Hey, I’m back. This was born in the middle of the night, like almost everything I write, thinking about all the people starting something new, and the only thing they ever hear is “good luck, hope it goes well”.
I know what I’m about to say sounds weird. Almost cruel.
When someone starts something new (a project, a career, that dream they’ve been postponing for years), the normal thing is to wish them luck. May everything flow. May the doors open on their own.
Not me. I wish you something else:
I hope it takes work. I hope it costs you. I hope you make mistakes along the way. I hope you fall.
And no, I’m not wishing you harm, it’s the complete opposite. I hope it goes amazing for you. But let me explain why I wish you the hard version. And fair warning: this is not cheap LinkedIn philosophy. I learned this the hard way, one early morning at a time, ever since all my days started at 5 a.m. and I had to be out the door at that hour, grinding for what I had set out to do.
What comes fast, leaves fast
Think about something you truly value. Something yours, something you feel nobody can take from you.
Almost certainly it wasn’t something that came fast.
I write code, so let me put it in my language: when my code works on the first try, I don’t celebrate. I get scared. Because I know I didn’t understand why it worked, and what you don’t understand isn’t yours, it’s borrowed. But the thing that forced me to take it all apart and put it back together piece by piece to understand what was going on? That one is mine. That one I will never forget.
The things we value most are almost never the ones that showed up on the first attempt. They’re the ones that demanded something from us. The ones that wore us out. The ones that forced us to become the person who deserved to have them.
And there’s the detail almost nobody sees: the prize is not the goal. The prize is who you became while chasing it. The goal is just the receipt confirming the process went through you.
The danger of getting it on the first try
Here comes my real fear, and it’s the reason for this text.
If everything worked out on your first try, you might think it was luck. Or worse: you might think you were just “naturally good at it”. And that idea, which sounds harmless (even nice), is a trap.
Because later on, when you eventually mess up (and you will mess up, it’s impossible not to), you won’t know what to do. You never learned to get back up because you had never fallen. You never learned to correct course because you had never failed. Your confidence was built on results, not on process. And results, sooner or later, fail.
The one who got there fighting has a map: they know what being lost feels like, and they know there’s a way out. The one who got there by luck only has a nice memory and no plan.
The fall is not the end of the story, it’s the middle chapter
Nobody tells the story of someone who got everything right on the first try. Not because it doesn’t exist, but because it teaches nothing. There is nothing to admire in a straight line.
The stories that move us are different: the one who tried five times. The one who almost gave up on some random Tuesday and didn’t. The one who failed in public and tried again anyway.
Notice that in those stories the fall is never the ending. It’s the middle chapter. The one that makes the ending worth it.
So when you fall (because you will fall), don’t read it as a sign that it wasn’t for you. Read it for what it is: you’re in the middle chapter. Keep going.
What effort gives you (and luck never will)
When something costs you, you gain things that don’t show up in the achievement photo:
You gain judgment, because you tried ten paths that didn’t work and now you recognize a good one when you see it. You gain endurance, because you already know that being tired is not the same as failing. And you gain something even rarer: peace. The calm of knowing that if you lost everything tomorrow, you could build it again, because it wasn’t magic. It was you.
Luck gives you the result. Effort gives you the ability to repeat it. And between having something and knowing how to get it, always choose the second one.
So yes: I hope it costs you
I hope it costs you, so you’ll never think it was luck.
I hope it tires you, so you’ll know how much rest is worth when you’ve actually moved forward.
I hope you make mistakes, so when you get it right you’ll know exactly why.
I hope you fall, so you’ll discover that getting back up is also something you learn.
And when you finally make it (because if you don’t let go, you will make it), you’ll look back and you won’t see a lucky break. You’ll see everything it took: every late night, every failed attempt, every time you wanted to quit and didn’t.
And that’s when you’ll get to say the three most valuable words there are:
I earned it.
