Stop Grinding for the "Finish Line"—The Rainbow Has No Gold.

21 Feb 2026 · 1 min

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1:22

In this reflective monologue, the speaker recounts how the prevailing entrepreneurial advice to "make a lot of money first, then coast" led them into prolonged grind, burnout, and depression. They realized that chasing a financial finish line without enjoying the journey is counterproductive; instead, building a business you genuinely enjoy—by launching products you believe in, marketing in a way that fits your personality, and serving customers you want to work with—creates sustainability and often higher long‑term earnings. The speaker emphasizes that there is no magical reward at the end of the money‑focused rainbow, and the best strategy is to play the entrepreneurial game in a way you love right now.

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The most harmful advice that I ever believed about entrepreneurship is, I'm going to make a lot of money now, and then I'm going to coast, that I just need to get to a certain number, and then I can step off the gas. And what that did was put me in grind mode for a really long time instead of actually building a business that I enjoyed. And the irony is that if you build a business that you enjoy, you tend to make more money because it's going to be more sustainable and you're going to do the activities for a very long time. But I instead was so focused on just getting to the money so that then I could enjoy it rather than building a business that I enjoyed. And it took until my mid-30s and a lot of successes and failures in burnout and wrestling with depression to realize, oh, there's really, like, nothing that happens at the end of the rainbow. There's, like, nothing that happens when you get a big amount of money. You still want to be in the game, so you might as well just play the game in the way that you would enjoy playing the game. And that means launching products that you actually believe in that you really like. It means doing marketing campaigns that fit your personality. It means marketing to customers that you actually want to do business with. If you do those things, you can be in this game for a lot longer. And the weird thing is that you usually end up making more money, too. It's this weird irony. And I thought that when I got to a certain number, I could just coast and then I'd do what I want. But life is now, so build a business that you want now.