97 days.

That’s how long it took me to escape my soul-crushing reality:

• 2,000 miles from home
• sharing a house with 8 strangers
• working a 9-to-5 that allowed me to see my family just two weeks a year.

Every night was the same pattern: scrolling through success stories, consuming business strategies, feeling like I was making progress by knowing more stuff.

But here’s the brutal truth:

95% of people never transform their knowledge into results.

They collect information without implementation. They wait for perfect conditions that never arrive. They tell everyone about their goals while doing nothing to achieve them.

They live in these comfortable fantasy bubbles, completely unaware they’re trapped.

What separates the 5% who consistently turn ideas into tangible outcomes isn’t intelligence, luck, or even hard work. It’s something far more fundamental. Something I discovered during those 97 days that transformed my life.

The answer might make you uncomfortable. But that discomfort is precisely the point.

The Fantasy Bubbles We Live In

Most people are living in fantasy bubbles they don’t realize exist.

• The “someday bubble” where we keep pushing action into this mythical future that never arrives.
• The “knowledge is enough bubble” where we trick ourselves into thinking that understanding something is the same as doing something.
• The “it should be easier bubble” where we abandon ship the moment things get difficult, convincing ourselves that if it’s hard, we must be doing something wrong.

But the most insidious one… the bubble that kept me stuck for 3 years… is the “traditional career path bubble.” This bizarre fantasy where we trade 40 years of our prime working for someone else, doing something we hate, so we can start enjoying life at 65.

I had a friend who wanted to become a sports teacher. Loved sports, wanted to teach kids. But he was stuck in this narrow vision where the only way to do that was through the traditional system. It never occurred to him that he could teach thousands of people online, build his own platform, create his own reality.

Here’s what nobody talks about: these bubbles feel safe. They’re comfortable. They protect us from rejection, from failure, from the harsh realities of putting ourselves out there.

But that comfort is what keeps us trapped.

When I was stuck in that house with strangers, thousands of miles from home, the turning point wasn’t finding some magical business strategy or secret technique.

It was pain. Deep, soul-crushing pain.

Every morning I woke up in that house, sharing a bathroom with people I barely knew, missing my family, feeling my life slipping away… it created this urgency that nothing else could.

I realized I couldn’t afford to live in fantasy bubbles anymore.

Reality was too painful.

And that’s the first uncomfortable truth: Without either deep pain or deep purpose, most people will never escape their fantasy bubbles.

They’ll never become results-makers.

The Identity Shift That Changes Everything

“So what happened during those 97 days?”

“How did you go from sharing a bathroom with strangers to matching your 9-5 income and getting back home?”

It started with an identity shift.

I used to have this ‘consumer’ identity. I’d read books, watch videos, take courses. I consumed knowledge like it was entertainment. I was the guy who could sound smart at parties because I knew stuff.

But I wasn’t creating anything real.

The breakthrough came when I stopped saying ‘I have to create’ and started saying ‘I create.’ I am a creator. Not someone who aspires to create. Someone who actually creates.

There’s this thing about identity. When your actions don’t match your identity, you feel this uncomfortable tension. So either you change your actions to match your identity, or you change your identity to match your actions.

Most people do the second one without realizing it. They start with ‘I’m going to build a business’ but when they don’t take action, they shift to ‘I guess I’m not an entrepreneur.’

But results-makers do the opposite. They plant their flag in the new identity and then force their actions to catch up.

I used to believe the game of business isn’t for everyone. That other people are just talented or special. But that’s wrong. Nobody is born knowing how to do business. They learn, they try, they practice, they adapt, they achieve. It’s a simple formula to become good at anything in life.

I had to switch from victim mentality, ‘I’m not born for this’, to a results-maker mentality: ‘If they can do it, I can do it, I just have to be willing to put in the reps.’

“But isn’t it kind of… delusional? To just decide you’re something you’re not yet?”

Absolutely it’s delusional! That’s the point.

Delusional thinkers succeed because they believe what the 99% don’t… that no matter where you’re born or who you are, you can achieve great things if you find the right knowledge and implement it consistently.

The Results-Maker’s 10-Step Framework

This identity shift was crucial, but it was just the beginning.

Over those 97 days, I developed what I now call the Results-Maker’s Framework.

10 specific steps that transformed me from a dreamer to a doer.

1) Make that identity shift – From consumer to creator. From aspiring to being.

2) Set directional goals – Not vague wishes, but actual direction. Maintain a high-level understanding of what you’re working toward and why. Break big visions into 30-day goals, weekly targets, and daily levers.

3) Stop telling people your goals – When you tell someone your goal before achieving it, your unconscious mind experiences a cheap dopamine hit similar to actually achieving it. Since our unconscious controls about 95% of our life, this tricks your brain into thinking you’ve already succeeded. The desire to take action fades.

4) Develop a serious work ethic and sacrifice comfort – In those 97 days, I had to say no to almost everything… parties, hanging out, even sleep sometimes. Not forever, but temporarily. Most people aren’t willing to be temporarily uncomfortable for permanent improvement.

5) Take personal responsibility – I used to wait for someone to help me or for the universe to magically send me customers. That fantasy nearly killed my business. The breakthrough came when I assumed that if I didn’t make something happen, no one else would.

6) Throw yourself into demanding situations – Military boot camps transform civilians into soldiers in weeks because they create circumstances that force rapid transformation. I created my own boot camp by starting my personal brand and forcing myself to have sales conversations right away. No waiting, no perfect preparation.

7) Surround yourself with exceptional people – I used to hang out with guys who gambled, partied, and smoked weed while talking about getting rich. The moment I connected with actual entrepreneurs, everything changed. Your environment shapes you more than you realize.

8) Cultivate a genuine desire to impact people – Don’t start a business to make money… that motivation fades when things get tough. Connect your work to a genuine desire to change something in the world. That provides motivation when comfort-seeking doesn’t.

9) Contemplate your mortality – We all have limited time. Remembering that sharpens your focus and eliminates procrastination like nothing else. When you truly realize you’re going to die someday, you stop wasting time on nonsense.

10) Start a business – Nothing, absolutely nothing, will challenge you or change you like building something from scratch and facing the marketplace. It’s the ultimate reality check and the ultimate growth accelerator.

The Failure Paradox

Another critical mindset shift: understanding that failure isn’t failure… it’s teaching.

Most people are terrified of failing. They see it as proof they’re not good enough.

But results-makers see failure differently. The faster you fail, the faster you analyze what didn’t work, the faster you adapt, the faster you succeed.

During those 97 days, I failed constantly. Terrible sales pitches. Awful content that nobody engaged with. Pricing strategies that flopped. But each failure taught me what didn’t work, and that was invaluable.

I started tracking my failures and what they taught me:

• This pitch failed because I focused too much on my services rather than their problems.
• This content piece failed because the hook wasn’t strong enough.
• This offer failed because I didn’t build enough value before presenting it.

The paradox is that failing faster accelerated my success.

The people who fail least often succeed the least, because they’re not getting enough feedback from reality.

High Leverage Vs. Low Leverage

One more thing.

Being a results-maker doesn’t mean being a workaholic. That’s another fantasy bubble. That success requires grinding 24/7.

What distinguishes real results-makers is their ability to tell the difference between low leverage and high leverage work.

As a solopreneur, I work maybe 4 hours a day now, but those hours are spent on the 20% of activities that produce 80% of results.

Creating content is high leverage. Creating the content yourself (coming up with ideas, editing, finding templates, structuring, writing) is low leverage. I outsource that to AI.

The mistake most people make is spending 80% of their time on low-leverage busywork that feels productive but doesn’t move the needle.

Real results-makers are ruthlessly focused on leverage.

Coming Full Circle: The Reality Behind Results

There’s something deeply liberating about becoming a results-maker.

When you’re living in those fantasy bubbles, there’s always this underlying anxiety. This sense that you’re not doing what you’re capable of. That you’re letting life slip by while you collect more information, wait for better conditions, or tell yourself comforting stories about ‘someday.’

But when you start creating real results… even small ones at first… reality responds. The marketplace gives you feedback. People engage with what you’ve made. Money shows up in your account.

And that feedback loop is intoxicating.

Remember how I said I matched my 9-5 income in 97 days? Day 1 wasn’t impressive. Day 30 wasn’t life-changing either. But by continuously implementing, learning from failure, and focusing on high-leverage activities, the results compounded.

Looking back, the transformation wasn’t just about the money or getting back home to my family (though that was huge). It was about who I became in the process. The fantasy bubbles popped, and I had to face reality daily. No more hiding in consumption.

That’s the final piece people miss. Becoming a results-maker isn’t just about getting better outcomes but about becoming a different person. Someone who instinctively implements rather than just consumes. Someone who faces reality rather than hiding from it.

I still have days where I fall back into old patterns. We all do. The difference is, I recognize those fantasy bubbles for what they are now. I can see when I’m slipping into ‘knowledge collection’ mode or telling myself ‘someday’ stories.

The question isn’t whether you can become a results-maker. Of course you can. The question is whether you’re willing to pop those comfortable fantasy bubbles and face reality (both its challenges and its rewards).

Because here’s what I know for sure: There’s nothing more satisfying than looking at something real you’ve created, something that exists in the world because you made it happen.

No amount of consumption, planning, or ‘someday’ thinking can compete with that feeling.

Your First Step: A 7-Day Reality Challenge

If this resonated with you at all, I have a challenge for you.

Not some vague suggestion to ‘take action’.

An actual specific challenge for the next 7 days.

For one week, commit to these three things:

1. Create something. Anything. Every single day. A piece of content, a product prototype, a sales pitch, a connection with a potential client. Something that exists in reality, not just in your mind.
2. Keep a ‘Failure Journal’ where you document what didn’t work and what it taught you. Aim for at least one meaningful failure every day. If you’re not failing, you’re playing too safe.
3. Identify one high-leverage activity in your business or career. Spend 90 minutes on that activity before doing anything else each day.

After 7 days, look back at what you’ve created, what you’ve learned from failure, and what results your high-leverage focus has generated.

The goal isn’t to transform your entire life in a week. The goal is to give you a taste of what it feels like to be a results-maker instead of a consumer. To start popping those fantasy bubbles and engaging with reality.

Most people will read this and think ‘That sounds good, I should do that someday.’

Results-makers will start today (right now actually).

So, which one are you going to be?

Thank you for reading!

J