It's ok to live the life they don't want to live

I'm 29. I'm between things (burnt out). I'm broke (just asked my dad for cash). I don't have a home base (flying back to New York right now to stay at my moms). I haven't been in a relationship in 5 years. I don't cook. I rarely gym. I've gained 20 lbs of fat in the last 2 years.

It's fried.

A few months ago, my best friend said to my face “I don't want to live life and end up like you.”

It stung for a couple days but I realized who I am today is a result of my specific values and circumstances.

I'm a 29 year old man that grew up closeted with my single homophobic mom; i ended up quitting quant trading to rap; grieved my 21 year old cousin's death; dropped everything to start a company to solve the paint point he had in life, before having to shut it down.

I'm a 29 year old man that has been through so many ups and downs with not much more than some news press to show for it.

So when my friend said he doesn't want to end up like me, I get it.

But I have a lot of empathy for the younger me, and I can stand by every action I took to get to where I am.

I grew up an insecure attention seeker with a lot of energy and ambition.

Because of what God gave me, I had this “I'll prove to the world” attitude that got me into quant trading from a tier 3 university. With the confidence I gained from that success, I got this “I'll show you” attitude, that made me want to break into mainstream rap to show other insecure kids that they can do big things too.

People say wow quant trading to rapping that's so random! But really the same qualities that led me to trading, led me to rapping.

Later I started a company distributing 10,000's music related videos on TikTok and Instagram everyday. It got me featured in NY Mag, Billboard, WaPo, among many other news outlets. But looking back the critical failure was trying to reach scale and make the company venture backed.

But this wasn't fueled by me trying to make money. I could've stayed a quant trader. I wanted to give distribution as a service to all the artists that may be in the same position my cousin was in when he passed.

I was upset at myself when I had to shut down the company but I empathize with the version of me that wanted to go VC scale.

Sure I don't have much to my name but I will do the things that people do not want to do because the struggle is for what I believe in.

The values that I've gained over time aren't the same as the values others have gained. I don't care about money, prestige, flexing, etc. i care about impact. I care about me, people like me, my family, my friends, that's it. I want to make a difference for them.