107 · One W

Jamie, you only need one W. One. And that one W will take forever — but when it comes, success, light, abundance, everything will come toppling over like it was hiding behind a curtain the whole time. But you have to truly, authentically, wholeheartedly believe — in yourself and in Christ. The domino effect in success is real. You need only one win to kill this endless chain of failure after failure after failure. One W to tell yourself the dreams you envision are actually possible.

I just need one win. One where I put everything on the line, sacrificed immensely, worked my ass off, prayed to God for it, failed countless times pursuing it — and got it. Just one. Then I don't need money or anything else. That one W is worth the world.

Getting the first W is the hardest. You getting that first win after years and years of grind — that's the painful part. You work your ass off with no idea what you're doing, and then one day it clicks. Getting to the first win is far harder than scaling ever will be.

Rules of life are simple: do more, fail more, win more. Don't overcomplicate it. The goal is not to avoid failure — the goal is to front-load and compress as much failure as possible into the early phases, because failures are the stepping stones of success. You are a hundred rejections away from the life you want.

You don't need to be a genius. You don't need anything, quite frankly. You just need to be the one psychopath who does not stop — who keeps putting one foot in front of the other, who refuses to quit and keeps showing up after a billion failures. You don't have to win every time. You don't have to feel strong every time. You don't even have to feel ready or driven. You just have to be that one crazy person who keeps showing up.

Doubts are common manifestations of the human mind. The greats you look up to had them almost daily, chronically — LeBron, Napoleon, Alexander — the manifestation of "I don't know if I can pull this off." They chose to overcome it. That's where the glory comes from.

The power of expectations is real, and it is far harder when you've spent years telling yourself something is impossible. So tell yourself the truth instead: it is possible. You can move mountains, Jamie. Yes — it is possible. Keep telling yourself the truth until the truth feels normal.

At some point the numbers on paper become almost irrelevant — distractions from what actually decides things. Emotional sentiment, momentum, faith, belief: these matter more than the quality of the idea or the objective state of the moment. Belief. Be-live. Believe in yourself — that comes before success, not after it.

The movie Whiplash was being mild. The reality of getting to the top is disgusting and ugly: you fall flat, you feel like you have every diagnosis in the book, you're enraged that your existence is staked on this, crying and screaming inside while pretending to be okay outside, on your knees with a rosary clenched until your palms sweat. Why? Why can't it just be fun? — And sometimes it is. That's the maddening, beautiful part. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

How many international students older than 21, who don't speak English as a first language, still hold the faith to apply to Cambridge and Oxford? How many people your age have anything near your work ethic? Take some flowers, G. You're a fucking legend. And there is something you genuinely need to hear: you got it wrong about needing visceral mood swings daily to be legendary. It's the complete opposite. You can — and should — try to be at peace. Stop echoing pejoratives inside yourself. You have no right to talk to the soul God gave you like that.