Are you doing things out of desperation or inspiration?

• Pic 1 (top left): typical Costa Rican breakfast called Casado

• Pic 2 (top right): interviewing strangers in Santa Teresa

• Pic 3 (bottom left): sun maxxing as always :)

• Pic 4 (bottom right): beautiful sunset in Samara

Before I start this newsletter, I have to get something off my chest.

I missed last week’s newsletter.

You probably didn’t realize, I know.

But eventually, when I have 100k + people subscribed, many will.

As you know, I’ve been in Costa Rica for almost a month now.

It’s a different lifestyle here in almost every single way than back home.

They live by a saying called “Pura Vida”.

The word symbolizes a sense of calmness and tranquility in their lifestyle.

How it translates in their life is a very slow-paced lifestyle where you rarely see anybody in a rush or visibly stressed.

And I’ve adapted to the culture and way of living.

Last Sunday just came and went.

I was spending the sunset at the beach, without a care in the world.

Before you knew it, 8 pm here (9 pm Eastern) came and went.

The funny thing is that I remember also missing one newsletter last year.

And I came down on myself for the lack of professionalism and responsibility.

But now my mentality is to just not do it again and move on.

Being here has made me less stressed about practically everything.

It’s amazing how much you start to adapt subconsciously to your environment.

Just like everything, there’s a long list of pros and cons of being here.

The pros are quite clear and probably outweigh the cons as everybody seems to be less stressed, live a simple life and are quite happy.

Which makes perfect sense as I’m in a part of Costa Rica which happens to be one of the five blue zones around the world.

But the cons (for me at least) is the lack of a competitive environment and ambition in the air.

As much as I would love to stay here long-term, I know it’s not the time.

Being so early in my journey, one of the most important things that I can control is self-applied pressure.

In retrospect, that factor was quite possibly the biggest reason why I’ve been able to get to where I am today.

From dropping out of school and forcing myself to make money online to investing more money in myself to also force me to make even more money online.

You need to be uncomfortable and when you’re put in comfortable environments, it is often hard to find that hunger or desperation.

You either do things out of inspiration or desperation.

When I started my journey, my main reason for getting into this space was out of inspiration.

To make something out of myself and inspire other people in the process.

I’m still very inspired but when I lose that inspiration, I lean into desperation.

Which is why I feel like I’m in a season of desperation.

A season where I will be applying the most amount of pressure on myself to force myself to elevate to new heights.

Contrary to my inability to lock in this last week or so, I’ve still managed to get some important things done.

Been quite consistent with content which I’m super proud of.

One piece I’ve been fired up to share is the podcast we filmed in Miami with all the boys from the Miami meet-up.

So so much value was dropped in this one from inspiring life lessons to advice from what we’ve learned so far in all of our entrepreneurial journeys.

Check it out here:

Overall, the focus this month is making a conscious effort to stay intentional with my everyday actions.

And I encourage you to do the same so we can both experience all the abundance this world has to offer.

PS: this is the same newsletter as “the IRL newsletter” but is now officially my personal newsletter :)

Much luv,

Jared