Tuesday. 10:18 PM.
Deep in it.
The MacBook glowing white against the red ambient light bleeding from the island
the kind of silence that means something's actually getting built .
Courten playing low
London sitting thirteen floors beneath me doing its thing
not asking for my attention, not getting it.
Aj's door opens.
I don't look up immediately.
I finish the sentence I'm writing.
Close the laptop.
He came out in an essentials set
chain catching the red light off the island,
rubbing his face like he'd been in his room doing nothing useful for two hours and had finally accepted it.
"What you on," he said.
"Working."
"You're always working."
That's just observation.
He sat on the sofa, leaned back,
city spread out black and glittering behind the glass.
I switched from courten to kidwild.
The island light from red to purple.
Sat on the other end of the sofa.
We started talking.
About london girls.
Specific ones.
The kind of conversation where two people who know each other completely enough to say things without having to explain the context first.
AJ was talking,
I was half-listening, and somewhere in the middle of it the thought arrived like it always does, not dramatic just quiet and certain:
Then he said McDonald's.
I said yeah before he finished the sentence.
Called Darius downstairs — concierge turned friend — told him to bring Aj's Cla round front.
We took the elevator down, walked through the lobby, the automatic doors opened and London hit.
Crisp.
That specific cold that just means the city's awake.
Cla waiting.
Aj drove.
Both of us in matching chrome hearts and essentials sets, all-black, neither of us planned it.
I didn't say anything.
He clocked it at the same time.
We just moved.
He pulled out into the city.
Kidwild picked back up through the speakers the wide interactive dashboard alive with the track info.
And then Siri cut in:
"£5.4k VHS client call tomorrow. Are you ready, AJ?"
I heard it.
Let it sit for a second.
Then I repeated it back in her voice, as flat and robotic as I could make it:
"Are you ready, AJ?"
Cla stopped at a red light.
Aj punched me in the arm.
I’m laughing hard now not because it hurt, because of the embarrassment behind it.
That's the tell.
He was already smiling.
"Shut up. I'm always ready.
Just have to set reminders sometimes, you know?"
Light went green.
Aj wizzes off.
Kidwild “Indecisive” blurring loud enough the asian couple on the sidewalk’s eyes start to ovulate.
I'm looking out the window now.
East London moving past.
Same streets.
Different angle.
And I keep thinking about how we actually got here.
Because it wasn't talent.
And it genuinely wasn't luck.
I tried everything to get here.
Everything.
The only thing that actually moved the needle was something nobody around me was telling me I needed:
EGO.
and SELFISHNESS.
You HAVE to have a fucking ego, g.
Not the kind that makes you stupid.
the kind that makes you Immovable.
My ego was so high after I got my paper method resuIts I did not believe I could fail at this business model.
This is not arrogance.
This is the only internal state that survives the external pressure that comes when you're building something nobody around you has ever built.
Because the doubt will always be there as you build.
It's whether you choose to act on it that counts.
Even before I was making decent money my mother said she believed in me.
But she didn't believe in what I wanted to do.
So indirectly, she didn't believe in me.
She just didn't know that.
Aj didn't even believe in the copywriting business model at first either,
even after he'd done the Paper Method.
The person I'm closest to on this earth in the same flat and he couldn't fully see it.
That's the reality nobody prepares you for.
It's not enemies that test the vision.
IT’S THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU.
So you have to own it privately.
OWN your dream.
OWN your vision.
Hold it somewhere they can't reach until YOUR evidence makes the argument for you.
Your vision was put in your head, not anyone else's.
you have to be selfish.
If you believe in God and I do completely then everything already exists.
The rich version of you,
the homeless version of you.
Every possible version.
Already exists.
The only question is which one you're walking toward daily with your decisions, your beliefs, the internal conversation you're having when nobody can hear it.
The word “NO” does not even enter my consciousness when it comes to my drive and my ambition.
Not for a second. I can’t let it.
Not because I'm not human.
Because I decided:
a private decision protected from every person who would've softened it down to something manageable.
YOUniverse. Not Universe.
It's your world.
That shift alone changed everything for me.
CLA pulls into the Limehouse drive-through.
Aj's got the window down, order on lock, already talking to the speaker.
Aj's always ready.
He just sets reminders sometimes.
“An Ambitious, Hyper-Pragmatic Builder”
I look at the chocolate rolex catching the light off the drive-through sign off my wrist.
The maddest part is:
I'm still building.
I'm still scaling.
This is just the start of the empire.
Sixteen year old me would be proud.
And lowkey terrified.
Do MORE say LESS
— Tai
