At 24 years old, I was making over 100K a year in salary.

6 months ago, I quit my job.

The work environment was great.

The people were great.

The conditions and benefits were great.

Yet, deep down I knew I wanted something else.

Something more challenging, something I could pour my soul into.

Something I could call my own, something I could be proud to say “I built that”.

I know this is not a path for everyone, although I believe everyone is capable of it.

To this day, this remains one of the hardest decisions of my life.

I was terrified of giving up my financial privileges, which allowed me to travel basically wherever I wanted, eat at the best restaurants, invest in assets, and enjoy these luxuries so early in life.

Many thought it was crazy stupid, but few understood the value of that decision.

You see, although wonderful on the outside, I was slowly dying inside.

Month after month, year after year.

I was getting so used to seeking comfort and remaining in it, that I was running away from any friction life sent my way.

• I was becoming softer in areas where I should have been standing my ground

• I was not pushing as hard at the gym

• I was losing consistency in my nutrition

• My sleep schedule became random

• I was not investing as much as I should have in my relationships

• I did not want to learn anything new

Everything felt more and more uncomfortable, difficult, and painful.

I started blaming other people than myself for the misery I was putting myself into.

This is how you build bitterness in the long run.

How do I know? Because I started despising what I saw growing in me.

And I knew if I didn’t do anything about it, it would get worse over time.

The people close to me would describe me in the past as a very expressive and joyful human with big dreams she would chase.

The problem was that my dreams became illusions instead of goals to achieve.

When that happens, you start living more in your head and less in reality.

You cut yourself out from the reality you should be in because you are building one that’s less painful than the other.

Why?

Because it’s easy. It’s easy to create a world where everything goes your way.

And it’s much more difficult and resource-consuming to build one in reality.

All of you know me here as a photographer.

And in essence, that’s who I am and that’s what I do.

But I knew the decision to go all in implied far more than doing photography full-time.

The implications of going from passion to business

1. 75-20-5

75% is building the business

20% is building the body and mind

5% is photography

The truth is, when you decide to start a business on your own, you have to do everything.

Every.

Single.

Thing.

For the past months, I have become:

• A web designer

• A copywriter

• A video maker

• A community manager

• A marketing & sales director

• A customer relationship manager

• A project manager

• A graphic designer

That’s just what comes top of mind.

When you decide to go all in, your business becomes your life every day of the week, every single week.

And you might say “Yes but why not do it part time and continue working?”

Right. That works when you start and you’re trying to figure out if that’s what you should go into or not.

That’s what I did, and that’s what I recommend doing.

But eventually, you have so much time in a day that you will reach a ceiling of the time you can allocate to it. And this is what will prevent you from growing it.

Because you then start competing with a whole other market, filled with those who are willing to sacrifice things to put more time into it.

That’s who you are competing against.

You might call it an “unfair advantage” or whatever you want to call it, but it’s the truth.

Many want to start their business because they want to do what they are passionate about.

If you think that you’re going to practice your passion all day every day, that’s one of the biggest mistakes you can make if you’re going the business route.

There were 4 main drivers for me to decide to get all in:

1. I understood what having a business meant. I had already a background in management, business administration, marketing, and sales.

2. I fundamentally knew I could make money. I had already made good money doing photography and videography aside from my day job, and I had successfully launched a digital product.

3. I already had social proof that I was good at what I was doing (worked already with Nikon, got interviewed on podcasts, had articles published, and had a growing audience online).

4. I had my back because I had saved up enough money from my past job to sustain myself for a few months, and I had already built a strong portfolio of images.

I knew I was going to work more than I ever did. And I knew I was not going to do photography as much as I used to.

And I was okay with it.

I had an interesting question the other day: “Aren’t you afraid of not liking to photograph and create your images anymore, now that it’s become your job?”

I had considered that before leaping.

And it’s precisely because photography is only 5% of my actual work distribution that I still enjoy it. In fact, I am enjoying it even more now than before.

2. It’s not about the time you spend, it’s about the sacrifices you make

My initial assumption was that I would have to add the workload on top of what I already had and was doing.

I quickly understood that was the perfect recipe for burnout.

Instead, it is about what you are willing to sacrifice and give up right now if you want to see some sort of success in the future.

That is incredibly difficult to do, if not the most difficult thing.

Knowing you are working your ass off every day for future gains that you have no idea when you are going to perceive the results, is a battle you have to get comfortable with.

Because if you don’t, you’re out.

I consciously gave up the following for the next months:

• Drinking alcohol because it disrupts my sleep and leads to less productive work the following day

• Social gatherings and nights out because this is time that reminds me of the cheap pleasures my brain can fall for and it can instill doubt in what I am trying to achieve

• Movies, TV shows, and video games because they slow me down and distract me from my goals

• Fancy dinners and restaurants because they make me spend money that would be more valuable elsewhere

• My love life because I couldn’t reconcile the two at the time, and for the months to come

And those became the non-negotiables:

• Working out 5 times a week

• Monitoring my food intake and nutrition every single day

• Writing every day

• Have a sleep performance of 95-100% every night

• Read a book or listen to a podcast at least 1 hour per day

Some will see this as too extreme. Maybe it is.

But I wouldn’t trade my life with theirs.

And when I listen to the mentors I chose, this is what was required to lead to the success they were aiming for.

3. Your patience and willpower will be put to the test

I haven’t let the patience aspect fully sink in yet. Because I believe it builds over time.

But I already noticed considerable improvement.

And I attribute this improvement to the shift I made when it comes to WHY I do what I do every day.

To you who’s reading this, I would have never been able to share what I share in these letters if it wasn’t for me reframing them.

If I was writing to please you, you would be reading fluffy words that you can’t relate to, because they wouldn’t come from a place of experience and truth.

But what I am doing here, is writing to my past self, trying to help the best I can. And I know I am not the only one experiencing this, which is why it can help others too in their journey.

This is how my patience and willpower started building. Every day I am getting a bit further away from the desire for instant gratification and unhealthy fame-seeking. And getting closer to wanting to connect, help, and educate instead.

The stronger your reason for doing it, the longer you can play.

And if you do it from a place of truth, you will build trust over time that can never be bought.

That’s how you play the game.

That’s it for today. Hope you enjoyed and if you read that far, thank you for your time.

See you in the next one,

Angel