David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH)

Now, he talked about it in truly life-altering, concentration camp ways, but you can also apply it at a smaller scale with less criticality of even just your daily life, that all that hardship in building the original business, that is responsibility you take upon yourself,

The appeal, the reason you take that on you is in part because you don't know fully what it entails.

If you had known up front, if I had known up front how hard it would be, how much frustration there'd be along the way, if you just told me that in a narrative before I got started, I would have been like, eh, maybe I should just go get a job.

I think you should stretch.

Should you have to stretch for a decade?

I'm not so sure.

It's,

A lot to trade.

You don't get your 20s back.

You don't get your 30s back.

You don't get your 40s back.

You really... I would have regretted, personally, if I hadn't done the other things I did in my 20s, if I hadn't had the fun I had, if I hadn't had the friends I had, if I hadn't built up the hobbies that I did, if I hadn't started driving race cars at an early enough age to actually get really good at it, if I had just gone all in on business...

Because I would have got the same out in the end.

This is something Derek Sivers really taught me.

He has this great essay about how when he went for a bike ride, he could go really hard all out and he could do the ride, I think, in whatever, 19 minutes.

Or he could enjoy the ride, go 5% slower, do the ride in 21 minutes.

and realize there's only two minutes apart.

Either I go all in all the time, there's nothing else, I'm completely exhausted at the end, or I travel the same distance and I arrive maybe two minutes later, but I got to enjoy the scenery, listen to the birds, smell the flowers.

That journey is also valuable.

Now,