Stop pretending you don’t care

We shrink our dreams in public, as if protecting them from the harsh light of scrutiny. But I've come to believe we're not really protecting our dreams from others' judgment. We're protecting ourselves from the vulnerability of wanting something we might not get.

If you're in that invisible building phase right now—working a job that feels like a stepping stone, living in a place you've outgrown, developing skills in private—know this: You're not behind. You're in training.

The meaningful middle is where everything that matters actually happens.

This journey from naming what you want to achieving it isn't accidental. It follows a path that, in many ways, mirrors training for a marathon. And just like with marathon training, each phase requires different skills, different mindsets, and different kinds of courage.

We all love the training montage in movies—those brisk two-minute sequences where the protagonist transforms from novice to expert while upbeat music plays. One minute they're struggling to do a single push-up; the next, they're ready for the championship fight.

Real life doesn't work like that. The actual training—the part where you build the found... See more