we were cutting the cake at my med school graduation party when i had an absurd thought.
”i can’t wait until i retire”.
i was 25 years old. had just matched into the #3 hospital in the country for OBGYN.
my career was just starting.
but i felt like a junkyard car on a conveyor belt heading towards a trash compactor.
my life was moving towards certain doom
and there was nothing i could do about it.
while this is admittedly an EXTREME scenario (i’m a scorpio- i always occupy the intense end of the feeling spectrum), most people are living out some version of this.
spending their days doing things they don’t want to do
to pay the bills
while holding their breath until retirement
most people call this “being a responsible adult”
i call it “chasing income”.
fast forward 18 months into the future. i’m in year 2 of residency. spiraling towards a rock bottom.
after some super emo-girl googling
I found a website “the happy MD"
and book a free discovery call with a burnout coach.
she did the whole “magic wand” line of questioning
”if you could have anything you want for your career… what would it look like?”
ooh this is fun!
i started describing my ideal day. my ideal career. working from a laptop at a cafe.
the vision was still blurry
but it was the first time i entertained the idea that…. i could have a career doing things I enjoyed.
the door of possibility cracked open.
and i halfhazardly catapulted through it.
fast forward to 2026, and i’m 7 years in to traveling the world full time.
5 years in to running a 6 figure coaching business.
i was on linked in recently, and some guy named jeff- popped into my inbox.
he said something like: “do you know your retirement number? lets book a call and find out”
and then he sent me a completely unsolicited calendar link. ewww(side note-can we make a pact to NEVER send links to people without their permission. it is the absolute worst)
and my response to him was… iconic (minus the typo)
the idea of finding your “retirement number” is so strange to me. i’m not diminishing the importance of stacking the cash. (i hate the word savings- i call it my future spending account) having a nest egg. a cushion. whatever you call it.
but if you need a number on a spreadsheet to give you permission to live your life… you’re in for a hefty dose of misery and regret.
that’s the inherent problem with this whole set up
we spend our lives postponing freedom while trying to earn the conditions that will finally set us free.
but as long as you are chasing income
you’ll never catch freedom.
we think we need to choose between
being responsible OR enjoying our life
making good money OR helping people
having a successful career OR having a rich personal life.
but these are false dichotomies.
aka choices that appear to be either/or because they are based on an erroneous premise that limits your options.
por ejemplo
erroneous premise: the only way to make more money is by working more hours.
false dichotomy: more money OR more free time.
but when you learn how to CREATE income instead of CHASING income, you exit the world of false dichotomies.
you no longer need to choose between
work that pays the bills OR work that fills your soul
making good money OR helping people
enjoying your life OR having a successful career
when you stop chasing income
and start creating income
you move from either/or to YES/and
because when you become the Source of your own income
something WILD happens….
the path to internal fullfilment and external success converges.
I used to aspire to the Grey’s Anatomy model of success.
i.e. the dark and twisty kind.
where you throw yourself into your career,
collect the accolades,
climb the ladders,
while your personal life crumbles
and you feel empty enough inside to stick your hand in a chest cavity with a ticking bomb.
who needs internal fulfillment?
i choose external success.
but as I soon found out… dark and twisty success
is much less glamorous in real life.
towards the end of intern year, my motivation to keep pushing toward external success was quickly fading. (along with my sleep score and HRV)
we had a meeting with all the interns to prep for second year.
and I asked my program director a question:
“it seems like all the 2nd years are really angry and salty all the time. why is that?”
the underlying concern…
is that going to be me?
my program director, with brutal honesty, said:
“the second years are working too hard and stretched too thin. it’s hard to be your best self under those circumstances.”
wow.
looking back, I deeply admire her for this response. zero gaslighting. precise, direct communication.
and… in that moment, I had a different reaction.
a sinking feeling.
the words BEST SELF highlighted in my mind’s eye.
ohhh, that’s not going to work for me.
I want to be my best self, I realized.
in fact… that’s like ALL I want.
I don’t want to keep chasing external success
while slowly morphing into a stressed-out, sleep-deprived zombie that I don’t recognize.
because external success without internal fulfillment
felt disorienting. hollow. and kind of… pointless?
Tony Robbins talks about why this is (and I’m paraphrasing because I can’t find the exact quote):
“the purpose of the goal is not to achieve the goal. achieving goals will never make you happy. the purpose of the goal is who you become in the process of achieving it. who you become has the power to make you either very happy or very sad.”
external success is the tangible markers of success.
the income. the awards. the titles. the promotions. the publications. the follower count. the money you’ve raised for a cause. the people you’ve helped.
and internal fulfillment comes from your lived experience.
it’s the moment-to-moment joy. the feeling of satisfaction at the end of the day. looking forward to the week ahead. being energized by a conversation. jazzed up about a new project.
it’s feeling PROUD of the person you are becoming and how you are growing as you work toward your goals.
and although I didn’t have this framework at the time, when I left medicine, I was VERY clear that I needed to do entrepreneurship differently.
the goal was NOT to build a 6-figure business by any means necessary.
the goal was to ENJOY THE JOURNEY.
the goal was to fall in love with who I’m becoming and the life I’m building along the way.
which is what I did.
I’ve created external success:
generated almost $500k in revenue
built a community of 15k+ members across social media channels
helped 100s of clients inside my coaching programs
published a best-selling book
while maxxing out on internal fulfillment:
traveling the world full-time for 7 years
laughing on Zoom calls with my clients
having epic bucket-list experiences
finding a community of friends to do life with
becoming someone who is brave, sober, emotionally intelligent, and resilient AF
I know it sounds like a “too good to be true” situation.
but it’s not.
I decided a few years ago that I’m unsubscribing from the “too good to be true” idea.
I decided…
if it’s too good, it MUST be true.
too good to be true is my baseline.
too good to be true is what happens when you stop chasing income and start creating income.
because that’s when the paths of external success and internal fulfillment converge.
so if external success and internal fulfillment can exist on the same path…
why do so many of us experience them as competing priorities?
because most of us are taught to chase income.
chasing income: doing things you DON’T WANT TO DO, but believe you HAVE to do, in order to make money.
it looks like…
staying in a job that gives you the sunday scaries because you need the paycheck.
booking your calendar full of calls when you don’t like 1-1 work, because you think its the most lucrative thing to do
sending out a bunch of cold DMs that give yourself the ick-
posting content to make the algorithim happy
taking on clients you dread working with because you need the sale
basically, when you look at the things you’re doing to make money, how many of them are things you have to do rather than things you’ve chosen to do?
the extent to which you spend your days doing what you HAVE to do, instead of what you WANT to do… is the extent to which you are chasing income.
and the biggest problem with chasing income…. is not that we spend our time in unpleasant ways
(i mean- we aren’t such entitled whiny babies that we must spend every moment or every day in bliss and joy. )
no. the biggest problem is that chasing income is a scam.
because that path of chasing income will never bring us the freedom or fullfillment we are craving.
and in fact, it only ever moves us FURTHER away from what we truly desire.
because it convinces us we must sacrifice our desires now- in the hopes that we can buy ourselves the freedom to pursue them in a someday that may never arrive.
the path of chasing income is lined with…
depletion: you sacrifice your energy/capacity in service of making money.
dilution: you water down your desires in favor of being practical. you water down your expression and voice because you want to perform correctly for the cash.
distortion: you put on a mask. you shape shift. you contort. to become whoever you need to be to make money.
and of course, all the false dichotomies.
so how do we earn money without chasing it? how do we fill our bank accounts without draining our life force?
also… what is this crazy girl on the internet even talking about…??!!
yea… its alot right? ok stay with me.
if you want to get paid for your obsession.
if you want to do work that doesn’t feel like work
if you want a business they couldn’t pay you to quit (because its what you want to do all day anyways…)
you have to shift from chasing income to creating income.
i call this becoming the Source of your own income.
its realizing there are endless ways you can create value and receive money in exchange. because money always follows value. so whenever you create value (and can articulate that value to the right people)… you create an opportunity for income.
makes sense right?
once you really get this. you don’t have to treat money like its something outside of you that you have to chase down.
instead you focus on developing your ability to create and communicate value.
but knowing you can create income and actually operating like you are the Source of your income are two very different things.
because most of us have spent our entire lives learning to look OUTSIDE of ourselves for the answers.
we’ve learned to follow the rules.
do what works.
avoid failure.
seek approval.
choose the safe option.
wait for the external world to tell us whether we’re doing it right.
becoming the Source requires a completely different way of operating.
there are 3 shifts that have allowed me to build my business this way:
1. removing my inner thorns.
in his book the untethered soul- michael singer talks about “inner thorns”.
our sensitive spots. our childhood wounds. the stories of unworthiness. the fear of abandonment or rejection. the shame.
if we don’t know how to remove our inner thorns- we spend our whole lives trying to protect the thorn. trying to prevent anything from triggering our pain.
we procrastinate to avoid our fear of failure. because we can’t fail if we never start.
we people please to avoid our fear of rejection and end up resentful and depleted.
we avoid sharing our work on social media because we’re afraid to be seen.
instead of moving towards our big goals and dreams. we are moving away from our fears.
and our business is doomed from the start because we are playing not to lose.
but once you remove the inner thorns… you start playing to WIN.
2. cultivating inner leadership
building the business is the easy part.
building yourself is the real challenge.
its real out there. entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart.
you have to lead yourself through doubt, fear, uncertainty rejection, failure, impossible decisions, uncomfortable conversations.
you are in charge.
the buck stops with you.
and you can either start building you inner leadership now
or wait until the market chews you up and spits you out.
but what i know for sure: you cannot have sustainable success in business if your inner leadership is wobbly,
and vice versa… the more you grow your inner leadership skills the more unstoppable you become.
cultivating inner leadership is becoming the world class champion
3. understanding first principles
most business strategy teaches you the rules of someone else’s game.
first principles teach you the fundamental truths about how the game is played.
when you understand business at the level of first principles. you don’t need to blindly follow someone else’s strategy.
you can design the business around your strengths, desires, values and vision.
you find the game that YOU can win
and this is what I want for all of us.
I want us to stop building our lives around what we think we have to do to make money.
I want us to stop postponing our freedom until we hit some arbitrary number in a bank account.
I want us to stop assuming that success requires us to sacrifice our energy, our desires, our relationships, our creativity, our health, our aliveness.
because maybe the choice was never:
external success OR internal fulfillment.
maybe we were just playing the wrong game.
the year I left medicine, I got an ampersand tattooed on my body.
&
it was my reminder to stop making false choices.
to stop accepting either/or when there might be another option I hadn’t created yet.
and I think, without realizing it, I’ve spent the last 7 years building my entire life around that little symbol.
I want money AND freedom.
ambition AND aliveness.
meaning AND money.
a wildly successful business AND a life I don’t need to escape from.
I want to flourish AND contribute.
I want to become a force for GOOD AND have a fucking good time being alive.
I don’t want to spend my life trying to earn my way to freedom.
I want the way I build my life to make me free.
and that’s the invitation.
stop chasing income.
become the Source.
build a business that unlocks your freedom from the inside out.
The 'money as boss' pattern shows up even in people who've technically freed themselves from a paycheck — they just replaced the employer with a revenue target. The internal structure stays the same. Actual freedom tends to require a different relationship to the number, not just a bigger one.