How to balance ambition & fun

Do you need to sacrifice one?

We're about halfway through 2026.

For the remaining half, I want you to be ridiculously optimistic about your life. Dream so big it scares you slightly. Take massive action that leads to durable, lasting change. Make space for the things that light your soul on fire. Make time to reconnect with your inner child. Be willing to let go of things that no longer serve you. Be excited to wake up and work on things that inspire you. Find people who love you, not just for what you can do for them, but because of who you are.

I want the rest of 2026 to be an incredible year, but more importantly, I want it to be the start of a life you can't wait to live.

— # (#)

You can see my full portfolio here.

Document everything. Your highs, your lows, the 1 a.m. conversations with your best friends, the stupid ideas, the grand ambitions, and the painful rejections. Save it all, whether you share it or not.

Life zooms by faster than you think. One day you'll look back and grin. It wasn't always pretty. Most of it was confusing and overwhelming in the moment, but damn, you lived. You tried things, you failed, and you got back up. You trusted the wrong people, and found the right ones.

Documentation isn't just for nostalgia. It's proof that you've always been stronger than you remember.

Founder of Nike Phil Knight on who actually makes it:

“The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentleman. Us.”

NBA finals MVP Jalen Brunson on overcoming failure:

"You're allowed to think about the worst case scenario, but you gotta do something about it"

I got asked the other day by a follower how I balance being ambitious with having fun.

I thought I'd brain dump some of my thoughts here because this is something that I've wrestled with a lot (especially when I was in college last year).

I was simultaneously having the most fun in my life, and the most lonely and stressed out about my goals.

I saw this tweet from Alex Hormozi a few years ago about how you can either live up your 20s and be an under-skilled 30-year-old or work up your 20s and be an un-lived 30-year-old.

— # (#)

That always stuck with me because I was like, "I'd rather be the under-lived 30-year-old because I'd rather get money out of the way as quickly as possible and then go live life."

What I've come to update about my mental model on life is that it’s presumptuous that there will be life to live. It’s arrogant to assume that there’s a tomorrow.

One of my favorite frames now is to live as if I have 50 more days to live and 50 more years to live. I allocate both of those into my days.

To me, the whole point of life is to spend your time the way you want to spend it.

❝

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”

― Alan Watts

The opposite of success is when you're not doing what you want to be doing with your time (the one thing that you can't get back). If you can't spend your time how you want, then there are things you need to do so that you can get to that place (this is where the “seasons of your life” comes into play).

The cool part is that that place is easier to get to than most people assume.

There's this concept that I've been thinking about recently called “Daily Wealth.”

Instead of trying to make the most money as possible or become the most famous or become the most "successful," you first start with the lifestyle that you want to live.

Once you’ve designed your ideal daily life, your ideal Tuesday, then within those constraints, how can you make the most money? How can you be the most famous? How can you be the most successful?

You start with your lifestyle and then work your way towards your goals rather than the other way around. That way you’re spending your time the way you want and still being ambitious in the pursuit of your goals.

This is why, in my upcoming book, the very first chapter is about defining your North Star. I run you through an exercise I go through almost every month to get clear on what success actually means to me, because it's hard to hit a target you can't see.

The other frame here is that it’s low agency to assume that you have to choose.

High-agency people find a way to do both: to have fun and be ambitious in the pursuit of your goals.

If you think that there has to be a trade-off, I would push you to ask yourself, "What would it take to do both at the same time? What would it take to have it all?"

Until next week,