Ever since I remember, I felt an extreme scarcity around money.

That trait led to a failure that unlocked my subconscious mind.

Let me tell you what happened.

The Moment Things Snapped Into Focus

I was on a real mentorship “sales” call — not practice, not planning. If I closed this client I’d blast way past my $1000 goal. This was it.

The person on the other end was smart. Driven. 5x more experienced than me as a software engineer, yet plagued with the exact same fear that trapped me for years.

About halfway through the call, I knew I could help them. To finally crystalize their dream and take real steps towards it after burying it under years of self-sabotage.

But when it came time to close?

I froze.

A deep guilt surfaced.

I felt wrong asking for money in exchange for helping someone. Disgusted, even.

I didn’t just lack sales skills.

I had a belief system that was subconsciously running my life.

How Money Was Secretly Running My Life

I grew up in a frugal household.

“Can I get this video game?” “We can’t afford it.”

“Can we go out to eat?” “Eating at home is cheaper.”

Money was an oppressive dictator.

Without even realizing it, I adopted an unconscious rule:

"If you chase or charge money, you're a bad person."

It twisted itself into decisions. My self-worth. My future. I attached my intrinsic value to the number on my payroll. I correlated the safety of my very existence, to my savings and investments.

Villainizing money made me feel righteous. Moreover, it let me hide from an even scarier fear:

“What if I tried to be rich… and failed?”

As a kid, that perception of lack made me want nothing more than to be rich. To retire my parents, to buy our family a big house, to fly first class. To buy all the video games and restaurant food I wanted.

When they asked me what I wanted to be, I said, “money manager”. They told me it was a real job title (it’s not). It just sounded rich.

Yet, I buried that desire for over a decade — fear disguised as virtue.

If money was evil, I didn’t have to test whether I could succeed. If money was evil, I could stay exactly where I was — safe, unseen, unchallenged.

Today, my parents are thankfully retired — but the boy who dreamed of helping them do it never made it in time.

How many dreams do you think fear has killed?

Why I Made the Job Offer System Free

After I launched my first product — the Job Offer System — and started getting real $99 sales...

At first I felt excitement.

Then I felt discomfort.

$517 in under a week from idea to launch.

I started sabotaging. Second-guessing. Feeling like I was "grifting" even though I knew the product will change people’s lives, if they truly were seeking said change.

Yet because of my money beliefs, something deep within me does not see working a job as freedom. It sees it as survival.

I’d gotten real feedback, real sales. But I wanted to prove to myself that I can make money on my own terms — not as a survival mechanism.

I wanted to build my personal brand on a foundation of my beliefs, no matter how irrational. I want to build my personal brand on me.

That's why I refunded everything and made it free.

The next step will be deeper — to stand behind what I offer without guilt. To trust that charging for real value isn’t manipulation. When I no longer feel shame, hesitation, or doubt in asking for what my work is worth…

That’s when I’ll know I’m free of the subconscious chains money has held over me.

What Almost Kept Me Stuck (And Might Be Keeping You Too)

If you're anything like me, you've probably felt the tension:

Wanting more. Feeling guilty for wanting more. Convincing yourself it's "virtuous" to stay stuck.

These thoughts get buried into our subconscious, and keep us running on the same treadmill that we’ve run our entire lives on.

Here's what I'm learning:

Money is just society’s way of denoting value.

Money wasn’t my enemy.

It was fear.

If you’ve ever wanted to make more — from your career, from your business, anything — there’s likely a part of you that believes you’re not valuable enough. You anchor yourself to a dollar amount so deeply woven into your identity, you can’t imagine breaking past it.

Let’s talk about how you can.

The 3 Pillars of Escape Velocity

Escape velocity is the velocity needed for a body to escape from a gravitational centre of attraction without undergoing any further acceleration.

Brittanica

1) Define the New, Destroy the Old

Define exactly what it is you want out of life — no censorship, no shame.

Then the harder part: *accept it*. Acceptance begins to burn the old self — the one who believed they weren’t capable, deserving, or ready.

Without brutal honesty about what you actually want, you stay stuck orbiting a life you no longer want to live.

2) Build the New

Once you accept your vision, you won’t know exactly how to get there.

You’re not supposed to. You pick a direction and go anyway.

You stumble, you fumble, you keep getting back up.

You begin to realize your old limiting beliefs are crumbling.

3) Accelerate Until Free

Once you find your footing you’ll find you built a system. You’re running now.

Small wins stack into momentum.

Momentum compounds into belief.

Belief compounds into identity.

You don’t just “do” anymore — you become.

You run for weeks, months, years.

Until one day, you look around and realize your old self is just a distant memory.

A Real Example: How I Got My Job at Google

At my first job I was making $90k — already very good money. Then I found out through levels.fyi that new grads at Google, Facebook, and Amazon making double that.

…That’s possible?

Not for me, I thought. I’m not worth that much. I’m not smart enough.

But deep down, I wanted it.

Here’s how the 3 pillars played out:

Define the New, Destroy the Old: I admitted I wanted to make more money. I admitted I wanted to have prestige and adulation of my friends and family. But doesn’t that make me vain? I could either accept truth or be “virtuous” and live a lie. I accepted truth.

Build the New: I studied nights and weekends. I could barely solve Easy problems on LeetCode. I practiced coding interviews alone in my parents’s basement. I got rejected from dozens of companies. I failed my first interview spectacularly. I kept going.

Accelerate Until Free: After several months of consistent action, coding, behavioral prep, applications, mock interviews, I landed 5 job offers — including Google.

The hardest part wasn’t cracking the interviews. It was spending 1.5 years mustering up the courage to accept my desires and give myself a chance.

I have the same brain as back then. The same soul. But my beliefs are different.

This year, I was set to make over $300K at Google — as the same person who once accepted $90K without question.

We don’t just fear failure. We fear what it means if we succeed. That the reality we once knew, was never the truth after all.

Capping Off the First Half of 50 Days to $1K

We’re officially over halfway through the 50 Days to $1K challenge.

To recap what’s happened:

• I bet on myself — leaving Google.
• Built an audience from scratch:
  • 18k on instagram
  • 4k on threads
  • 500 on YouTube
  • 700 here in this newsletter — hello!
• Made over $500 from the Job Offer System and refunded it all.
• Posted every single day for 4 weeks — as a lifelong introvert!

Now? I’m all-in on building this brand around escape velocity. To hit $1K, I’ll be going full-time into signal-gathering mode. No certainty. No guarantees. Just relentless movement forward.

Closing Word

This newsletter marks a transition to how I will be writing going forward.

If you’ve been here from the start, thank you for following this journey. You’ve seen so many twists and turns along the way.

For all new readers, welcome aboard. I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring this learning on money from my journey and exploring my past with me.

I will continue to extract valuable lessons to make these newsletters valuable to you for your own journey to escape velocity.

Closing out week 4 here, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the week.

Talk soon, Jim

P.S. If you're job hunting and want a tactical playbook to get paid six figures, the Job Offer System is now completely free: 👉 Get it here.

Use it. Share it. Get paid what you’re worth.