“If you replayed your life and took the shortest path to where you are today, you’d see what an absurd amount of time was spent on the wrong things.”
Julian Shapiro
I ran the replay on my own life and wrote down what I’d tell a younger version of me.
Learn to code by building whole apps. Years earlier. I studied programming from books for years. Books taught me vocabulary: variables and Java objects. Whole-app tutorials taught me to build: follow along, hit errors, search YouTube, make the app run.
Building real things was the only way I learned.
AI writes code now and the advice stands. Knowing how to code shaped how I think and it was my route to financial security.
Believe companies hire off a portfolio. I went from junior to senior in under two years on skills I taught myself. The work is the credential.
Build something real and ship it. Create proof and lead with it.
They can’t deny a portfolio.
Start courage challenges early. I run a daily courage challenge: one act a day that takes nerve.
- The hard conversation I’ve been ducking
- The sales ask
- The pitch a group might turn down
- The call I keep dodging
Anaïs Nin wrote that life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. Courage is also the root the other things on this list draw from.
Doing these on purpose each day would have gotten me here years sooner.
Treat meditation religiously. I broke my practice many times over fifteen years and each break started the same way: the practice was working, so I poked at it. A shorter sit. A more efficient substitute.
Anxiety crept back a week or two later, slow enough that I blamed something else.
Religious means hands off.
Once a practice proves itself, stop touching it.
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Replay your life. Take the shortest path to where you are today. What do you see?
