About Me — Just Emil

From ER to Thailand to Medium

There were multiple times in my life when I thought I had won the game.

After medical school, I started training as an anesthesiologist in one of the most competitive cities in the UK.

I left that to build an online business that saw me traveling around the world and making nearly $50,000 in a single month.

I got very good at ‘winning’ any game society threw at me, fulfilling the conditions set by that particular game.

Fitting into a template that society had laid out.

Checking the boxes I was being told to check.

The problem was that they weren’t MY games.

If asked whether I was happy, each time I would have replied with something like:

“Yeah, I suppose? No, yeah, for sure, I’m happy. Why do you ask?”

In reality, there was still a feeling that *this* wasn’t it.

A dissonance. An unease.

In my time playing the various games, I observed that most people don’t act on that feeling.

But through a dumb luck that I can’t define, I did end up taking action.

Something tipped me over the edge and after I took that initial step, I never looked back.

Here is my story.

🏥 2005–2014: The Doctor Game

I had a great career path, had bought a house, drove a shiny red BMW, and was dating a nurse.

I was fully on the conveyor belt of social conditioning and did everything society (and my family) said I should do.

I was winning by most measures…. apart from my own.

I couldn’t find any role models for happiness in this space and it didn’t feel like it would bring fulfillment so I took massive action, quit my medical career, and moved on.

I had no idea what I wanted but I was sure of what I didn’t want so I started by moving away from that as I explored and created space.

💪 2015–2017: The Fitness Influencer Game

This exploration took me into fitness.

I had a six-pack and did the Instagram thing.

I was winning bodybuilding competitions and had a supplement sponsor and fitness apparel company sending me free clothes.

Again, society validated me and my life looked great on Instagram.

I fed off this external validation but I was still hollow inside.

I was winning on paper, but this just wasn’t it.

However, I didn’t know what I didn’t know and just kept trucking. I’d already hit gold once, surely it couldn’t get any better?

Then, I had a random call from a guy who had heard about me through mutual friends.

He invited me to an event in Italy with a group of digital nomads.

The three days in Italy expanded my consciousness and shook me from my revelry for a second time.

The adventure was about to get even more crazy.

💰2018- 2021: The Digital Nomad Game

The ‘Italy Event’ was a small mastermind attended by 8 entrepreneurs from different areas.

At this point, I didn’t even know what an entrepreneur was.

I was making a few thousand dollars a month as a fitness coach and the fact that you could make serious money online was an alien concept.

After the three days, I was asked to join the host at another event in Spain and we would be driving there over the next 2 weeks across Europe.

I was terrified but I knew if I said no to this, I would be saying no to everything I wanted in life — even though I had no idea what that was…

Fast forward a few years and I had built a *real* online coaching business, put together a team, and went through the business milestones — $10k in a month, $20k in a month, $50k in a month.

Achievement unlocked.

I attended conferences and events all over the world. I spent months living in Bali, Phuket, and Playa del Carmen and set up my home base in Lisbon.

I was ‘free’ and I had a hot girlfriend who traveled with me.

I hit a 7-figure net worth and my old friends thought I was living the dream.

But again, I was going through the motions.

My self-worth was tied to success so I just kept beating that drum because I was good at it, society told me it was a good thing and again I didn’t know what else to do.

I had won again goddammit, why do I not feel any different?!

🔆 2022- Present: A Reflection On The Ultimate Game

At each stage, I had been following a template and doing my best.

When I felt the dissonance of misalignment, I drowned it out using cheap dopamine and external validation.

More money felt good until it didn’t.

I abused stimulants to push through the diminishing motivation.

Each time a lucky break coupled with naive action had catapulted me to the next level like an electron leaping from one orbit to another.

Perhaps I just needed to be more grateful. Perhaps this was a ‘me’ problem.

I had ‘won’. Perhaps I just needed to chill out.

But despite all the ‘wins’, they had one thing in common.

I wasn’t playing MY games.

This is where the real journey began.

I asked myself: What is my game? What do I want? Who am I?

I don’t claim to have the answers and I have not reached the destination but I have a map… or perhaps a compass.

I feel that I am moving in the right direction.

And the more I follow this current path, the more I realize that it’s about the path itself.

And the more that I accept this and settle into my skin to enjoy the ride.

Lessons & what am I doing now?

I love writing.

This is the hypothesis that I am currently evaluating.

I love the process and I love the personal development that comes with it.

My ongoing journey is essentially what I write about, as I figure out what the hell is going on as I put one faltering foot in front of the other.

I am experimenting with monetization. Money is important to some degree, right?

However, I am still unsure whether you can make money doing something you truly love or whether that inherently spoils the experience.

So, I’m open to creating highly leveraged income elsewhere.

It’s a continual exploration.

But the biggest difference right now is that I am at peace with the process.

I am doing what I want day to day.

I am not chasing an outcome or destination.

I have reached an age where I am less worried about what others think.

Maybe I’ll ‘succeed’, whatever that means.

But what I’ve come to realize is that the way to ‘win the game’ is just by playing.

And that is exactly what I’m doing.

Thanks for stopping by.

Follow my writing here on Medium or check out my newsletter experiment at www.justemil.com

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