Farewell ✌️😢

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all enjoyed the holidays. I’ve got some big news…this will be the final issue of Steps Worth Taking. 

Being the final issue, it’s a special one. I’m taking you through the story of Steps Worth Taking including why it began, why it’s ending, the highs, the lows, and what comes next. I know it’s a long one, but I think it’s a great one.

I hope you enjoy!

Table of contents
📋 What’s on the agenda

1. How it started: The origins of Steps Worth Taking

2. How it materialized: A productive start

3. Why it’s ending: Where it all went wrong

4. Key Learnings: What I learned along the way

5. Steps Worth Taking in Review

   1. Favorite Issues

   2. Best Quotes

   3. Top Media Recommendations

6. What’s next: My next chapter

How it started
🪴 The origins of Steps Worth Taking

This summer I had a quarter life crisis. For 22 years my path was clear. Get good grades, go to a good college, get good internships, and then get a good job. Check, check, check, and check.

But after achieving all of these things, I found myself wondering what’s next. I started to think about my goals and what it would take to achieve them, and that’s when I realized I had been doing it all wrong. For 22 years, I followed social norms, but that only works if you want a normal life.

Knowing that my goals are anything but normal, I was faced with the realization that I would have to decide what’s next for me without societal norms to fall back on. The ambiguity of being able to do anything is both exciting and scary. It means that limitless success and limitless failure is at your fingertips. String together a few good choices and everything works out. A few bad ones and your life may come crashing down.

Safe to say, I didn’t handle this ambiguity well at first. For three nights I would try to sleep, only for hours to pass staring at the ceiling, wondering what I would do next. Would the next four years of my life be the same as the previous four? Would I make the same mistakes I made in college? Would I optimize for the wrong outcomes out of fear of scrutiny or failure?

And from those three sleepless nights, Steps Worth Taking was born. It was born out of the idea that if I was having such a hard time determining what was next for me, others might be too.

I wanted to help others question what took me too long to question. To ask themselves what truly matters, what they are really working towards. I hoped that posing these questions to others would help me find answers to them myself. And in the end, I wanted to inspire more people to live lives of their own design, as opposed to lives of circumstance.

How it materialized
📈 A productive start

The original goal of Steps Worth Taking is well reflected in Jim Kwik’s quote:

In the beginning, Steps Worth Taking provided actionable advice on how to identify and live out your dreams.

And we learned some great stuff…

1. Where you spend your time compounds into who you become

2. Attack uncertainty with curiosity

3. Life is complicated, don’t take everything on at once

4. Material goals are surface-level manifestations of our deeper desires

5. Regret lives in the past. Anxiety the future. Life happens in the present

6. The things we put off are what we need to do most

and much more…

With each passing issue, I discovered more about myself, my dreams, and the steps necessary to accomplish them.

At some point along the way, my path became clear again. I knew the next steps I needed to take. But I didn’t take them…

Why it’s ending
🔴 Where it all went wrong

My end goal was always to start a business. I intended on expanding Steps Worth Taking into a newsletter business, but a of couple months in I determined that it didn’t align with the type of business I wanted to start.

That left with me two options:

1. Morph Steps Worth Taking into the business I needed it to be

2. Stop writing Steps Worth Taking and start something new

At the end of August, I decided on option one. So I started ideating, and then did that for months…

Planning was really procrastinating. I should have listened to my own advice:

Deep down, I knew that the only way forward was option two: stop writing Steps Worth Taking and start the business I really wanted to start. But I let fear get in the way. Fear of failure. Fear of judgement. Fear of doing what I’ve never done before.

Steps Worth Taking became an excuse to not take the steps worth taking. But I can’t inspire others to go after their dreams while not going after my own.

And unfortunately at this stage in life, I don’t have time to write this newsletter at a high quality while also going after what I want.

So for know, I’m hanging up Steps Worth Taking. I’m not definitively closing the door on it forever, but I need to focus on achieving my dreams, and I hope in the process I will continue to inspire others to go after their own.

Key Learnings
💡 What I learned along the way

We consume much more than we create

Every day we are constantly consuming. Texts, emails, Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Netflix…the list goes on. Humans were meant to create—relationships, communities, companies. Start creating your life instead of consuming other people’s.

Consistency alone doesn’t lead to success, it’s consistent prioritization of what matters most

I consistently wrote this newsletter for six months, but I’d say the greatest successes occurred in months one and two. At some point you need to reassess your consistent actions and make sure they align with your end goal.

Life is less about what you achieve and more about who you achieve it with.

I want to build a successful business, but more importantly I want to build a business side by side with people that I care about that makes the world a better place.

We are often the hardest on ourselves

I highlighted a lot of people in the Step Spotlight, and when I look at what they achieved over the past six months I see how far they’ve come. When I look at myself, I see how far I have to go. It’s important to appreciate what you have accomplished in life.

Life is made up of moments, cherish them

The moments that I remember most from the last four years are not the big accomplishments, it’s the little moments—2am talks with my roommate, workouts in the gym with friends, Friday night dinners on Pearl Street…

Working towards large goals is great and all, but life is about enjoying the little moments, day by day, as we work towards those goals. Because if you don’t enjoy the journey, what makes you think you’ll enjoy the destination.

SWT in Review
⭐️ Favorite Issues

Your favorite issues:

• You’re living in the good old days

• Life happens in days, don’t let them blur together

• What a golf outing taught me about confidence

My favorite issue to write:

• The reason you don’t want a beach house

SWT in Review
📣 Best Quotes

From others:

“Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it.” — Jim Rohn

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.” — Bill Gates

“Enjoy the little things in life because one day you’ll look back and realize they were the big things.” — Kurt Vonnegut

“Every man has two lives, and the second starts when he realizes he has just one.” — Confucius

“Ambition without action becomes anxiety.”

From me:

“What feels ordinary today may be what you miss most tomorrow.” — me

“The universe doesn’t give you bad days, it just gives you days. Your attitude determines whether or not they’re good.” — me

SWT in Review
📚 Top Media Recommendations

• Secrets of Life — Steve Jobs

• EMMA WATSON EXCLUSIVE: The TRUTH I Have Never Shared Before.. — Jay Shetty

• Start With Why — Simon Sinek

• Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill

• How To Reprogram Your Dopamine To Crave Hard Work — Rian Doris

What’s next
🎬 My next chapter

It’s time for me to take everything I’ve learned about myself, business, and life, and put it into action.

So what’s coming:

1. a LOT of content: no one will know about what you are working on unless you talk about it. The easiest way to grow is to put yourself out there more. The internet has made this easier than ever, yet most of us spend most of our time consuming from the internet instead of creating on it. I am going to be doing a lot more creating

2. a reading app: for the last six months, I’ve been working with one of my best friends on a social reading app that will help you read more and build better reading habits. Our goal is to help the world read a billion books. If you want to try the beta app before we release it to the general public, reply to this email and let me know.

3. much much more that I can’t dive into quite yet 😉

I know what I am capable of. My next chapter has been years in the making. Now I just need to go out and write it.

Thank you
😊 You all are what made it great

Before I go, I want to thank you all. Your readership and support has meant the world to me throughout this journey. I’m honored to have written for you, and hope you continue to follow along if you’re interested.

You can keep up with what I’m doing by following me on my new instagram account or LinkedIn.

But for now, that’s all folks.