What’s funny is… my message hasn’t changed.

People just started listening because I got older.

I’ve been saying the same thing for over a decade.

When I started, no one cared.

It was dismissed.

Ignored.

Called a waste of time.

People told me—directly and indirectly—

that what I was doing didn’t make sense.

And if I’m honest…

they were right.

At least in the short term.

⸻

Because anything that actually matters…

looks like a mistake while you’re doing it.

It looks:

• inefficient

• inappropriate

• like you don’t know what you’re doing

And people will tell you that.

Especially the people closest to you.

⸻

So what happens?

Most people quit.

They move on.

They do something that “makes sense.”

And the thing that might have mattered…

never gets built.

⸻

I didn’t quit.

Not because I was confident.

But because I kept repeating.

Over and over.

For years.

⸻

That’s the part nobody wants to hear.

There is no trick.

No shortcut.

No “one move” that changes everything.

⸻

It’s just:

repetition.

Getting up.

Doing it again.

Even when you feel embarrassed.

Even when you feel like a failure.

Even when nothing is working.

I’ve been thinking a lot about stress lately, and I don’t think it’s as personal as we make it.

I think it comes in cycles.

Every year, there are periods where stress ramps up, and it’s not random.

It’s tied to how we’ve structured time.

Over time, we’ve become more and more synchronized.

We used to live with loose time.

Clocks were off.

Schedules were imperfect.

Now everything is precise.

Our phones, our computers, our calendars…

all synced to the same clock.

And because of that, we’re all moving through the same cycles at the same time.

Deadlines cluster.

Work piles up.

Pressure builds.

Not just for you.

For everyone.

And I think that matters more than we realize.

Because when stress hits, we interpret it as something personal.

We think:

• I’m behind

• I’m not handling this well

• something is wrong with me

But often, it’s not just you.

It’s the system.

It’s the timing.

It’s the fact that everyone around you is also under pressure.

Which means people are:

• less patient

• more reactive

• not at their best

So things feel worse than they actually are.

A short email feels harsh.

A delay feels intentional.

A bad day feels like failure.

But it might just be the cycle.

So if you’re feeling off right now…

Take a pause.

Zoom out.

Most PhD students think success is about intelligence, productivity, or discipline.

It’s not.

It’s about your relationship with yourself.

Three versions of you are always in conflict:

• your past self

• your present self

• your future self

And most PhD students lose because they never learn how to manage that.

⸻

Let’s start with your past self.

You were trained to believe:

• work harder

• get the right answer

• move fast

That worked.

Until now.

Because a PhD forces you to confront something uncomfortable:

You were wrong about how progress actually works.

That’s hard to admit.

It means letting go of who you thought you were.

It means questioning the way you were taught to succeed.

Most people don’t do that.

⸻

Now your present self.

This is where it gets messy.

Because what actually works in a PhD feels… wrong.

It feels slow.

Repetitive.

Uncertain.

And it looks strange to everyone around you.

You might:

• take longer than others

• explore ideas that don’t “pay off” yet

• invest time in things that don’t show up on your CV

People won’t understand it.

They may think you’re:

• inefficient

• distracted

• not serious

But here’s the truth:

Nobody is paying as much attention to you as you think.

That weird feeling?

That’s not judgment.

That’s just you stepping outside the script.

⸻

And then there’s your future self.

This is the part most people ignore.

Because it requires something uncomfortable:

sacrifice without immediate reward.

Writing one more paragraph.

Reading one more paper.

Taking a course just to learn.

Not because you have to.

Because you choose to.

You are investing in someone who does not exist yet.

And you have to believe they are worth it.

⸻

This is the real PhD problem.

Not intelligence.

Not talent.

But whether you can:

• forgive your past self

• tolerate your present self

• and invest in your future self

All at the same time.

⸻

Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Be kind to your past self

They were doing the best they could with what they knew.

2. Accept that your present self will feel out of place

If it feels weird, you’re probably doing it right.

3. Pay your future self every day

One small step. Even when it feels pointless.

⸻

Because one day, your future self will look back and say:

“Thank God I kept going when it didn’t make sense.”

⸻

If this resonates:

What’s one thing you’re doing right now that your future self will thank you for?

I have felt strangely happy at the end of the day lately.

That has not been normal for me.

Most days, by the end of work, I feel worn down.

Grumpy.

Flat.

A little miserable.

I am a business professor.

I spend a lot of time working alone.

And that, I think, is the real issue.

Not the work itself.

The isolation.

A lot of academic work is done this way.

You disappear into your office.

You write alone.

You think alone.

You struggle alone.

Then you briefly reappear in a meeting or an email.

And we act like this is normal.

Maybe it is normal.

But that does not mean it is good.

The last few days have felt different for one reason:

I have been spending more time with people I truly enjoy.

People who are kind.

People who are fun.

People who feel good to be around.

That changed everything.

Same job.

Same pressures.

Same life.

Different people.

That is what made the difference.

I think I have been talking about this for years through the R3ciprocity Project.

Not to complain.

To name something that many researchers quietly live with:

academic work can be deeply lonely.

And loneliness changes how the whole day feels.

What has surprised me is this:

By being open about that loneliness, things started to change.

Slowly. Very slowly.

But they changed.

Wonderful people started to appear around me.

Not all at once.

Not dramatically.

Just one small step at a time.

And now I am realizing something I wish I understood earlier:

I do not just want interesting work.

I want a good working life.

For me, that means being around people I care about.

People I can laugh with.

People who make the process feel human.

So here is my message to anyone building a career right now:

Do not only ask what work you want to do.

Ask:

Who do you want to be around while you do it?

That question matters more than most people think.

A huge part of life is work.

So start building the kind of work life you actually want.

One tiny step at a time.

Be open.

Say what is not working.

Imagine what better would look like.

Then move toward it, even if it takes years.

My kids were little when I started trying to do this.

Now they are almost grown.

That is how long change can take.

But small steps count.

And sometimes, after enough of them, you get to the end of the day and realize:

I have not felt this happy in a very long time.

Success is almost the opposite of what you think it is.

We’ve all been sold the same idea.

There’s a shortcut.

A trick.

A moment where it all clicks.

One decision.

One breakthrough.

One big move.

And suddenly… you’ve made it.

But that’s not how it works.

Not even close.

Real success is slow.

Painful.

And honestly… kind of boring.

It looks like this:

Doing the same thing again.

And again.

And again.

Breaking things into tiny pieces.

Fixing one small mistake at a time.

Repeating it thousands of times.

There is no magic moment.

There is just… repetition.

We actually understand this really well.

• Specialization

• Economies of scale

• The learning curve

All of them say the same thing:

You only get good after doing something an enormous number of times.

Not 10 times.

Not 100 times.

Thousands.

Tens of thousands.

But here’s the part nobody tells you.

When you’re doing it…

it doesn’t feel like success.

It feels like:

• confusion

• frustration

• monotony

You don’t feel special.

You don’t feel ahead.

You don’t feel like you’re “winning.”

You feel stuck.

And because of that, most people quit.

Not because they lack talent.

But because the process does not match the story.

We love the idea of success.

We hate the process that creates it.

And even when you get there…

It’s not what you imagined.

Talk to anyone who has done something for 20, 30, 40 years.

They don’t describe glory.

They describe:

• repetition

• discipline

• time

And often… they laugh at how naive they were at the start.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

Your experience matters more than any shortcut you’ve been sold.

Because real ideas do not come from thinking about something once.

They come from doing it… over and over again.

Even when it’s boring.

Even when it’s slow.

Even when it feels like nothing is happening.

So if you’re in that phase right now…

Where it feels repetitive.

Unclear.

Unrewarding.

You’re probably closer than you think.

You’re just in the part no one talks about.

I realized something uncomfortable about why I do research.

It’s not just curiosity.

It’s not just impact.

I want people to like me.

I want them to see my ideas and think:

“That’s interesting. That’s smart.”

And in academia, that gets rewarded.

Citations. Invitations. Status.

But here’s what changed everything for me:

Once I admitted this…

the whole process got easier.

Because now I see the game clearly.

Most people will not agree with you.

Some will ignore you.

Others will tell you your work does not matter.

And none of that is surprising anymore.

I am not trying to convince everyone.

I am not trying to win every argument.

I am trying to express what feels important to me.

That shift gave me freedom.

I can walk away.

I can keep going.

I can build without needing approval at every step.

The desire to be liked is still there.

It is very real.

But it no longer controls me.

And strangely, that is when the work starts to matter more.

Here’s a harsh reality nobody tells you about parenting.

When your kids grow up and leave the house…

you’re economically finished.

Not literally.

But the entire system we built our lives around suddenly disappears.

For decades, your life was organized around:

Raising kids.

Supporting them.

Making sure they survive and thrive.

And then one day…

They leave.

And you’re left asking a strange question:

What am I supposed to do now?

This moment is incredibly stressful for a lot of people.

But it’s also something else.

A chance to reinvent yourself.

Historically, humans never faced this problem.

For most of human history people only lived to about 35 or 40.

You had kids young.

You raised them.

Then life ended.

But now many of us have 30, 40, even 50 years of life after our kids grow up.

That’s an entire extra lifetime.

And most people don’t know what to do with it.

So we default to whatever opportunity is closest.

That’s what humans do.

We choose what is convenient.

But this stage of life is actually something different.

It’s a chance to ask:

What actually makes me happy?

What makes me lose track of time?

For me, one of those things is swimming.

For others it might be learning something new.

Flying a plane.

Going back to school.

Starting something strange.

This is the moment to dream again.

Not smaller.

Bigger.

Much bigger.

When I ask my students to dream about what they want to build, they always think too small.

Most of us do.

So if your kids are growing up and leaving…

Don’t think of this as loss.

Think of it as something much rarer.

A second life.

And maybe this time you get to design it.

One of the biggest problems in the world is simple.

Most people never stop to ask why.

Why do we do things this way?

Why are these the rules?

Why do these patterns exist in life?

Most people never look.

They never question.

They never pause and ask if there could be a better way.

And the reason is usually fear.

Fear of judgment.

Fear of repeating something painful from the past.

Fear of stepping outside what people think you “should” do.

Often that fear comes from someone else.

Maybe a parent.

Maybe a teacher.

Maybe one moment years ago with someone who barely mattered in your life.

But somehow it becomes the rulebook.

So people stop exploring.

They stop questioning.

They accept that there is a “proper way” of doing things.

I’ve always struggled with that.

I question the status quo constantly.

Even when something seems right, I still ask:

Is this actually the right way?

Growing up without much made that instinct stronger.

My rebellion wasn’t breaking rules.

My rebellion was getting educated and asking more questions.

That instinct has shaped how I see the world.

Because questioning is rare.

It takes training.

It takes courage.

It takes openness.

And openness might be the most underrated trait in life.

Openness to new ideas.

Openness to other people.

Openness to experiences that challenge what you believe.

If more people simply opened their eyes and questioned the world around them, we might discover better ways of doing things.

Or at the very least, we might understand each other a little more.

The world becomes a lot more interesting when you stop assuming it’s fixed.

And start treating it like a playground.

Artificial intelligence. AI agents. Job replacement. The future of work.

Yes.

Many jobs will disappear.

Entire organizations will become virtual.

Agents will run processes.

Well-paid, stable roles will evaporate.

This is not hype.

It is happening.

But here is what I teach my students about innovation:

The winners in technological revolutions are not the best technologists.

They are the people who know what they love.

AI will commoditize tasks.

It will not commoditize obsession.

The next 10 years will be wild.

Bigger than the internet shift.

Faster than most people expect.

And many people will freeze.

They will focus on fear.

On job loss.

On what disappears.

But history shows something consistent:

51% of people build.

49% complain.

Over time, the builders win.

The real question is not:

“Will AI take my job?”

The real question is:

“What rabbit hole am I willing to go down so deeply that AI becomes my tool?”

If you love design, go deeper.

If you love science, go deeper.

If you love lasagna, build the largest lasagna knowledge resource in the world.

Yes, lasagna.

Because value is not created by technology alone.

It is created by humans who care about something irrationally.

The future will reward:

Clarity.

Hope.

Strategic positioning.

And courage to look a little crazy.

AI will replace average effort.

It will not replace conviction.

The future is going to happen anyway.

You can fear it.

Or you can build inside it.

I built the R3ciprocity platform. And I did not expect what it did to my students.

Last semester I offered it as an optional bonus project. Two students took me up on it. One built an advertising portfolio from scratch. Another built a real working app, a parking app. Legit.

That blew my mind.

So this semester I mandated it in my classes. I was honestly nervous about conflict of interest. I have taught for almost 20 years and I have always been careful.

But I did it anyway.

And it is fundamentally changing how my students learn. I have never seen improvements like this. They are actually building things. They are not quitting after two days.

Here is the core problem this fixes. Most big projects fail because there is no feedback. Real life is harsh. You try for two days, it gets hard, and you stop. That is normal. That is the trap.

R3ciprocity gives fast feedback, every day, from three places: scientific ideas, your own daily streak work, and other people on the platform. That steady feedback is what keeps people moving. It also creates visible proof of progress. You can download a streak file of what you did and turn it into a clean report later.

The platform is still improving. I know where the warts are. But even this version is working. I use it every day now.

So here is my ask. If you teach, lead a group, or run a team that wants people to actually innovate, bring your class or group onto it. You can join anytime. The next big shared session will likely be in the fall, and I want more groups involved.

Right now it is free. Later I will charge, not for greed, but because paying changes commitment. I saw that first hand with my son.

If you want your people to stop quitting on day two, and actually build, come join me.