I'd get bored of the cycle. It took many messages from the universe, mostly rejections, to realize there was another path. Being a passenger in Carla's entrepreneurial journey highlighted what a true growth path looks like. She knew what she wanted and in the beginning, had almost no idea how to get there. The reward she felt from solving this impossible problem is what I wanted for myself.

Carla had the dream of Studio CM for a long time before launching, nearly a decade. I had no such dream. But I did enjoy building software.

Building software is a delight, especially in the age of AI. It's a genuine creative outlet but after a dozen or so apps I noticed it doesn't pay the bills. But it does! I thought. Plenty of other people do it. It sounds obvious when I write it out, but I was missing the holistic picture of entrepreneurship. You don't just build a product. You have to put it in front of customers, spread the word, charge money for it. I was missing every part except the building. So I set out to learn the rest. Build a thing, ship a thing, launch a thing, market it, find customers, collect feedback, iterate, grow. That's the whole purpose of 1,000 Spanish Words.

This week, I launched it. Launching is a whole new exercise for me. It's a vulnerable feeling, especially as a beginner. I started frequenting subreddits where entrepreneurs share their stories, where developers share their ideas and lessons, and where marketers talk about their experiments. I was the newbie in every space and felt like an imposter. Product Hunt for example is a place where giant companies like Google and Anthropic, as well as startups and well known indie developers launch their products. I've now entered the chat, shaking in my boots, feeling like I don't belong, or at least like a total noob. Fortunately I'm aware of the spotlight effect, so it was easy to get over myself and just do the thing. The internet is a big place. Some people are watching, but not many. I'm here to learn so I can take that step up to the next rung on the ladder.

Before launching this app, I had no idea what that entailed. Now I do. I wrote a ton of posts. I shared in a ton of places. I'm starting to experience what SEO, App Store Optimization, and paid advertising mean in practice. I'm developing earned knowledge that I can use in rounds 2, 3, 4, and beyond. Next up: learning advertising.

If I can make $20 with zero knowledge, or at least the little knowledge I have today, it excites me to think what I can do with 6 more months of knowledge. What about 2 more years? What will I be capable of when I get to that 7 year mark? Growth isn't upward every day, but it is over time. I know the lessons will change and I'll need to learn new things to get to $100. New things yet again to get to $1,000. And new things all along the way to making a living and beyond. That's exciting as hell. I can't get to the tenth step without taking the first and second. Although I've taken many, these recent ones feel special. I've committed to the long haul, and I'm super excited to have finally started on the path.

In 2028, I'll look back at where I was when I first heard the vet story and read that Naval quote. In 2032, I'll look back at where I was when I started pursuing entrepreneurship. I hesitate to put myself there in a concrete way, that's a potential way to let myself down. My dream is to continually evolve towards sovereignty. To do creative work that serves people, wholly on my own terms without financial strain. As long as I've continued to move in that direction, I'll be glad with my progress. Looking back down at where I've been excites me about the unknown that lies ahead.

For now, I'll show up daily and perform a few behaviors. I read, I write, I code, I build. These daily behaviors create artifacts like blogs, apps, websites, and distribution channels. Those artifacts will help accomplish goals like making $100 online. When enough of these goals stack up, my vision will continue to actualize. The next seven years are going to pass no matter what. I might as well move further along my path as they do.