The Formula
It isn't pretty. It's the only one we have.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized there are many things I’m unsure of. But the things that I’m sure of, I’m sure of.
The formula for a good life is one of those things.
Here it is. The first and most crucial step is to get good at something. Now, because you’re good, you can provide value. Because you provide value, people will pay you for it. Simple.
Now rewind. Before the most crucial step, it’s important to ask ourselves this.
How do you actually get good at something?
Well, either you were born with the talent. Or you weren’t. If you were, skip the rest of this, you lucky bastard. But if you weren’t, like the rest of us, you had to put in the time. Thousands of hours. Tens of thousands.
And how do you ensure you will put time into something?
Well, that means you just need to pick something you enjoy.
That’s it. That’s the whole formula.
Enjoyment → time → skill → value → enrichment.
In that order. No skipping.
I think about how beautiful this is a lot.
The world is actually set up so that if you find the thing you love, and you stick with it long enough to get good, it pays you back.
Imagine if it was the other way around. Imagine if the formula for a good life was built out of hate. Or cruelty. Or chasing a life you don’t actually want.
It isn’t.
The universe, in whatever way the universe works, is on our side. It’s conspiring with us, not against us. The reward for becoming yourself is a life you actually want.
You just have to stay in the game long enough to collect it.
I started being an entrepreneur at 21.
It took me 12 years to reach the intersection of stability and success. Twelve years.
I mean, I was making money the whole time. I landed my first wedding clients. I moved out downtown. On paper, I was fine.
However, the image of my bank account told a specific story. A story you might find frightening.
You see, from the ages of 22 to around 31, I had about a month of runway of money at any given time. Any time the number got above $5,000, if I even had that much, I spent it. Workshops. Flights to LA. Dinners with people smarter than me. New gear. New tools. New clothes. Paying off credit card debt. Things that pushed me towards the image of the man I had in my mind.
I wasn’t being irresponsible. I was doing the formula. I was playing multiple games. Skill set acquisition. Social skills development. Appearance development. Mental fortitude development.
Enjoyment → time → skill → value → enrichment.
I was deep in the time phase. The phase where you put every dollar back into becoming someone. The phase nobody takes photos of.
Then COVID hit.
The music industry I was managing artists in shut down. The weddings I was photographing stopped. That one month of runway evaporated. Toronto’s lockdown was the longest of any city in the world. It broke me in ways I’m still discovering.
I applied for CERB. The Canadian government sent me $2,000 a month. It wasn’t enough.
And then I texted my mom.
I didn’t call her. I couldn’t. I texted her and asked if I could borrow $5,000.
I was 30 years old.
She wrote back almost immediately. Two words.
How much?
I read them and sat with them for a while.
I’ll never know how she meant it. Maybe it was I’m here, tell me what you need. Maybe it was how much do I have to give you this time? The words can’t tell you which one. Only the tone does, and the tone of a text is whatever your guilt is.
My heart read it as the second one.
My mom had cleaned toilets for three dollars an hour in a new country so her son could have a better life. And her son was texting her at 30 asking to borrow money.
Humiliating.
It was the lowest point of those 12 years.
It was also the moment the formula looked most wrong, most likely to fail.
It wasn’t.
The formula works on a delay. It hurts hardest before you reach the cycle of accelerated returns. The years of unseen work feel thankless. You start doubting whether any of it is compounding. And then at some point the curve bends. The skills you built quietly start producing value loudly. The reps you did in the dark start showing up in the light.
The trick is you have to still be there when the curve bends.
Most people aren’t. Most people quit on day 3. Month 7. Year 2. They look at the bank account, they feel how far their dreams are, see no one around them clapping, and decide the formula is broken.
The formula isn’t broken. They’re still in the time phase.
Then they leave the phase, and never find out how good things start to get.
I used to coach myself through those years with a story.
If I could spend four years at the University of Waterloo for a degree I didn’t really want, tens of thousands of dollars on tuition, housing, textbooks, food, for a piece of paper that didn’t guarantee me a single thing, then why couldn’t I spend four years on something I actually chose.
Everyone around me accepted the first one as normal. Four years. Tens of thousands. No guaranteed outcome. For a degree. And then after this. A chance to begin, just begin, climbing up a company ladder. How much time was that going to take?
Whenever things started to feel long and unbearable, I looked around at the world. At reality. Artists, businessmen, athletes, people I admired. Stories I admired. The formula works. Stay in the game. Keep putting in the time.
It got me through.
Here’s the part I didn’t expect.
I came out the other side of those 12 years at 33. Stability, finally. Success I can feel, not just point at on paper.
But right now, at 36, I have completely started over. Again.
Seven months ago, I started building a personal brand. A YouTube channel. This Substack. I have 363 YouTube subscribers. 35 Substack followers.
I’ve spent over $50,000 on this endeavour.
Video camera. Lenses. My videographer. Flights. Hotels. Courses. Plugins. Tools. More gear. More flights.
Is it worth it right now, if you put it in a spreadsheet?
Absolutely not.
Am I going to keep going?
Yup.
What’s strange is that I know the formula.
I’ve lived through it. Photography took three years of invisible work before the first paid wedding. Which was only maybe $500, I think. The music industry took years of unpaid hours before the first platinum plaque. E-commerce took years of losses before it started feeding me instead of me feeding it. Tokyo took over 12 months of loneliness before it started feeling like home.
Every single time, the formula worked.
Every single time, it looked broken for the entire middle section.
Every single time, I was ready to quit about a month before it started working.
And yet here I am. Seven months into a new chapter. 363 subscribers. $50K in the hole. And a quiet voice in my head that still, occasionally, asks: is it actually going to work this time, or are you kidding yourself?
Lol.
Even after 12 years of proof, I have to remind myself. Constantly.
Maybe that’s part of the formula too. You don’t just do the reps once and graduate. You do them, you win, and then you go back to the starting line on the next thing and do them again. The belief isn’t a one-time install. It’s something you have to keep choosing.
I’m choosing it.
Today I’m at the desk again. 7 months in. New video uploading soon. This is only the second semester of a degree I picked for myself. The reps don’t show yet. They don’t have to. They just have to be happening.
One day, you take your shirt off and notice the body looks different. You didn’t see it happening. You were just showing up.
The world was set up for you to win.
You just have to stay in long enough to notice.
And then, when you start something new, you have to remember all over again.