you get only eight shots in life

By the end of this, you'll either feel terrified or liberated. Either way, you needed to read it.

I'm 33 years old, and I've burned through three of my eight shots.

That realization hit me this morning during a mentee session. He was telling me about a "quick money" opportunity he wanted to pursue.

Nothing wrong with quick money, but then we did the math.

Not just the financial ROI, but the time ROI.

The opportunity ROI.

The life ROI.

That's when I explained my theory: You only have eight real shots in your professional life to do something meaningful, to make a significant pivot, to build something that matters.

Eight. Not eighty. Not eighteen. Eight.

Here's the maths that most people never calculate:

You have roughly 40 years of professional life. Let's say you start at 20 and go until 60, though these numbers can shift depending on your circumstances. That's 40 years to work with.

Now, here's what nobody tells you: unlocking anything meaningful in life takes between 2 to 10 years. Not 3 months. Not 18 months.

Real transformation, real skill mastery, real business building, it requires years of sustained effort before you see results that compound.

So if we take the average, we're looking at about 5 years per meaningful pursuit.

40 years divided by 5 years equals 8 shots.

That's it. Eight opportunities to go all-in on something. Eight chances to make a real pivot. Eight shots to build something, master something, or become someone different.

And most people waste at least half of them chasing shiny objects, taking "safe" detours, or hedging their bets so aggressively that nothing ever compounds.

The Hidden Cost Of Every Diversion

Let me give you a framework I use when evaluating any new opportunity. I call it the Difficulty-ROI Matrix.

• Zero represents the easiest mode, where your neighbor would buy what you're selling without hesitation.
• Ten represents the hardest mode, where you'd need to learn an entirely new skill set from scratch.

Anything that ranks above a 5 on difficulty better deliver a massive ROI, or it's stealing time from your main shot.

Because here's what people don't account for: every hour, every ounce of mental energy, every bit of focus you divert away from your primary pursuit compounds into opportunity cost.

You're not just losing the time you spend on the distraction. You're losing the momentum, the skill development, the network effects, and the compounding returns you would have gained by staying focused on your main shot.

This is why I pushed back on my mentee. Not because the quick money was inherently wrong, but because at a difficulty level of 7, with moderate financial returns, it would pull him away from the business he's been building for the past 12 months.

It would reset his momentum. It would fragment his identity. It would burn part of a shot he hasn't even fully taken yet.

My Three Shots (So Far)

Let me walk you through my own trajectory so you can see how this plays out in practice.

Shot One: Professional Bodybuilding & Wellness Startup In China (Age 23-26)

This was my first real shot. I moved to China with barely any plan and decided I was going to compete as a professional bodybuilder while building a chain of 24-hour gyms. People thought I was insane. Maybe I was.

I competed in amateur Olympia as a men's physique athlete and placed 10th. Not bad for someone who started from zero. Simultaneously, I scaled the wellness startup from nothing to 7 locations across China. I was living in Beijing, training twice a day, managing operations, dealing with Chinese landlords, navigating regulatory nightmares, and learning Mandarin on the fly.

It was chaos. It was exhausting. But I learned more in those four years than most people learn in a decade. I learned how to sell, how to manage teams, how to operate in complete ambiguity, and how to push my body and mind past limits I didn't know existed.

That shot gave me an entirely new identity. I stopped being the person who "might do something someday" and became the person who moves to foreign countries, builds things from scratch, and competes at high levels.

Shot Two: MBA At A Top 5 & Growth Operator At A German Scaleup (Age 27-30)

After burning out in China, I took my second shot. I wanted to see what the corporate world looked like from the inside, and I wanted credentials from a top-tier institution. So I got into IESE, a top-five global business school, and immediately after joined a German Scaleup as a growth operator.

I took them from a $40 million Series B to a $200 million Series C. My role was to ensure that the systems didn't break when they doubled their headcount. I was building playbooks, optimizing processes, managing cross-functional teams, and learning how scale actually works when you have capital and structure behind you.

This shot taught me how to think systematically, how to communicate in corporate environments, and how to operate at scale. It was the opposite of my China experience, which was scrappy and chaotic. This was structured, strategic, and political in all the ways startups aren't.

But more importantly, it taught me what I didn't want. I realized I never wanted to work in corporate environments long-term. I needed ownership. I needed speed. I needed to build things that could move fast without layers of bureaucracy.

Shot Three: AI Apps At The Intersection Of Consumer Tech (Age 30-now)

This is where I am now. I'm deep in the AI industry, building apps at the intersection of AI and consumer behavior. I've built Flamme, a relationship app, leveled up at Stanford and recently launched a digital product that generated strong initial sales.

This shot is different from the first two. I have more experience, more capital, more network, and more clarity about what I'm building and why. But the principles are the same. I'm going all-in. I'm not hedging. I'm not taking random side projects that rank above a 5 on difficulty unless they directly feed into this main pursuit.

And I'm treating this like the precious resource it is, because I know I only have five more shots left after this one.

Why Most People Waste Their Shots

Most people never think this way. They drift from opportunity to opportunity, never committing long enough for anything to compound. They take jobs they hate because it's "safe." They start side projects they abandon after six months. They pursue hobbies that never become skills. They stay in relationships that drain them. They move cities without intention.

And then they wake up at 45, wondering why nothing ever worked out, why they never built anything meaningful, why they feel stuck.

The answer is simple: they never took a real shot.

They hedged. They diversified. They played it safe. They optimized for short-term comfort instead of long-term transformation.

And here's the thing: hedging doesn't reduce risk. It just guarantees mediocrity.

Because real results, real transformation, real mastery, it only comes from sustained focus over years. You can't build a billion-dollar company in 18 months. You can't become a world-class athlete in 6 months. You can't master a skill set in 3 months.

You need years. And if you keep switching every 6 to 12 months, you'll never accumulate the compounding returns that come from staying the course.

The ROI Of A Shot

Let's talk about what a successful shot looks like.

A successful shot doesn't mean you make $10 million or become famous. That's outcome-focused thinking, and outcomes are largely out of your control.

A successful shot means you fundamentally changed who you are. You developed new skills, new perspectives, new networks, and new identities that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

My bodybuilding shot didn't make me rich. But it gave me discipline, resilience, and confidence that carried into every subsequent shot. My corporate shot didn't make me passionate about corporate life. But it gave me systems thinking, operational rigor, and credibility that I use every single day in my business now.

Every shot compounds into the next one, if you take it seriously.

But if you treat your shots like lottery tickets, chasing quick wins and bailing when things get hard, you'll end up with nothing. No skills. No network. No identity. Just a resume full of half-finished projects and excuses about why things didn't work out.

The Five-Year Commitment

Here's the hard truth: if you're not willing to commit at least five years to something, you're not taking a real shot.

Five years is the minimum time required to go from novice to competent in most domains. It's the minimum time required to build a business that has real traction. It's the minimum time required to develop a reputation in an industry.

Anything less than that, you're just dabbling.

And dabbling is fine for hobbies. But if you want to build a life that matters, if you want to achieve something meaningful, you need to stop dabbling and start committing.

This doesn't mean you can't pivot within a domain. You can. In fact, you should. But the domain itself, the core pursuit, needs to stay consistent long enough for compounding to kick in.

For example, in my current shot, I'm building AI consumer apps. That's the domain. But within that domain, I've pivoted multiple times. I started with Flamme, then launched a playbook, now I'm moving into marketing funnels. These are iterations within the same shot, not entirely new shots.

That's how you compound. You stay in the domain long enough to build expertise, reputation, and network effects, while iterating on the specific tactics and business models within that domain.

The Opportunity Cost Framework

Every time you consider a new opportunity, you need to run it through this filter:

• Does this opportunity rank above a 5 on difficulty?
• If yes, is the ROI massive enough to justify pulling focus from my main shot?

If no, then it's a distraction, and you need to say no.

This sounds simple, but it's incredibly hard in practice. Because most opportunities sound good in the moment. They promise quick money, new skills, interesting experiences. But if they don't feed into your main shot, they're stealing from it.

And over time, those stolen hours, days, weeks, they add up. They compound into years of lost momentum. They turn your eight shots into four mediocre attempts and a lot of regrets.

The Fear That Keeps You Hedging

The reason most people hedge is fear.

Fear that they'll pick the wrong thing. Fear that they'll waste years on something that doesn't work out. Fear that they'll look foolish if they go all-in and fail.

But here's what they don't realize: hedging guarantees failure.

Because you can't achieve anything meaningful without going all-in. You can't build a successful business while keeping one foot in your corporate job "just in case." You can't master a craft while dabbling in five other hobbies. You can't become world-class at anything without making it your sole focus for years.

The irony is that the people who are most afraid of wasting their shots are the ones who waste the most of them by never fully committing to any of them.

How To Choose Your Next Shot

If you're reading this and you're not currently in the middle of a shot, or you realize you've been wasting your shots on things that don't matter, here's how to choose your next one:

First, ask yourself: What do I want to be capable of in five years that I'm not capable of now?

Not what do you want to have. Not what do you want others to think of you. What do you want to be capable of?

Because capability is the only thing you can actually control. And capability compounds over time.

Second, ask yourself: What domain can I stay committed to for at least five years, even when it's hard?

This is crucial. You need to pick something that has enough depth and variety that you won't get bored, but enough focus that you can actually build expertise.

Third, ask yourself: What would I regret not attempting?

This is the anti-vision filter. What would haunt you at 60 if you never tried it? That's usually a good signal for what your next shot should be.

The Five Shots You Have Left

If you're in your thirties like me, you've probably used 2-3 shots already. That means you have 5-6 left.

If you're in your twenties, you might have 6-7 shots remaining.

If you're in your forties, you might have 3-4 shots left.

And if you're in your fifties, you might only have 1-2 real shots remaining.

This isn't meant to be depressing. It's meant to be clarifying.

Because when you realize you only have a handful of shots left, you stop wasting them on things that don't matter. You stop hedging. You stop chasing shiny objects. You stop playing it safe.

You start taking real shots.

And that's when life gets interesting.

The Compounding Power Of Sequential Shots

Here's the beautiful thing about shots: they compound.

Every shot you take, if you take it seriously, makes the next shot more powerful.

My bodybuilding shot gave me discipline and resilience that carried into my corporate shot. My corporate shot gave me systems thinking and credibility that carried into my AI shot. My AI shot is giving me technical skills and consumer insights that will carry into whatever comes next.

Each shot builds on the previous one. Each shot expands your capabilities, your network, and your identity. Each shot opens doors that weren't available before.

But only if you actually take the shot. Only if you commit. Only if you go all-in for the full 2-10 years required to make it count.

If you bail early, if you hedge, if you dabble, you get none of the compounding. You just reset to zero and start over.

And that's how people waste all eight of their shots without ever building anything meaningful.

Stop Optimizing For Comfort

The biggest mistake I see people make is optimizing for comfort instead of growth.

They take the safe job. They stay in the comfortable city. They avoid the hard conversations. They pursue the easy opportunities.

And in doing so, they waste their shots on things that don't transform them.

Because transformation requires discomfort. It requires risk. It requires going all-in on something that might not work out.

But here's the thing: even if a shot doesn't work out the way you hoped, if you committed fully, you still gained the skills, the experience, and the identity shift that came from taking it.

My bodybuilding shot didn't make me a professional athlete. But it made me someone who can push through extreme discomfort and come out stronger on the other side.

My corporate shot didn't make me fall in love with corporate life. But it made me someone who understands how to scale systems and lead teams effectively.

Every shot has a return, even if it's not the return you expected.

But you only get that return if you actually take the shot.

The Question You Need To Ask Yourself

Here's the question I want you to sit with:

How many of your eight shots have you already used? And were they worth it?

If you've used 3-4 shots and you're not where you want to be, that's okay. You still have 4-5 left. But you need to stop wasting them.

If you've used 5-6 shots and you're still drifting, you're running out of time. You have 2-3 shots left. Make them count.

And if you're young and you haven't used any shots yet, congratulations. You have all eight shots ahead of you. Don't waste them by hedging, by playing it safe, by chasing quick wins that don't compound.

Take real shots. Go all-in. Commit for the full 5-10 years. Build something that matters. Become someone who's capable of things you're not capable of now.

Because at the end of your life, you won't regret the shots you took.

You'll only regret the ones you didn't.

So what's your next shot going to be?

- An