The Industrial Revolution set the stage for the 40-hour work week, back when mass production became a thing.

After the brutal work days, long hours spent in mines/factories/fields, and other back-breaking jobs, humanity built another back-breaking job. Sitting in a 9 to 5 for 8-10 hours a day, depending on where you live, and it comes with a delicious side of commuting to and from.

And when you're in that situation, survival is the most common state of human life for most who are "stuck" in that work-state.

The number of ways to live our lives has exploded.

There are too many ways to live our lives now, and finding your own and sticking to your own is more or less a superpower. Why? The ways you're shown you can live your life.

→ What society says

→ What socials say

→ What do you want

The conflict is real, especially when you're in survival mode.

Because every path sounds fancier than the one in your mind.

Why? You're brought up to trust anyone and anything else but you.

The path of many: The stampede

But the conflict here is really not about trusting or not trusting yourself. It's about beating out external noises, the rush, and the stampede to think outside the box, so to speak.

Sooner or later, humanity creates systems around this to make it safe.

College education that leads to jobs across every level, from prestigious to today's definition of "back-breaking".

Corporate structures provide the safety and structure that keep you doing the same work year in and year out. You want to escape, but every way out needs you to leave the version of you that wants to be free.

Traditional advice becomes exactly what it is named for - traditional. Not. Working. Today. So, how do you break out of a meticulously designed system to keep you safe?

So safe that you pay for your health, sanity, life, and everything else revolving around your work safety than anything else?

Buying courses? Sure.

Quitting your job? Sure

Starting a podcast/blog/SaaS? Sure.

But so does everyone else, and they're probably going to make the same mistakes every single beginner makes in the history of starting anything new.

Perfectionism. Imposter Syndrome. Comparison. Self-Doubt. Quitting.

But even in the futuristic reality where humanity is probably headed, the Cyberpunk game emulated some classes of the roles that people would be playing:

→ Nomad: Outside or a loner who lives on the road, no matter what

→ Street Kid: Grows up on the streets, hustles for a living, has connections and ways around the city

→ Corpo: Thrives within corporate structures, navigating internal politics, climbing ladders, and wielding influence through hierarchical means.

Yet, even in this defined Cyberpunk universe, each path comes with its unique set of struggles and constraints, which starkly mirror the real world today.

Not much different. But also gives an idea of where the world could be heading to. Nothing dystopian about it, after all even these 3 classes and any sub-classes are a structure.

The path of you. Your choice, your destiny.

In reality, your journey is not predefined by a role-playing game’s class system. You might recognize echoes of the Nomad, Street Kid, or Corpo within yourself, but your reality is far richer, far more nuanced.

You are more than a label, more than a singular path. You have agency. And with agency comes choice—choice that's often overshadowed by the noise around you, the relentless stampede that drowns your authentic voice.

Society and media amplify every narrative that they favor for safety, flooding your senses with carefully curated images of success, freedom, and happiness.

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Your internal dialogue battles external validation. And if you continue to fight this external validation, yes you create your own path, but it demands a heavy cost. It demands war with society (no not the violent Joker type anarchy), but the war with the status Quo.

The battle is especially tough, not because your inner voice lacks strength, but because it has rarely been nurtured, rarely been encouraged. Rarely been let out as you. And when someone else speaks up to say or do something different, it's scary, and something to be cynical about. Till the time they do their own thing, and guide others from cynicism to blind following.

So to make your own path, you don't need to rebel for the sake of it. Find out what defines you, what refines your thinking, and what helps you live yours without double thinking every step you take. Well, how to do that? For your entire life, have you been trained to walk the path led by others, walk in their footsteps, talk in their words, think, and live in their structures??

The answer is courage. Well, duhhhh!!!

But courage as a singular word doesn't do justice to the entirety of the effort it takes to get there. Courage, willpower, discipline, they're surely the words you see on every self-motivation YouTube vid, but you don't understand these words till you're tested for them. As the saying goes, you understand something by doing it. Watching starts the stage of awareness for you!

Others are on theirs, you choose yours, and master walking it.

To genuinely walk your path, you must acknowledge a fundamental truth:

Your path does not have to make sense to anyone else.

And in the beginning there is but no choice except to walk on what is laid out in front of you. When to step off this path, is going to be your shining moment, and your defining moment for the rest of your life.

Some people end up creating the same structure they leave behind, just a new structure.

So what is the path of YOU?

It is your path because of your trauma, your beliefs, but also because of what happens in real lived experience with the changing world today.

This is why your path doesn't need to make sense to anyone but you. Your wisdom, experience, and gut feeling to create, live, and grow bold on a path is up to you. Not societal, parental, or peer-based validation. To be able to master or even jump on this is a huge step in itself!

And the best way to stick to it —

Mastery.

Mastery isn't perfection; it’s the courageous repetition of choosing yourself, again and again, despite the external stampede pulling you elsewhere. Mastery is knowing the difference between external noise and internal truth.

Ask yourself:

• What do I truly want?
• What values genuinely guide my decisions?
• If no one were watching, what choices would I make?

These questions provide compass points and act as the guiding North Star, guiding you out of the stampede.

Walk it, run it, guide it: quitting self-sabotage

The hardest barrier you’ll encounter on this path of choosing yourself isn’t external judgment or societal pressure — it’s your own habit of self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage is insidious. It doesn’t announce itself openly or dramatically. Instead, it creeps in subtly, gently guiding you away from growth, away from the life you truly desire. Its brilliance lies in its disguise.

It wears masks — comfort, familiarity, temporary relief—and whispers convincingly:

• “You deserve to rest; you can start tomorrow.”
• “Now isn’t the right time; things need to be perfect first.”
• “What makes you think you’re special enough to succeed at this?”
• “You’ve tried and failed already—why risk another disappointment?”

Self-sabotage never appears as the villain it truly is. Instead, it shows up as the gentle, reassuring friend who validates your hesitation. It persuades you to say yes to short-term relief over long-term growth.

Every time you’re about to take a courageous step, it softly guides you toward the easier, safer path—the path that doesn’t challenge your current state, doesn’t threaten your comfort zone, and doesn’t stretch your identity beyond what’s familiar.

Think of it like walking down a path filled with thorns. Each step forward hurts. Instead of choosing a new, smoother path, you keep placing bandages over your wounds.

You rationalize that the pain of the known path is safer than the uncertainty of an uncharted journey. But the more bandages you apply, the harder it becomes to remember that another way—your true way—exists.

Over time, you become numb to the discomfort, mistaking endurance for resilience, and familiarity for security. You trust the illusion of safety, never acknowledging the true cost—your growth, your freedom, your authentic self.

Quitting self-sabotage means facing this truth head-on. It means recognizing the masks it wears and removing them one by one. It means identifying patterns that lead you back to your comfort zone and consciously interrupting them. The antidote to self-sabotage isn’t brute force or aggressive confrontation; it’s gentle awareness and consistent redirection.

Every time your inner saboteur whispers doubts, confront it gently yet firmly. Remind yourself of past victories — big and small.

Remind yourself that temporary setbacks aren’t evidence of permanent incapability.

Above all, understand that quitting self-sabotage isn’t a single event, it’s a practice—a continuous decision. You walk the path by noticing your tendencies.

You run it by actively interrupting those tendencies. And finally, you guide it by teaching yourself a new language of courage, trust, and decisive action.

Learned helplessness: Coping vs hoping

Self-sabotage often isn’t born from weakness, but from learned helplessness—the internalized belief that your actions hold little to no real influence over outcomes.

Learned helplessness isn’t a character flaw; it’s conditioned thinking formed through experiences of failure, disappointment, or powerlessness. It begins quietly, often in childhood, when repeated setbacks convince you that effort rarely changes anything significantly.

Maybe it was the repeated rejection from a job you deeply wanted.

Perhaps it was a relationship that, despite your best efforts, never improved.

Or a childhood environment where your voice went unheard, no matter how loud you spoke.

Each experience subtly ingrained in you a belief: “I tried. It didn’t work. Why bother?”

But learned helplessness isn’t destiny; it’s a pattern, a habit of thought. And like any habit, it can be replaced through awareness, intention, and repeated positive action.

The cost of learned helplessness is your dreams that you're putting off to some day. The cost is fulfilling others before yourself, because you're second priority!

You can start with this shift by changing the internal language of helplessness with your own language of empowerment.

Shift from “I can’t control this” to “I can influence this.” Reframe “It’s too hard” into “I can try a new approach.” Slowly, intentionally, redefine your relationship with effort and outcome. Recognize that while you can’t control every variable, your consistent action reliably shapes your reality.

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Everything is figure-out-able!!!!!

Commit to small, achievable actions daily. Each small step forward dismantles learned helplessness. Consistent effort reprograms your subconscious, turning “Why bother?” into “Let’s try.”

It's safe and secure to see someone "successful" and dispel their entire identity, but you're only successful for X reasons.

This X reason may have been their years of hard work and their main differentiator. But for the person thinking someone is safe and secure because of a singular reason, this is the very excuse that keeps them right where they are.

It's called cynicism. And it keeps you right where you want to be. In your safe, secure reality perfect from being burst.

How to walk your Path of One as a creator

We all love creativity and are attracted to it.

Case in point, let's talk about video games or just art in the form of movies, paintings, music, and even writing.

But creativity is under attack by the people who can emulate it instead of truly master it. Or even understand what it means to create something in the first place.

It's easier to get a bot/automation to do it when you can't put in the years of training, the creative muscle, and being known for who you really are…

Studio Ghibli's creator called out a pitch of animators trying to show him how images work in a horror movie.

Steve Jobs had similar extreme reactions and wanted complete control over his vision and creations, from obsessing over the shade of white, and fighting + abusing people over it.

Yes, artists aren't easy to work with. But that's exactly what it takes — the control, the rigidity, the vision to create something that someone just doesn't get, but they buy again and again!

You know what you want to create, and tech/AI doesn't matter. Only people can help you fulfill your vision, and you lead this vision by being unapologetically you.

And this is easier said than done. Most people start their businesses with a side hustle that eventually becomes their full-time business.

Recently, Studio Ghibli took social media by storm because it was based on another "trend" to follow. True creators didn't jump on it; most consumers did.

Creators know how insulting it is to copy someone's work and make a mockery/theft of it, like Generative AI is doing across the creativity industry.

But isn't imitation the sincerest form of flattery?

At first glance, yes—until imitation evolves into something far more insidious. On social media, everyone seems to be selling packs of hooks, templates, frameworks — each one promising a shortcut to instant success. “Use these 50 viral hooks!” “Copy/steal these exact steps to a 6-figure income!” “Follow my morning routine to become unstoppable!”

As a result, the mass impression of copywriting or the art of selling is that ChatGPT can do it. But experts who have been doing it are still getting by, nay, flourishing, because they can get things done faster, better, more accurately.

Copywriting or any art today is being abused by the very people who don't understand the power of crystal clear persuasion in the first place. It isn't just words, it's powerful research, empathy, the person saying those words, and a whole lot of stuff that would extend this newsletter into an ebook basically.

Sure, templates and frameworks have their place. They’re excellent starting points for beginners or anyone feeling overwhelmed by the blank page, offering direction when you’re uncertain how or where to begin. But here’s the critical distinction most people miss:

The Category of One doesn’t use a template

It’s not about filling existing gaps or chasing predefined opportunities that everyone else is clamoring to exploit. Instead, it’s about stepping away from the stampede, looking deeply inward, and daring to ask yourself:

• “What do I see differently from everyone else?”
• “What questions am I uniquely positioned to answer?”
• “What can I offer that doesn’t yet exist in the market—not just a slightly better version, but a fundamentally different solution?”

In this approach, you don’t chase markets — you create them. You don’t mimic content strategies — you design entirely new campaigns driven by your personal perspective, lived experiences, and deeply held beliefs. Instead of following trends, you become the one who sets them.

Rather than simply reacting to what your audience says they want, you give them what they never knew they needed — your unfiltered, unapologetic originality.

This is the essence of walking the “Path of One."

The Path of One is inherently risky because it demands courage. It asks you to trust deeply in your own instincts, even (and especially) when everyone else is following the herd. It requires you to reject easy validation and resist the immediate financial comfort that templated thinking provides.

When you choose this path, you’re not simply “positioning” yourself differently; you’re fundamentally redefining what it means to be you. You’re not tweaking the details of a preexisting blueprint; you’re sketching a new one entirely, guided solely by your unique vision.

Think of artists/creators who didn’t imitate their predecessors but transformed their entire field:

• Picasso didn’t just adjust classical painting — he broke all the rules and created Cubism, forever altering art history.
• Steve Jobs didn’t tweak existing computers — he completely reinvented how we interact with technology.
• Miyazaki didn’t copy animation styles — he poured his unique worldview into films that redefined storytelling itself.
• Hideo Kojima left Konami when he knew what his vision looked like without any permission. His first game after leaving Konami? Death Stranding, and it was an experience like no other "game" out there.

These creators didn’t start with a template; they began with curiosity, vision, and bold defiance of the status quo. They didn’t fill gaps—they discovered entirely new ones.

So, how do you translate this into your own work, your own life?

Start by questioning every assumption that’s handed to you. When someone says, “This is how you should structure your content,” respond with, “Why?” When a “proven framework” promises guaranteed results, challenge it with, “Guaranteed by whom, and for what purpose?”

Your content strategy doesn’t have to align neatly with popular social media gurus. Your marketing doesn’t need to fit perfectly into someone else’s funnel. Your campaign doesn’t have to mimic the trendiest influencer’s viral posts.

Instead, choose to:

• Write content that expresses precisely what you believe, not what others expect.
• Create campaigns that prioritize resonance and authenticity over immediate virality.
• Design your own frameworks based on the unique problems you’ve experienced firsthand—not on generic, pre-fabricated market research.

Will this approach feel uncomfortable at first? Absolutely. Will people doubt you, question you, even criticize your choices? Certainly. But discomfort isn’t a sign you’re off-track; it’s often the clearest indication that you’re breaking new ground. It’s the friction that emerges when authenticity meets conformity—the inevitable tension of innovation.

Here’s the beautiful paradox of following your own path:

Your greatest competitive advantage lies precisely in the fact that no one can replicate your perspective, journey, or insights.

You can’t be commodified or easily templated when your value is deeply rooted in your individuality. Your creativity, vision, and voice aren’t replaceable commodities—they’re irreplaceable assets. They make you uniquely valuable in a marketplace drowning in sameness.

And that’s how you genuinely become a Category of One.

But this also doesn't mean you ignore what works. You don't ignore what people want from you, what you want for the world, and even more importantly, find your way by popular support.

Because ultimately, if you want genuine impact, lasting resonance, and authentic fulfillment, you must dare to step off the templated path.

To risk misunderstanding, rejection, even failure in pursuit of something infinitely more meaningful — your truth.

So ask yourself:

• What’s my unique insight, my voice, my vision?
• What would I create if I didn’t care about templates or validation?
• What market would I serve if I dared to invent my own?

The answers won’t come pre-packaged in any “hook pack” or viral template.

They’ll come from the courageous act of embracing the unknown and daring to forge your own path.

At the end of the day, templates are tools to build your own kit. Starter kits don't have a nail that can build your dream house. They have the bare basics to get you started. Originality and authenticity aren't boxed.

The best part about this path though is that any feeling of competition melts away, and you're on this spiritual journey that you climb on, and you'll build it as long as you don't get off. Or swept off the yellow path.

Talking about AI, Theft, and Originality in the next one. Stay tuned!

Let me know if you have any thoughts about this one.

See ya next week!

Ankit.