“The only way out is through…”
— Jordan B. Peterson
“Hold up, has it really already been almost a year?” I thought to myself as I looked down at the calendar, bewildered. Seemingly in the blink of an eye, it was almost November 21st again, meaning I’d officially be one year older. And yet, it didn’t feel like a 52 weeks had passed at all. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, despite what seemed like an overwhelming effort to move the proverbial ball forward, it felt almost as if time had stood still since November 21, 2023, as I relived the same day over and over, Groundhog Day style — talk about a Sisyphean task with no real end in sight.
As the real ones out there know, for the past few years, I’ve been using my birthday as a time to reflect on my alignment with my life’s mission, often with a good ol’ rant, and this year is no exception. Though it’s true that the last 365 days were some of the most instructive as I honed my digital marketing craft further under true GOATs like Charley from Disruptor School, I can’t say I made much outwardly discernible progress on the things that matter most. Maybe this is why movies truncate this crucial but boring part of the hero’s journey into a mere montage? I don’t know…
Alas, despite making serious progress with my skill set, I found myself cripplingly busy with well.. the busyness of business. Without a clear goal or direction — only a vague sense of “wanting to be of service to Japan” — I was trapped in my own web of work, unable to find the time and space needed to make sense of which way was up. Instead, to throw a bone to the Naruto fandom out there, I ended up juggling so many projects that you’d need a Sharingan just to keep up. Were it not for my insane commitment to providing value to anyone I work with, this house of cards would have surely crumbled long ago.
A One-Legged Table
Despite being incredibly effective, I wasn’t really progressing in any one direction nor do I know where I wanted to even go. As the months passed since my 38th birthday, one clear fact began to dawn on me: without creating some distance from my workaholism to truly see the forest for the trees, I would never be able to move forward with anything meaningful beyond what I was already doing. I knew my efforts were having an impact, sure, but this way of working would never get me to the next level. As I wrote in my piece about my trials on Nara’s Mt. Omine, I had become like a one-legged table, lacking the stability needed to build any higher.
By anyone’s account, I had become one of the best media buyers in Japan, but I could only run so many ad accounts before collapsing from exhaustion. To ascend to higher levels, I realized I needed to take a few steps back and allow more slack into my life to add additional legs to the metaphorical table. All too often, I let important areas like sleep, working out, and proper nutrition slide by the wayside to make room for what was essentially just an excuse for not doing what really needed to be done. As a result, while I was putting in the hours, all my energy was consumed by juggling the numerous projects I had as a freelancer and content creator.
Though the various projects I was involved with undoubtedly brought some good into the world, it became clear that what got me here just wasn’t going to take me there. The problem? I was already working upwards of 14–16 hours a day when you account for client meetings, traveling to new destinations, writing articles for this blog, checking ad accounts, and more. To have a greater impact for the benefit of Japan, I would need to produce 10x more output — but I was already capping out on the time I could allocate while still getting a few hours of sleep. The only answer was to create space via the subtraction of the things that didn’t matter much a la the Pareto principle (or “80/20 rule”).
Honestly, I am still putting the pieces together. I know I need to claw back a few hours for self-care, as not being perpetually exhausted is crucial if I’m to get more out of less time. I need to stop wearing my workaholism as a badge of honor and consistently implement the knowledge I have around health and fitness — knowledge that often fell by the wayside as I tried to balance 101 things with work. Likewise, I need to focus more of my time on the few things that truly matter rather than majoring in the minors and minoring in the majors. Still, none of this is a concrete goal — it’s clear I need something else to serve as my north star.
The Whispers of Inari
Back during the pandemic, I sat all alone atop the heights of Mt. Inari one night, with only the myriad of torii gates to keep me company. The city of Kyoto sprawled far below, uncharacteristically quiet and devoid of tourists due to Covid-19, as if the world itself had paused to breathe. As I gazed out over the tranquil scene, the stillness was suddenly broken by a voice: “Become worthy of the Japan you so cherish.” Was it a figment of my imagination — or worse, my insanity? The deity Inari speaking to me? Or perhaps just the echo of my own inner thoughts, finally surfacing in the silence? I guess I’ll never know, but the words have stuck with me ever since that evening atop Mt. Inari.
In Mikkyo, or Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, there is a belief that one can escape the karmic cycle of life and rebirth in just a single lifetime if they devote themselves fully to spiritual training. Since that encounter deep within Fushimi Inari Taisha that night, the thought that maybe — just maybe — I could feel worthy of Japan has lingered in the back of my mind. For ages, I’ve felt that Japan and its people are so wonderful that none of us truly deserve it amazingness. However, if I gave it my all and worked as hard as I possibly could across all areas of life, maybe — just maybe — I could one day leave this world with enough karma to feel worthy of Japan.
After that night, any thoughts of this were pushed to the mental back burner to make room for business — well, more like busyness. Between the deluge of inquiries I get from local governments to join their press tours (always through an agency — or three — in the middle), the performance marketing needs of my freelance clients, and my own content calendar, a roadmap to what “deserving Japan” even meant fell by the wayside. There was simply not enough stillness in my life to even get through my own to-do list, let alone ponder about what trajectory my life was on.
It wasn’t until I revisited Dr. Peter Attia’s bestselling book, Outlive, that the pieces started to come together on what the path forward might look like. In the book, he shares how he felt lost about where to take his exercise regimen after retiring from competitive long-distance swimming and cycling. Eventually, he devised what he calls the Centenarian Decathlon — essentially, a framework for training to be a kickass 100-year-old. According to Dr. Attia, focusing his mind on this specific goal allowed him to overcome the malaise he felt about exercise and rediscover the vigor he once had when exercising exclusively for competitive sports.
A New Dawn on a New Year
As I pondered Dr. Attia’s wisdom, I began to consider what aiming to become someone worthy of all Japan’s greatness might look like. Rather than maintaining a myopic focus on serving the country solely through my professional work, I realized I needed a more holistic approach — one that extended beyond just my own work. While I can draft a mean, SEO-optimized article, I’m no Chris Broad, and I knew I could never achieve that level of impact through content alone, especially with social media increasingly becoming a video-first medium. On top of that, I was already maxing out my energy and time.
The solution I need to nail going into my 39th year of life must perfectly pinpoint the overlapping areas of health and well-being, meaningful creation, and digital marketing mastery for customers that actually matter. To do this, I need to be far more adamant about prioritizing my own needs and saying no more often to projects that aren’t a HELL YES (something I am admittedly quite bad at). I need to make that person wait a bit so I can carve out time to go to the damn grocery store, ensuring I’m not left foraging for whatever food I can expediently grab while on the go. I need to make going to the gym a non-negotiable, no matter how “busy” I feel on a given day.
I don’t regret the past few years of nonstop work of the past few years nor the price I paid for it, but it’s clear that there are some things you just can’t force with grit. With the next milestones for me now so far down the line—think going from 150,000 followers on Instagram to 300,000 for any real subjective difference—progress is no longer its own form of motivation. To force the evolution that I’d need going into my 40s and beyond, I need to build a far stronger base such that I can support a much higher peak. Without that fortified foundation, I would forever be stuck as a one-legged table unable to take on more meaningful missions.
While I realize it’s going to take a lot of humility to work my way down from Mt. Workaholic, I also understand that the only way out is through. Rather than work my face off for Japan as I have in the past few years since becoming a full-time freelance marketer and content creator, I will need to work to become the type of guy who is worthy of Japan. Though this, of course, includes doing an amazing job for Japan, the focus is on being a certain kind of person — not on slaving away for a country. Because, at the end of the day, that type of thinking is only ever going to mire me in menial tasks and keep me from reaching my potential.
Until next time travelers…
