The Hoax is That Tomorrow is a Better Day to Start

I want to share a story about one of the most pivotal points of my life.

It started with a phrase that I would say over and over again, which was: The hoax is that tomorrow is a better day to start.

I repeated this phrase to myself daily for over 18 months. In that season, I was able to start earning income from things I made; it's when I started my business that has produced nearly a million dollars of revenue. It’s also when I created one book that led to another, and over 10,000 copies sold, passively.

But, we have to backtrack to understand how one statement was so significant.

At that time, I'm about 24 or 25 years old, and I'm working a job I absolutely dread. It took me three months to get, and I wouldn't say I liked it.

And now, after working at the company for about five months, I'm about to get let go. In the moment, I had a hunch… so I kind of know this, but also don't. So, I’m in a job I don’t like, with a job I never really wanted, and have a feeling it’s about to end.

The hardest part though, was I’m showing up to work with literally no job to do. Long story short, my core job was removed from me around this time, but I wasn’t told… I just stopped getting emails.

So, why do you show up somewhere for 8 hours a day, when you have no reason to be there… It could sound like an entitled question, but literally I had nothing to do but I had to go because I need the money.

It was really weird.

So, I started passing the time by listening to podcasts. Podcasts were not super popular at the time, and only ‘professionals’ made them who had great experience to share.

I would listen to this one guy who was like an entrepreneur, and he was doing these interviews, and some of the interviewers would say simple things like you just have to start.

When I first heard that, it sounded obvious but I didn't know what that meant. And the reality is: most people don’t. For the majority, school systems and families don’t teach their kids to bet on themselves. They teach them, bet on a degree or a 401k or a house. But bet on yourself?

You have to learn how to bet on yourself, but learning how to bet on yourself is risky and scary; there could be rejection, there could be a failure, and so oftentimes, we avoid it at all costs while we sit in this land of fantasy, thinking that one day it's all going to work itself out.

Betting on yourself is contrary advice; but once I started to understand it, the right pieces started to fall in place.

Stop Waiting

When the student is ready the teacher appears.

From then on, I started to connect pieces from different conversations that were relevant to me. I had never done this before but just go for it. Because, I literally had no other option. I spent 3 months trying to find a job and it was less than ideal, then I got fired and I needed money to pay off my school loans.

Anyway, coming back to the main story here, I'm sitting each day in the office listening to these podcasts, and these ideas start to well up; one of them is the hoax that tomorrow is a better day to start; the best time to start is now.

Tim Ferriss, in his book 4 Hour Work Week, would say something similiar, that gave me a lot more clarity on this idea. He would say something to the effect of the streetlights of life will never all be green at the same time; you just have to go and start; otherwise, you're going to wait forever.

And I started to ask what do I want to do. The question was: If I had a million dollars today, what would I start and stop doing and the main thing I came to was writing.

Then as I listned to podcasts, I think it was Donald Miller said you want to write a book, write a book, don’t write a blog post or tweets… if you want to write a book, write a book, and it was such a simple thought, but it brought so much clarity to me. So I said, let’s go for it. I had no credibility or reason outside of sheer grit.

All these swirling thoughts and experiences coalesced into a simple realization: I needed to start something. But what? Writing felt like the answer – a way to clarify my thoughts and learn in the process. It was a bit selfish, I admit. I wanted to explore this idea of purpose, but not in some distant, mid-life crisis kind of way. At 25, I felt like purpose was something you already had, not something you waited for.

So, I started asking myself, "What does purpose look like for a young person?" What I was discovering was that it wasn't about a specific job title or grand achievement. Purpose was rooted in character, in how you react to life's challenges and how you choose to live each day.

This realization led me on a deep dive of exploration on core character traits like humility, faith, and discipline. And right when I turned 25, I decided to channel it all into a book. It became an 18-month project, a daily ritual where I'd wake up and write a few paragraphs, gradually building towards a larger goal and the mantra I repeated to myself daily was the hoax is that tomorrow is a better day to start.

It reminded me that I have everything I need to bring this to life. And, I did that for 18 months until the book got published, which was a crazy cool feat, and the book ended up being called Purpose Built Young.

Now, the great and scary part of all of this, or the great and funny part of all of this, is that this book ends up getting published, and it goes on to sell like a hundred copies, two hundred copies max, because my friends bought it, which was cool but all that effort for such a small return?

Not really. It didn't matter how mnay copies I sold. This phrase got instilled into me, and it would then shape all these cool moments in my life. So, if you were to go to Amazon and look up the book, you'll see it has zero reviews, but then you'll see my name as the author, and when you click on that, you'll see some other books and two of them are called the mission journal. Those would go on to sell over 10,000 copies, which is now completely passive.

But the only way I was able to do the journal was because I had written the book. The only way I was able to write the book was because I really came to this belief that right now is the best time to start.

Starting is Learning

It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work. - Seth Godin

You simply don't have what you need to move forward. Other times, though, it's a matter of taking that first step to unlock what's possible.

This has been my experience. Writing that first book was an 18-month marathon – designing, writing, the grueling editing process, getting it published, marketing it, building a website... it was overwhelming. But those core components were invaluable lessons.

They paved the way for the Mission Journal, a journal that sold over 10,000 copies. I went from idea to finished product in under 30 days. I started on a Saturday morning, and within four weeks, it was published. It was incredible – a testament to the power of momentum and the lessons learned along the way.

Fast forward to like a year after that, I sat down with one of my good friends, and over a weekend, we produced over 200 journals and built a system to produce another 200, publishing about 400 journals over a summer. It was a wild experience. We did that over 72 hours.

Bet On Yourself More

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Ernest Hemingway

The obvious advice is just start.

But I think the non-obvious advice is probably to bet on yourself.

You may be saying to yourself, tomorrow, I will be more prepared, have more time, and be wiser to begin. This thinking will only lead you to wait too long. And the real advice is to start before you're you're ready. And when you start, it may feel like planting a tree - planting a weak tree in the wrong spot.

But it may lead you to actually plant an orchard where you're planting hundreds of healthy trees. But you just won't know until you start.

And if anything, if you're really interested in doing something, ask this: what is the most immediate next step you can take?

Because, say, if you're interested, you could come up with stories, excuses, reasons, and circumstances about why you can't or why it won't work. But if you're you're committed, those all go out the window. You just do whatever it takes.

Just bet on yourself.