Quest

For now, more standard stage orange stuff - finances, relationships, career/LP, health and fitness, as well as psychology. As I delve into deeper territory in my own growth, my teachings would evolve.

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some input on a career decision I’m currently navigating. I’m 31 years old, a certified personal trainer/group fitness instructor, and have been training clients for roughly 9 months. I currently earn about $45k/year and enjoy helping people, but my ultimate goal is to become a self-help teacher by building a YouTube channel and website. I actually already created both, but stepped away because I wasn’t making money. Here’s where I am now: I see three main options and I’d love to hear your perspectives — including @Leo Gura if he happens to see this! Option 1: Launch fitness biz - become a specialized niche trainer. What it is: Niche personal training services for a specific demographic. Pros: Have some proof concept that the idea is viable. Immediate business feasibility — I have the certifications, experience, and am going through additional courses to deepen my knowledge. Mentorship from my uncle, who is a successful entrepreneur. Target demographic tends to have disposable income, free time, and pressing pain points, making this a potentially viable business. Potential to replace my current income and free up 2–3 days per week for self-help research and content creation. If I can get 10 clients, I can comfortably transition to a 4 day work week, using the other 3 days + off work hours to pursue my LP. Cons: It’s not my core passion; I’m not that excited about the business itself. Risk of becoming financially successful but not aligned with my ultimate vision (golden handcuffs). Option 2: Stay as a generic Trainer and Start Self-Help Now What it is: Continue with my current role and immediately dedicate available time to building my self-help platform. Pros: Zero risk. I start pursuing my passion immediately. No distraction from building a new business. Cons: Low income (~$45k/year). Client hours take up most of my time, making deep work on research and content challenging. Progress might be slow; could take years before self-help becomes sustainable. Option 3: Cash Out Portfolio & Go All-In on Self-Help What it is: Liquidate multiple six-figure stock portfolio, live on a skeleton budget, and dedicate full time to learning, creating content, and growing my self-help platform. Pros: Immediate, full alignment with my passion. Maximum personal growth and learning potential. Cons: Very high financial risk; I could burn through assets and compromise early retirement. No guaranteed income. YouTube growth and monetization are uncertain, and I have limited experience in this area. I am not currently skilled in YouTube growth, marketing funnels, or info-product monetization — so the learning curve is steep Where I Stand Personally Comfortable monthly income: ~$5k. If I can get 9-10 consistent private clients, I'm covered. Passion: Synthesizing wisdom and teaching it — self-help is my clear priority. Time horizon: 5 years to transition fully to self-help LP. Discipline: Very high; I can self-regulate and dedicate focused time to learning and creation. Ultimate goal: Creating a self-help platform that sustains me financially. My Current Thinking: Hybrid Approach (option 1) - Use niche fitness biz to generate a modest, sustainable income (~$5k/month) with limited hours. - Dedicate 2–3 days/week + non-work hours to deep work on self-help content — reading, note-taking, synthesizing, contemplation, video creation. - Over 3–5 years, gradually pivot to full-time self-help as the platform grows. This way, I maintain financial security, gain practical business experience, and actively build my true passion without burning my portfolio. I’d love to hear from the community: - Would you approach this differently? - Any pitfalls you see in the hybrid approach? - How can I structure my deep work time to maximize speed and scope of learning? What skills are most fundamental? (i.e. contemplation, note taking, mind maps, etc.) - If you’ve made a similar pivot, what did you learn? Thanks so much for your insights!

Yeah, I'd like to start a family toward the latter half of my 30s - within the next 5-7 years. That's one of the reasons why getting my income dialed in is so important.

I recently sat down and contemplated "what do I want the next ten years of my life to look like?" This is what I produced: Where do I see my life going in the next ten years? Building a successful biz/actualizing my LP Personal dev and consciousness work. Going to therapy. Studying math, science, history, politics, sociology/society, psychology, biz and marketing, economics, ecology, etc. - develop big-picture understanding. Studying/doing philosophy. Studying epistemology. Doing epistemological work. Studying/doing spirituality. Exploring different spiritual practices and techniques, including psychedelics. Optimizing my diet and health. Lifestyle refinement. Building wealth - stocks, bonds, real-estate, gold Mastering guitar Travel

Quick summary of my current situation: - No debt. - Most of my survival foundation is in place - social life, romantic relationship, health and fitness, mental health, hobbies, diet, unwiring bad habits, removing my addictions, etc. Last piece of the foundation is LP and finances, which is my primary focus. - Building my LP in the health and wellness space. Just started working as a personal trainer making 40k per year. I have 165k. It's currently invested. It's done very well over the last couple of years, given the bull market we've seen. That said, a growing part of me feels that keeping it invested and dollar cost averaging my whole market ETF every month for 30 years isn't the highest-leverage use of these resources. Perhaps I should invest some - or even all - of it in myself: - Buying courses to help me become a better trainer (which I'm already doing) - Hiring an excellent personal trainer for myself to learn from them (and to optimize my health, which is one of my top 3 values) - Hire a personal nutritionist/dietician to bring my diet to the next level (although it's already very highly refined, given that I've been working on it for a decade). Hiring a great nutritionist/dietician helps me become more knowledgeable in my chosen field, and enables a greater degree of embodiment of the principles I wish to instill in my clients. - I could hire a guitar teacher - been self-taught for the last 1.5 years and a teacher would expedite progress. - Could travel. Haven't taken a vacation in over 2 years. - Retreats for spiritual development - Hire great biz consultants/coaches to help me build my LP beyond person training once the time comes. - Have the seed capital to start my own business once I've exhausted personal training. The list goes on. Then there's the balanced approach - keeping some invested, keeping some in cash. Right now I'm about 21k liquid, but half of that is my emergency fund - not for actualization work. The issue holding me back from pulling the trigger and liquidating is that I'm currently able to afford the training I need to advance as a trainer, and most of my survival foundation has already been set, so I don't need to invest in improving that stuff (at least not right now). A part of me just wants to stay invested, continue to invest in courses and trainings to become more knowledgeable in the health and wellness space, and, over time, as my income grows, use that income to invest in the things mentioned above. Why touch my investments if I can pay for these things with income? Looking for different perspectives to help me think this through. Thanks.

Bryan Johnson Barack Obama Obi-Wan Kenobi

Could you post a few of those videos?

So what are you doing?

Right now I'm invested in a whole market etf - 80 stocks and 20% bonds. Alternatives include retreating to cash, buying gold, investing in LP/personal growth, or a combination of the three.

@Leo Gura In your latest blog post, you speak of political winter and the need to safeguard your wealth. What are some ways you recommend doing this?

My girlfriend and I have been together for four years. She's an incredible person and an awesome partner - warm, kind, loving, funny, giving, integral. We recently decided to move in together (haven't yet). Last night, she pulled me aside and asked me if I was "really serious" about us. I asked her what she meant, and she proceeded to tell me that she needed to know I was committed to starting a family with her within the next three or four years. At 27, she feels she's running out of time to have children. If I'm not committed to starting a family with her, she needs to know because she'll need to invest at least a couple of years in finding a new partner and vetting them to make sure they're someone she can have children with. This isn't anything I hadn't heard before. I've always known she wants kids, and I want kids too. But she wants them sooner than me. I'll revisit this in a moment. My situation is this: I love my girlfriend and she loves me. We have an awesome, happy, loving, healthy relationship. She wants kids sooner than I do. I'm afraid that once we have kids, my bandwidth for personal development will decrease substantially. I'm 30 years old, and there is still so much I want to do. Once I have kids, my available time and resources will shrink substantially. For context, my social life, love life, health and fitness, and to a certain extent, my finances, have all been taken care of. I have an extensive network, awesome friends, a great partner, and excellent physical fitness (diet, exercise, sleep, etc. are highly tuned and refined). That said, I'm only making about 38-40k per year. My focus right now is on my career and life purpose. Thankfully, due to a gift I received from family, my net worth is nearing the multiple 6-figure territory and is prudently invested. But still, I need to be making a hell of a lot more than I currently am if I want to raise a couple of kids. Plus, I still want to go to therapy. I want to travel. I want to go to retreats and seminars. I want to allocate time to studying science, history, etc. so that I can develop big-picture understanding. I want to do spiritual development once I finish laying my foundation (i.e. get on track with my purpose and make decent money). How on earth can I expect to do all that and have kids within the next few years? Another important consideration, and I know what I'm about to say may come across as off-putting - my girlfriend isn't my type physically. She's cute and petite, but I have always had a strong preference for thick women. That's not to say I'm not attracted to my partner - I am. But there are other women I meet in my day-to-day life who I experience much stronger, more visceral physical attraction towards. There's been this tug-of-war inside me from the beginning of our relationship between my desire to pursue women I am more sexually attracted to, and the incredible character my partner has. I understand that lust is fleeting, but I feel like I have sexual karma I haven't burned through, and I'm afraid it will remain present in me for the rest of my life if I don't go out and burn through it by pursuing women I feel stronger sexual attraction towards. Also, one of my core values is health. She does not hold this value nearly as strongly as I do. To be fair, I'm probably in 99% percentile in terms of living a healthy lifestyle, and I can't reasonably expect her to live as I do. She does exercise 2-3 times per week and she prepares her own meals, but she also eats a lot of garbage and she's in denial about it. It's very painful to have a partner who doesn't value health as I do, and seeing her regularly eat poison food is an ongoing source of pain for me in our relationship. I'm also fearful that as she ages, her bad eating habits will catch up to her and she'll begin to lose her looks (again, you may think that's shallow, but us guys are visual creatures, and yes, it matters, at least to me) and develop health problems. Another factor is fear of the unknown. I have this awesome relationship that lots of people dream of having. Is my psychology deceiving me? Am I falling into the trap of thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side? I was single for 7 years before I met my partner (this was partly due to unresolved issues from a difficult childhood, which I've since resolved for the most part). Will I be single for another 7? And who's to say I'll meet someone better? My partner is pretty damn awesome. I also hear the dating scene today is brutal (although people love to spread doomerism and cynicism online). I can't keep going back and forth on this. She deserves to be with someone who is decisive in his intent to be with her. I'm not asking for anyone here to make the decision for me. I'm just sharing this because I've been struggling with it and perhaps there's some insight to be gleaned from hearing the perspective of objective third parties.

Could you link to the blog post?

With overheated markets and Trump winning the election, I'm seriously considering liquidating my portfolio and retreating to cash and gold. Looking for opinions.

@Lyubov Thanks for the suggestion. Claude is helping me work through the issue.

Meaning and purpose are the primary concern, but $$$ is also very important, given that money will be the key that allows me to continue building my life (i.e. reinvest into my purpose, therapy, travel, consultants, books, courses, trainers, nutritionists, retreats, etc.) Personal development is my highest passion. It's what enabled me to turn my life around. That's why I pursued coaching. Now that I know how to code, I could build a personal development platform/app. This is an idea I've had for a very long time, and it's also what makes me the most excited out of all the different options I'm considering. But again, it's the most risky, and I'm afraid of losing more money and more time if it doesn't work out. Ideally, I'd like to hedge my bets by generating more money in my career now, and then begin building this thing outside of work hours. I've been reviewing and refining my Me Sheet for years now. Here's the relevant info: Top values Wellbeing: The degree to which I have attained inner peace. Self-sufficiency/Personal Development: The capacity to produce exceptional results in all domains of life by utilizing internalized knowledge, wisdom, and skills. Goodness: The degree to which I embody virtue. Strength of character. Health/Vigor/Energy: Optimal functioning of the body and the mind. Connection: Sharing deep emotional bonds with my friends, family, and partner. Vibing with my fellow humans. Contribution/Impact: Enhancing the collective well-being of humanity. Direction/Purpose/Vision: Knowing what I want in life, having the plan to get there, and executing the plan. Fun: Having pleasurable experiences that enhance well-being. Acting silly, lighthearted, and playful. Freedom: Being able, generally speaking, to use my time as I please. Nature: Walking, hiking, exploring, and/or camping in a multitude of biomes. Top Five Strengths Love of learning: You love learning new things, whether in a class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and museums-anywhere and everywhere, there is an opportunity to learn. Persistence and Tenacity: You finish what you start. You navigate hardship to reach your goals. Consistency and discipline are hallmarks of your approach to life. Hope, optimism, and future-mindedness: You expect the best in the future, and you work to achieve it. You believe that the future is something that you can control. Ability to connect with others: You’re naturally inclined toward building relationships. People are drawn to you, and making friends and conversing with others comes naturally to you. Gratitude: You are aware of the good things that happen to you, and you never take them for granted. Your friends and family members know that you are a grateful person because you always take the time to express your thanks. Most meaningful impact Anything that helps people do personal development work. Helping people grow by becoming more self-sufficient, mature, wiser, cognitively developed, etc. Zone of genius It's funny, as I was writing this, I realized that health is truly a zone of genius for me. My lifestyle is very fine-tuned in terms of diet, sleep, exercise, meditation, etc. All of this is rooted in close to a decade of research and experimentation. I've kept my zone of genius blank for a long time, but I think I'm going to fill it in for now as: Health, wellness, and self-care. Funny how this also reflects the current industry I'm working in, and it directly expresses my top four values, especially values 1 and 4. Domain of Mastery Personal Development Ideal Medium I'm not entirely clear on this. Based on everything I've written, diet and exercise would be fitting. But I also enjoy (and am naturally strong at) writing. Also, if I were to create the personal development platform, coding and software would be the natural medium. What I'm taking away from all this is that building a health and wellness business centered around fitness would be a viable path forward. I've accumulated over three years of experience in the industry working as a group fitness instructor, which has allowed me to build some career capital. I also have lots of contacts in the fitness industry, many of whom either do personal training on the side, or have successful full time personal training businesses. I could see myself combining my fitness expertise and my coaching background to build a health and wellness biz. I would need to up my technical game for personal training - developing a deep understanding of proper biomechanics and form, as well as learning how to develop customized workout routines. I'd also want to get certified as a nutritionist so I could provide counsel on diet. At the same time, what about my coding? Would I have the time to build my gamified personal development platform on the side? Probably not. If I decide to go health and wellness, I'll need to dedicate 100% of my time and energy to get it off the ground. Also trying to code an online platform would spread me too thin. I also want to write. As I mentioned in the first post, I have a website that I'm really proud of. I could integrate that into either my health and wellness biz or my app, but I think that will come later. I really enjoy coding. I wouldn't have stuck with it for 10 months if I didn't. It would be cool if I could leverage it right now to get a job, but that's highly unlikely. At the very least, I'd need to spend a few months putting together a portfolio of 2-3 polished projects to present to employers. If it worked, I'd definitely increase my income and break into an industry that offers lots of room for growth and high-paying salaries. I could also use this as an opportunity to build V1.0 of my personal dev platform; it can be one of my portfolio projects. I could continue to work on it outside work hours if I broke into the tech field. Acquiring personal training clients could increase my income right now. Plus if I decide to pursue the health and wellness biz, that's tangible progress. As of now, it appears I'll either pursue my LP by building a health and wellness biz, or through software dev.