Build Your Dream—Or Be Stuck Building Someone Else’s (Part 1)

Hello! Hi! It’s been a while…

I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but if you feel stuck, uncertain, or just going through the motions—this is for you:

If you don't know what you want...

If you don't create your own purpose, goals, and plans for their achievement...

You will be told what to want.

You will be assigned your purpose, goals, and work.

By society. By others. By your boss. By your environment. By circumstances.

And it’s dangerous.

Because like a leaf caught in the wind, you may wake up one day somewhere—and as someone—you never intended to be.

I’m sure the idea to ‘build your dream or be used to build someone else’s’ isn’t new to you.

It wasn’t news to me either.

But hearing it phrased this way recently—so direct, so intentional—by Dan Koe, an entrepreneur and writer.

Made me pause, reflect, and ask myself tough questions—not for the first time.

I hope it does the same for you.

Most of us don’t need new information.

More often, we just need to be reminded of what we already know—from a fresh angle, framed in a way that helps us finally act.

Dan’s brutally honest phrasing works because it shatters a common mental trap—

We hear a truth and think, ‘Yeah, yeah, I know this.’

But are you living this truth? At the highest level?

Do you have a clear, empowering vision that energizes you in all areas of your life?

Because as Bruce Lee said:

Living by Default

We all aspire to be masters of our fate, captains of our soul, as William Henley wrote in his classic poem Invictus—yet few of us truly live it.

To do so, we must first gain crystal clarity on what we truly want in life or a particular area.

Without this, weeks, years—and even decades—can slip by in the wrong direction.

On top of that, nowadays, distractions can hijack us easier than ever—we have too many choices amidst a sea of endless noise.

We chase money and/or prestige in the wrong career.

Maybe we live in the wrong city just because we were born there.

We drown in ‘busy’ work.

We waste hundreds of hours each year, doom scrolling and watching Netflix.

Or wherever we get our cheap dopamine hits.

And we forget that we are procrastinating on living our best lives.

So, take a hard look inside.

Be brutally honest.

Are you truly building your dream?

Or are you sleepwalking through someone else’s script?

Are you going with the inertia of past decisions that no longer make sense?

I know how easy it is to fall into this trap—because I lived it.

It was a hard-earned lesson for me.

The Hard Lesson: My Personal Wake-Up Call

About a decade ago, I was in what seemed like a "dream job" in the banking sector. I had followed society's script ‘perfectly’ - good grades, prestigious job, steady paycheck.

Check. Check. Check.

But inside, I was dying.

Check-mate.

Every morning, I dreaded and pleaded with my alarm.

Every grueling 80-hour week in that fluorescent-lit pressure-cooker of an office that stressed and bored me to death simultaneously, felt like another piece of my soul being chipped away.

I felt like a passenger in my own life, on the wrong train, watching it hurtle towards a crash in slow-motion—powerless to stop it, because I had forgotten that I was the one at the wheel.

How did I end up there?

I didn’t invest the time and energy to write my own script— to figure out what I really wanted in life and who I wanted to be.

It had been easier to just follow the crowd.

Not realizing that we all have our unique dreams and game to play.

It was a brutal wake-up call and a lesson I will forever be grateful for because it helped me take back control and grow in the process.

Deciding to leave was terrifying.

And the soul-searching process and forging my own path was challenging but rewarding beyond all expectation.

And by the way, I have great friends who love their careers in the financial industry, so I’m not knocking that industry. It just wasn’t the way I wanted to live my life.

Live by Conscious Design

Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative care nurse, heard this regret more than any other from patients in their final weeks. She documented their reflections in her book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.

Sadly, so many of us bury our true desires to conform to societal or familial expectations.

Her insights remind us to wake up, live authentically, and embrace life fully before it’s too late.

My invitation (or reminder) to you right now is to:

Be the CEO of your life.

Be the master of your fate.

The captain of your soul.

Harness the winds of change towards a destiny of your choosing.

Don’t get caught up or lost in the storm.

Don’t allow yourself to be controlled by external circumstances—to live in reaction.

Follow your own North Star.

And forge your path towards it.

Are you guaranteed that things will go your way? No.

But it’s better to stumble while chasing what sets your soul on fire, than to succeed—or worse, fail—at something that leaves you empty and doesn’t provide lasting fulfillment.

Regret is a heavy weight.

To avoid this you must develop strong ‘clarity’.

Clarity, like a muscle, is built through reps—every decision you make is a chance to strengthen it so you can make effective and aligned action easier.

In future letters in this ‘Clarity Series’, I’ll show you practical strategies to train your ‘clarity muscle’—so you can take control and steer your ship with the steady hand of a seasoned captain.

Here’s what to do next.

Next Steps

1. Write down what resonated with you and take action—bridge the gap between ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’.

2. Take time to reflect: Are you living your dream—or following an external script?

3. Share this with someone who needs to hear it.

4. Click here to subscribe for weekly actionable insights to level up.

—

Until next time…

Be all you can be!

Ovi