February 26, 2024

Dear Reader,

In the last year of my post-secondary studies, I decided to drop out of school to start my first business. It was called "Hobbycademy", an online forum where people could come explore and learn hobbies with others.

I had a vision for what the platform would look like, how it would function, and how it would gain traction, but I lacked the skills to execute my vision. Still, I had the fire in me to make something of myself and my life. I managed to stay optimistic and continue forward.

The university I attended offered a "cooperative education" program that required the students to get "work credits" along with their "school credits" to graduate. Being a part of this program, I knew how competitive it was to get a job and how many talented and misunderstood students failed to get work credits to graduate on time.

Through this program, I found 12 students from my school to work at Hobbycademy without pay. They would get their work credit on time in exchange for helping me get Hobbycademy off the ground. With high hopes, I organized them into 3 teams of 4 people: a design team, a programming team, and a marketing team. But after 3 months of work, we failed to make any progress.

The feeling I had was that it was no one's responsibility except mine and I was a failure. I was failing to give the support and resources my teams required to bring the vision to life. But still, I wasn't ready to give up. I wanted to help but had no ideas left in me.

I began to watch YouTube videos as a last-ditch effort. After some videos, I found one that said my business was a reflection of myself. My character, my skills, and my leadership were the driving forces of my business. And if my business wasn't working the way I wanted it to, it was only because I wasn't working the way I needed to. It was timely advice. That's the day I began to work on myself.

It is now almost a decade later and I haven't stopped. The best definition I found to describe this personal development journey came from Jim Rohn: "The purpose of this human adventure is productivity - pursuing the full development of your potential to see what you can become with all you have been given."

It's not about doing better than others, but doing the best you can. It's not about being at your best all the time, but embracing and discovering how to better yourself in this moment. It's a never-ending challenge, experience, and calling that is unique to wherever you are now.

If you are in a place where you don't like the circumstances in your life and feel stuck in changing your environment, I hope you can consider this letter an invitation to begin working harder on yourself than you do on anything else.

Work on your vision. Work on your emotions. Work on your mindset. Work on your communication. Work on your skills. Work on your relationships. Work on your network. As you expand your foundations wider, so will your reach grow higher.

Chris X