4 lessons from 6 months of living alone

It’s been almost half a year since I dropped out of college, moved across the country, and joined Acquisition.com on the media team.

(Damn… writing that sentence made me kinda emotional 🥲)

And in that time, I ate a lot of Chipotle, helped break a Guinness world record, forgot to pay my rent several times (oops!), and started training for a marathon.

While there is A LOT I’ve learned that I’m sure I’ll share in the future, today I want to share 4 of the more non-obvious internal reflections I’ve had along the way.

(I haven’t done one of these types of posts in a hot minute, so bear with me. Also, if you need a refresher on my backstory you can read it here).

1. Be someone you’d want to hang out with

My parents and brother helped me move into my new apartment. When they left to go back home, I sat on my bed. The room was quiet. I reached for my phone and played some music.

The next morning, I wake up and immediately put on a podcast. I keep it playing while making breakfast and getting dressed. In the car to work, I switch to music. At lunch, I watch YouTube videos. Walking into my apartment, I pull up YouTube again before I even set my keys down.

Three weeks later, I'm making breakfast with Modern Wisdom playing. Chris Williamson says something that makes me stop stirring my eggs: "The person you have to spend the most time with in your life is yourself. Try not to lose their respect."

I turn off the podcast. The eggs sizzle. The kitchen is quiet. I turn the podcast back on.

But now I notice it. Every time silence creeps in, I fill it with someone else's voice.

That night, I try eating dinner without YouTube. The apartment is quiet. I think about my friends still in college, probably at the library together. I pick up my phone and open YouTube.

The next morning, I don't turn on a podcast. I'm cracking eggs and my mind goes to yesterday's meeting where I said "leverage" three times in one sentence. I reach for my phone but stop. I let the thought sit there while the eggs cook. It passes.

A week later, I get home from work and make dinner. I sit at my table and eat.

The apartment is quiet. This time I don't reach for my phone.

—

Moving across the country and leaving everyone you know behind means you learn something fast: You're stuck with yourself.

No one else is coming to manage your emotions, pull you out of thought spirals, or keep you company. You have to learn how to calm yourself down and psych yourself up.

You have to become someone you actually like spending time with… because no one else will do it for you.

2. Regret is baked into every decision

A friend who dropped out of college a few years before me came to visit. We talked about the tradeoffs of taking the untraditional path. How we don't miss college, but we miss small parts of it. And how we wouldn't go back and do it differently even if we could.

Some people say I'm wasting my youth. That I should be going out every night, drinking, partying, having "fun." But I have different goals from most of my peers. How can I expect to take the same actions as them and achieve what I want to achieve?

Saying life is boring if you don't party is like saying food isn't flavorful if you don't use hot sauce. There's more than one way to enjoy your meal.

Here's what I've learned: regret is baked into every decision. Choosing one path means not choosing another. When I chose to drop out and move to Vegas, I also chose to not have a traditional college experience. When my friends chose to stay in school, they chose to not take the risk I took.

Both choices involve sacrifice. Both involve regret. The question isn't how to avoid regret—it's which regret you're willing to live with.

I could spend my time wishing I was at college with my friends. They could spend their time wishing they had the freedom I have. Or we could all just accept the trades we've made.

Stop staring at doors that are already closed. Stop wishing you were somewhere else. The rush is imaginary. The timelines are arbitrary. Life isn’t a race to the finish line, it’s a dance to be enjoyed.

Be here. Be now. Because one day, the music will end.

3. You never “arrive”

A few weeks ago, I was in a room with ten business owners, all doing over 7-figures a year. They went around sharing wins and challenges. Not a single person shared a win without immediately following it with "but I need to..." Every achievement was just a stepping stone to the next thing they were chasing.

I sat there listening to them stress about the same things I stress about - growth rates, competition, the next big move. The only difference was the number of zeros.

That's when it hit me: the finish line I'm running toward doesn't exist.

I am currently living the exact life 16-year-old Jay dreamed about. I dropped out of college. I work for Alex and Leila Hormozi. I make content for a living. Yet I feel no significant increase in baseline happiness from when I was 16.

The goalpost just moved. Now I'm looking at people with bigger audiences, bigger businesses, bigger opportunities. The "arrival" point that seemed so clear at 16 has evaporated, replaced by another point further out.

This isn't depressing—it's liberating. It means you can stop waiting. Stop falling into the "when then" trap. When I hit 100k followers, then I'll be happy. When I make $1M, then I'll be satisfied.

You won't. You'll just find a new "when."

A good life isn't some destination you arrive at. It's a string of good days.

Define how you want to spend your days, then focus on stringing together as many of those days as possible.

4. The voice in your head comes from the voices in your home

I am one of the most privileged people on Earth. Not because of money or opportunity, but because I grew up with two loving parents, grandparents on both sides, and a brother who all had my back.

When I told my parents I was dropping out of college, they didn't scream. They asked questions. When I said I was moving to Vegas to work for some guy from YouTube, they helped me pack. When I call them with problems, they don't say "I told you so." They ask how they can help.

My internal dialogue is kind because theirs was kind to me.

When things go wrong, I don't fall apart. I don't spiral into self-hatred. I don't drown in self-pity. I problem-solve. I move forward. Because that's what I watched them do for nineteen years.

My mom never catastrophized. My dad never played victim. My grandparents never made me feel like I wasn't enough. My brother never made me feel stupid for dreaming big.

The voice in your head is an echo of the voices that raised you. If you're lucky, those voices were gentle. If you're lucky, they believed in you before you had any reason to believe in yourself.

I'm stubborn. I'm different. I chose a path most parents would panic about. But they loved me anyway. They love me still.

That's the real privilege. Not the safety net of their support, but the foundation of their belief.

Thank you, Mom and Dad. For many things, but mostly for this: when I talk to myself, I talk to myself the way you talked to me.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, it's been quite the six months.

A few people have asked if I regret dropping out - and I can wholeheartedly say, “No, I do not.”

In my book You Can Just Do Things, I write about this concept of going where the action is. If you want to be an actor, you move to Hollywood. If you want to be a country singer, you move to Nashville. If you want to be a tech founder, you move to San Francisco.

Well, I’ve always wanted to be the best internet entrepreneur/creator/author/investor person I could be. Alex and Leila are the best at this. So I moved to Vegas to work with them.

And I feel like I’ve compressed four years into the last six months.

Working at Acquisition.com has been a crash course in business, psychology, economics, marketing, sales, operations, and management. Every day I'm learning something I didn't even know I didn't know.

A hill I’m willing to die on: The fastest way to change your life is to force yourself to level up by placing yourself in an environment where you feel like you don't belong.

Mimicry is fundamentally baked into the psychology of every human being. Rather than trying to fight it, use it.

Find the best people you know and spend as much time with them as you can.

Until next week,
Jay “It Remains Day One” Yang

Ps. It literally only takes 6 months of being locked in to completely change the trajectory of your life. Hurry up, you can do great things!

Pps. few things have changed my life like adopting a weekly writing habit.

It’s accelerated my career (I kid you not) YEARS in advance and opened so many doors.

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