I lived in a 10x10 office for 3 years, here’s what I LEARNED

I didn’t end up in a 10x10 office.
I put myself there.

And I stayed there for almost three years — not because I had no choice, but because I understood something most people spend their entire life avoiding:

Comfort is not a reward.
It’s a ceiling.

In this video, I break down what actually happened inside that room.

Not the surface-level hardship story.
Not the “look how much I sacrificed” angle.
This is the deeper story of how constraint shaped identity, how environment changes who you become, and why some of the most important decisions in your life will look irrational from the outside before they make sense from the inside.

Most people would hear a story like this and interpret it as desperation:

no kitchen
showering at the gym
sixteen-hour days
no separation between life and work

But that is not what this was.

This was a design choice.
A deliberate choice to stop protecting the version of me I already was… and to place myself inside an environment that demanded the person I was becoming.

In this video, I break down:
why I chose constraint over comfort
what living in a 10x10 office actually did to my mind
the daily loop that forced confrontation instead of distraction
how journaling my future self as present reality started changing my identity
why I wrote about San Diego years before I ever had a way to get there
why San Diego wasn’t the destination — it was the proof
why Miami was an identity decision first and a logistics decision second
why the acquisition and external results were not the real win
the deeper law underneath all of it: Environment → Identity → Reality

One of the deepest ideas in the script is that your environment is never neutral.

It is not just a place.
It is a daily instruction to your identity about who you are, what level you operate at, and what version of you is required to exist inside it.

This video is for:

founders
creators
entrepreneurs
anyone who feels too comfortable in an environment that no longer matches who they are becoming
anyone who knows the next version of them requires a different level of friction, pressure, and intention

Because the truth is:

Most people are choosing environments that protect who they already are… and then wondering why they can’t become who they’re trying to be.

And the final lesson of this story is simple:

That 10x10 room looked small from the outside.
But it was the biggest space I’ve ever grown in.

10x10 office, entrepreneur origin story, comfort is a ceiling, environment shapes identity, identity architecture, environment identity reality, future self journaling, personal transformation story, founder story, constraint vs comfort, self mastery, identity shift, origin story, creator journey, environment design, personal growth, clarity OS

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I lived in a 10x10 office for three years. Not because I had to. It's because I understood something that most people spend their entire life avoiding. That comfort is not a reward. It's a ceiling. And every day that goes by where you unknowingly optimize for it, where every decision that you make is about reducing friction and protecting what you've already built is one more day that you invest in staying exactly where you are. What I'm going to show you today is why the most important environmental decision that I ever made looked like the worst one from the outside. And the three moves underneath it that I've since mapped across every single identity shift that I've ever seen. Now, here's the thing. What I'm going to do is I'm going to write and draw out here two boxes. Okay. Here's box one. And then here's a slightly bigger box right here. Okay. Now, when most people hear this story, they take it in and they see it as a sacrifice story. Living in that 10x10 office where I had no kitchen, I had to go to the gym to shower, working 10 to 12 hour days. And you might be thinking that I did this because I had no choice. You see, that's not what happened. Because in any given moment, there are always two available positions. And we're going to fill these out here in a moment. But first, I want you to understand one of these two demands something from you. It requires a version of you that doesn't fully exist yet. And so it creates pressure, tension. And most people interpret that signal as a signal to move away. Now, this other one here, this one accommodates you. It's less demand, less exposure, and less friction. And most people are going to choose this one because it makes total sense. You have less tension, less friction, and it's a lot easier to navigate. But here's what nobody is talking about, and nobody's naming. The environment that you choose is not just a location, it's a daily instruction to your identity about who you are, what level you operate at, and what version of you is required to exist inside of it. You see, the room that I chose sent a specific signal to my identity every single morning, and it wasn't comfortable. Most people are choosing an environment that protects who they already are and wondering why they can't become who they're trying to be. And I mapped this exact pattern through many of the different entrepreneurs, founders, creators that I work with. And when I examined what exactly was holding the ceiling in place, the same structural reality kept showing up underneath all of it. They were trying to build a new identity from inside an environment that was designed to protect the current one. And what I saw across every single one of them, and what I personally experienced through living in that 10x10 office for three years, is the same mechanism that you don't grow into a new identity, you step into it by choosing an environment that requires it before you're certain that you're ready. And this is the origin of how I understand that. What I'm going to walk you through is the three moves that built it and what I've seen happen every time somebody applies the same logic. So here's what we're covering today. I'm gonna go ahead and mark this out in terms of the boxes. So this first one here, constraint. The second box here, comfort. Here's the thing with constraint and comfort. Obviously, here with comfort, there's a bigger box, there's a lot more to work with and navigate. And with constraint, it's a smaller box, right? So you don't have enough room to play with because you're gonna have tension, you're gonna have pressure. But ultimately, what I want you to understand here is that direction is a choice. Okay, you have a choice whether you want to stay in the comfort where it's nice and cozy, big room. It's like think of this as like a large or a king-size bed, okay, where you have a lot of room to work with, to play with, and you're very comfortable, it's very cozy, whatever it may be to make this king-size bed super nice and comfortable and cozy. Okay, now this constraint over here, think of this as like a twin bed, like a single-person bed, right? Super small, there's a lot of constraint, there's a lot of tension, pressure, it's uncomfortable. But ultimately, you have the choice to be in either one, okay? A choice, and so this choice determines whether you stay the same or you're able to elevate yourself by going through constraint, tension, pressure, and then being able to expand that box, okay? And for myself, I chose deliberately, precisely to be in constraint on purpose. Like, I want to build mental calysis, I want to be able to be in a situation where I wake up every morning and I'm completely uncomfortable. And where now I'm used to that, I'm used to being uncomfortable so that when I step into bigger decisions and make bigger moves, like my mind is conditioned to be under pressure, to be under tension, so that I can easily navigate that. So here's what we're covering: we're gonna go over my daily reality inside of that 10 by 10 office. Okay, I'm gonna walk you through that daily loop that I went through where I had no separation between life and work, where you remove every distraction and there's nowhere else to go. And the second thing we're gonna go over is the daily journal that I had. And this journal here is very important because I not only had daily journal of things that I'm grateful for, but most importantly, I was writing in the future tense, like I was already there, I already had the success, I already had the vision, the life already in reality right now, and what it's actually doing to your identity when you're writing future identity, future actions in the present tense, like you're already there experiencing it. And then finally, we're gonna go over the proof plus the move. Okay, so we're gonna cover both of these in terms of the proof that this works and then the move that shifted everything. You see, this is not a hustle story, it's not about working harder or suffering more, it's about understanding that the environment that you're in right now is sending your identity a daily signal, and that signal is either building the person that you're becoming or protecting the person that you already are. So let me tell you what the daily reality actually looked like. It was a very uncomfortable situation. I was in a 10 by 10 office, and it was an office building that I was staying in, and I had to be quiet after hours in terms of like after four or five, the rest of the businesses left, and I had to make sure that because the cleaners would come in and they would clean, and I had to be super quiet, so I didn't make a bunch of noise. And my daily routine was very simple. So I would get up in the morning, I would do my daily gratitude journal, and then from there I would walk to the gym, which was about a mile away, so that I could work out and I could take a shower, and then I would walk back to the office and get right to work. It was an entire loop that I was running every single day, seven days a week for three years. You see, I had no separation, so no separation. Because my life equaled work. So that was literally my entire life. I had no personal life, I didn't go out, I didn't party, I didn't talk to my family, I didn't talk to my friends, I was literally isolated, and I literally made it my mission to work and to figure out a way to become financially independent, to succeed, and so it was just the work and whatever was happening inside of me while I was doing the work. And here's what I learned very quickly when there are no distractions, isolation brings you into reflection, which then brings you into confrontation with yourself, with everything that's going on, and everything that's happened in your life, which then ultimately gives you strength. You face everything. This is the most powerful thing for me that I went through in this entire journey. I literally face myself, and I said, What is everything that I've gone through in my life? What does that tell me about who I am? About what I'm afraid of, about all my family who did this and said this to me, and all those people who you know told me this, and then I wasn't gonna succeed into anything, and I wasn't going to you know become that best version of me that I always envisioned of myself, right? I dealt with all of that and I faced it head on because there was nowhere else to go. It was just me alone, isolated, confronting everything. Like, why do I feel this way? Why do I think this way? What does all of these different events in my life tell me about who I am and why I've decided to be where I'm at? Right? So, all of that, just self-confrontation about let's just push everything away, surface level, and let's dig deep. Like, what's really going on here? And there's something that I want you to understand that's very important here, that you cannot hide from yourself when there's nowhere else to go. So for me, I decided intentionally to put myself in this 10 by 10 office and live in this very uncomfortable situation and living experience because I wanted to build up those mental calluses of understanding that if I'm in an uncomfortable position and I'm used to it, now when I start making big moves and really facing everything and start getting to that next version of me where it's going to require for me to make bigger decisions and to continue to be uncomfortable with my decisions, but that I know are going to lead me to better outcomes. I wanted to prepare myself mentally for that so that I can get used to it, so that when those new opportunities come, then I could be already used to making a decision and doing stuff that is uncomfortable. Like I've already been here before, I have a very strong, thick skin, right? Like I've already done the work so that when that opportunity arises and I need to make a tough decision that I know is uncomfortable, I'm already used to it. So it's not a problem for me. And so one of the most important things that I learned through that whole experience is that I learned how to shape my thinking, how to focus on having a positive mental attitude, no matter what, no matter my external environment, my situation, how I put myself in that position. That's why every single morning, even though I was in this tough position, I would still wake up and be grateful. I would have my gratitude ritual, I would write in my journal, and no matter the situation, I would always be positive because I knew that this was all temporary. Okay, so let's go to the journal. So for this future self written as present reality. Now, one of the things for me in my journal that I would always do is yes, I would write about what's going on in my life, how I'm processing it, what are the things that are going on, but most importantly, around six months in or so, I started to really focus in on my future version, like my future life. Like, this is how my life looks like, and then I'm writing in the sense of knowing that I'm already there. Okay, so I would write, I'm grateful and thankful that I'm living here, experiencing X and Y and Z, and that everything is great and amazing, and I'm thankful for having all of that. Like all of that, I was writing while still being in that 10 by 10 office in that uncomfortable scenario environment, right? So it was the belief and understanding that this was all temporary, and when I was writing about my future reality existing now, like in the present tense, I would write about how I was already in San Diego and experiencing the location that I wanted to be in because I was in the Seattle area where I grew up, and that's really all I knew. Like I just knew the Pacific Northwest, rain, cloudiness, cold, right? So I never really knew sunshine and beautiful weather and palm trees and all of that stuff, and so I would write in there, I'm grateful and thankful that I'm living in San Diego, experiencing the beautiful sunshine, walking around the beach and enjoying the beautiful views and the palm trees. Like all of that was written inside of that journal. Because you see, I wasn't writing what was, I was writing what would be. And what I understand now, looking back at the process, is that I was doing something very specific. Every time that I wrote the future self as present reality, I was giving my mind a new identity to organize around, not a goal to pursue, but an identity to operate from. You see, there's a difference between wishful thinking and identity architecture. So it's not about I want to be there someday, so let's go not. I want to be there someday, hoping, wishing and praying, but I'm already becoming the person who is there. Okay, very big difference here. Not someday, not hoping, wishing, and praying. I'm already becoming the person who's already there. You see, one creates longing and the other creates direction. So this is the longing, this is direction. Okay, you have an arrow, you have an actual direction that you're going, and that distinction is everything. Okay, so now let's go over the inflection point. So let me walk you through what was the actual inflection point. So let's write time plus preparation equals opportunity. Okay, so this is back when 2020 happened. So I'm sure you can imagine what happened, right? The entire world stopped, but everything digital and online accelerated. And for me, what I was doing around that time was that I was creating these different courses and I was selling them on various platforms. So I would upload my courses and then they would do all the marketing and advertising, and then they would give me a cut, and so that's how I was making money, so I was able to sustain myself because I had that revenue coming in from those courses, and then as soon as the 2020 hit, with the unfortunate situation that happened around the world that caused the world to essentially stop, everything changed for me because my sales started to accelerate because everybody was stuck at home, and so there was really nothing else to do but be online, watch movies, Netflix, right, Hulu, and educate yourself. So I got an influx of new core sales, and when that happened, I was completely ready. Like it was one of those things that happened to me. I can remember very vividly. I was in my car and I was like, Holy smokes, what's going on here? The world is about to shut down. Who knows what's gonna happen? And then as soon as they mentioned that people need to stay home and not go out and do stuff, I just started to see a huge shift in the sales, and I was like, Wow, this is amazing! Like, literally, everything that I had been hoping for, and that I had been journaling about, writing about, has come true because within that time frame I was able to make a move, but it's just like crazy to think about that. All that time that I was writing in my journal about my future self and I was gonna be living in San Diego, all of that, and I was already living in San Diego in my mind, and so when it happened, I was just like blown away, like wow, like I was literally prepared for exactly that to happen in terms of an opportunity to accelerate my sales so that I can make that extra income so that I can actually move to San Diego. And so, for this, what I want you to keep in mind here and fully understand is that preparation is not waiting, preparation equals becoming. Think about all that time that I spent in that 10x10 office facing myself, confronting myself, reflecting on everything in my life, and you know, going through all of that, and then building all those different courses and being able to see the future in my mind and writing it in my daily journal without fully knowing yet, like how exactly I was going to do all of this, like how me moving to San Diego was going to happen, and then 2020 came, the world stopped, my revenue increased, it went up significantly, okay, which allowed me to move to San Diego and experience everything that I was writing from my future self-like completely amazing. And so, preparation is the identity you build so that when the opportunity happens, you are ready. Okay, you're ready to take hold of this opportunity that happens to you, and you're like, wow, this has literally been in my destiny in the works without me even knowing. Because you see, it was like this whole entire gravitational pull, you know, maybe the whole 2020 thing, I'm sure it was the whole 2020 thing was going to happen, but maybe it was supposed to happen four years later or five years later. I think there's some actually information online you can research that it was actually not supposed to happen in 2020, it was supposed to happen down the road. The big thing for me is that I was building the identity and I was ready for this opportunity, and I took full advantage of it. Now, here's the twist of everything here for San Diego. So let me go with thought, put a line under this here. So thought goes into written or writing down, goes into believed, and then lived. And to give you some timelines here, so six months after the infection point, I actually moved to San Diego, and I didn't really know San Diego at all. I mean, I had gone one time a few years back just to visit for like a few days, and I stayed in an Airbnb, and I just kind of wanted to get away from where I previously lived in Seattle, and you know, not really knowing anything about San Diego, but I went there many years back for like a quick three or four days just to kind of see the place, but I didn't fully experience it, and I didn't know anybody, and so it was all brand new to me, and there's a moment that I can remember very vividly. So I was living in San Diego downtown, and there was this little park that you could walk to from downtown, and it was called Balboa Park. It's still there, it's still called Balboa Park, from what I understand, and so it's this big, huge park with different museums and Spanish architecture, like it was amazingly beautiful. They had this water fountain, they had this pond, they had these beautiful architecture, they had a little place inside in the middle where you could sit down and eat. Like it was just amazingly beautiful. And I remember arriving there and just seeing everything and just being in awe, and then raising my hands above my head and being like, Wow, I've actually made it. I'm here, and I felt this energy, this rush, this like ease of just like, wow, like I cannot believe I'm here. Like, obviously, I could believe it, but I was just like, it's just amazing to see and to experience. And I was just in awe. Like, it was just this weird, unique, amazingly beautiful. Scenario situation for me where I finally was able to be in my destination and experience everything that I had written three years prior. And so this chain is absolutely real and it's amazingly beautiful to see how it plays out. I thought about me wanting to live in San Diego. I wrote it. Okay. I live in San Diego. I'm grateful. I'm thankful that I'm here. I fully believed it. Like I didn't really know how it was going to happen. I just knew that if I maintain my frequency in terms of my mental positive attitude, and I believed in my ability to figure it out and to make it happen. And knowing that this is all just temporary, it goes into actual reality, and you realize it's always going to happen for you if you believe it and you hold your frequency, and you have always this is a big thing that I always talk about in a lot of my videos, and really all my videos, mental or just positive mental attitude. Okay, mental positive attitude, positive mental attitude, however you want to say it. Always, always having this type of attitude because it's going to allow you to have a very solid baseline and a frequency that is able to attract the things that you actually want, okay? Like this. Think about a baseline here, okay. Most people, a lot of people are like this. They spike up, down, like this. You want to be very even cue. Obviously, you're gonna have situations, you're human, you experience emotions, feelings, but you want to be small, small ups and downs, okay? So that you can maintain your positive mental attitude, which will maintain your frequency. Now, here's what nobody tells you about creating the reality that you actually want, that you actually designed. Because you see, for me, San Diego wasn't my ultimate destination, like it wasn't my final destination of where I was going to stay. I mean, it was beautiful and amazing compared to where I used to live in Seattle. However, it just wasn't the next level for me, it was simply the proof. Okay, where's the proof? Right here. It was simply arriving at San Diego and getting there was proof to me that this works, that manifesting my desires, my reality works by talking about my future self, getting uncomfortable situations, doing what you need to do, believing, okay, being prepared, becoming the identity. And so arrival is not the destination. And the way that I want you to think about this is that just because you create your reality, you create a desired reality that you actually want, that doesn't mean that that's going to be where you build your future, where you continue to build. Because for me, once I arrived there and I started to go even deeper into my future self-writing, right? Because I arrived at my designed and desired reality. But then once I got there, I'm like, okay, what's next? And then I started to write some more about my next future reality and future self. And the identity that I was operating from at that point needed a different environment, so it's about identity first, location second, and your identity. I talk about this in a lot of my other videos as well, and it's really around my whole entire philosophy and thinking architecture when it comes to your reality. Is that your identity is your operating system OS? Think of this as like Windows, iOS, Linux, so it's the main operating system, the root system that needs the device to run, and the device is you, the human experience, your body, your brain, everything. Okay. And then within this, there's other applications, but the root system, the operating system that runs everything, is your identity. Okay. So let's talk about my next destination. The next one was Miami. And you see, I'd never been there before. I didn't know anybody. I chose it before even visiting. And I did it because I understood something by then that I want you to sit with. You don't choose your environment based on your current identity. You choose it based on the one that you're building towards. Miami was an environment that would demand something from me, not accommodate where I was. So I made the move. And when I landed here, that's when I really started to change into that new version of me. And I started to really invest in myself. I started to learn about credit, about business acquisitions, about how to leverage the bank's capital so that I can acquire income-producing assets. And what followed was an acquisition of a seven-figure marketing agency using other people's money. And here's what I need you to understand about that was that the acquisition was not the win. Okay. So the acquisition was not the win. The acquisition was the result. And what produced this result was this environment. Goes into identity. Then goes into reality. This is what happened through this entire process, what gave me the result. I put myself in a very unique environment, which then caused my identity to change, to adapt, okay, which then created my reality. You see, when we look at this entire picture here, and we see this entire process, every move that I made from deciding to be in that 10x10 office, the daily journal that I kept, to move into San Diego, to then moving to Miami, the most important part here of all of that was that it was an identity decision first. I first decided with the identity. Okay, remember the root system here. Identity. So every decision that I made started with identity. This is who I am, this is who I want to be, this is who I'm becoming. It was all first an identity decision. Now I want to ask you something. Where in your life are you too comfortable? What environment are you in right now that is protecting who you currently are? Instead of demanding who you're becoming, and what would it look like to choose constraint? Not because you have to, but because you understand what it builds. The 10x10 office didn't look like a strategy because from the outside it looked like a struggle, but every person I've seen make a real identity shift. They all made some version of that same decision. They chose an environment that required the person they were becoming before they were certain they were the person. That 10x10 office looked super small from the outside, but it was the biggest space I've ever grown in.