I'm Not Enough

When I was 15 going on 16 working for my parents at The Metro Inn, I was the only cook in the kitchen from 09:30A until 01:30A. I ran that kitchen even when there was 25+ people in the bar, 15 people downstairs and 10 people in the VIP room, all them hungry and want their food now. I ran that kitchen by myself! Dearest father who had run tablecloth level restaurants expecting me to perform at that level. Did I see a single cent of payment or even just a tip leftover for me as I bus the table afterwards? Hell no!

but, I'm not enough...

When I was 19 and it was the first day of my life as an adult, I'll never forget the date: Jan 25, 2010. It was my first day working in a corporation, first day of returning to college for online courses with UOPX and it was the first day living on my own without either of my parents. My dad bought me a week in a hotel and that was all I needed until I got my first paycheque.

I made my life since then. I got my own driver's license since my parents procrastinated on that when I was a young teen. I got my own glasses since my mom was in denial that I had bad eyesight at age 12. I paid all my bills on time without exception.

I'm still not enough.

At age 27, I said whatever habits I carry into my 30s, I will carry past my 30s. So I made the change from being completely sedentary in front of the keyboard to making an effort to be physical at a base level. Before, I could hardly do more than 7 mins of cardio without dying or 300 ft down the street. Correction: I could cross the parking lot to my apartment complex to get to the street before I had to come back and out of breath for the next hour. Now I can jog my ~2.7 mi route at a slow steady state without stopping to take a breath and fully recovered within 30 seconds of stopping the jog.

Yet, I'm still not enough.

In my early career, I got Certified in PHP/MySQL, HTML/CSS/JS, ZendFramework. It took me 9 years, but I got my 2 year degree and the punch line is: I finished it debt free!

I'm not enough.

In my mid career, I got to know so many more technologies, like Nginx & Apache, Linux, Jenkins, Atlassian Suite, Puppet, Chef, Ansible, SaltStack, Docker, Terraform, AWS, Python, Ruby, Java, Perl, C/C++, the list goes on!!!

I'm not enough.

In my carrer, I've been exposed to Advertisement, Insurance, Banking, Supply Chain, Logistics, Commerce, Retail, learned the insides of those businesses and could tell you how each of them works under the hood.

and yet... I'm still not enough.

For one company, after ~6.5 years of service, I built them an entire deployment pipeline. I built the engineering team a means by which they could commit their code, and it would automatically build the code before Github Actions was even a figment our imaginations. They could promote their code from Dev -> QA (Quality Assurance) -> UAT (User Acceptance Testing) -> PROD (Production). I built them finance reports to indicate how much this would cost. I helped them restructure their pricing mechanisms so they could better position themselves to take profits in the markets and pay for all the services we were setting up for our clients. I documented the entire process from start to finish and trained a new team to take over whilst I moved on to greener pastures. I calculated that I provided about $7M in value and saw maybe 8% of that in salary over the course of the six years I was with them.

I'm still not enough.

I found the love of my life, after 3 failed attempts and thought this was the last time I was going to be on the market. If you look up Dr K from HealthyGamerGG, he talks about attachment styles. I was the anxious attachment style and he was the avoidant attachment style. It was a recipe for disaster. I broke the relationship and then he left me hanging for 8 months with the hope and a wish that things could get better and we could repair things. At some point, I had to cut that off and make the decision to just cut it clean after soooo much pain for 8 solid months of deep remorse.

I'm not enough.

Somewhere in all of that chaos, I took the classes and I passed the MBLEX and I became a Licensed Massage Therapist. 4 years later, I still maintain the license to this day.

I'm still not enough.

Most recently, I did the due diligence and research to understand how to file for an EIN (Employer Identification Number). How to file a business with the SOS (Secretary of State) directly. What forms needed to be submitted to which departments of the state and federal government. I am now legally authorized to do business under 3 LLC assigned to my name. One for the story of Markizano Draconus, one for my current ongoing contract and one for the massage business.

I still struggle with this. It's not nearly as bad as it was before because of reflecting on stuff like this, but I still struggle with this idea that I am not enough.

I need to do more!
I need to be more!!
I need to provide more!!!

This wall of fame behind me is not because I'm some arrogant prick who thinks he's all that and a bag of chips, albeit, I have my moments; I won't lie.

The curse I live every single day, the struggle I fight still to this day:

The day I stop thinking I'm not enough is the day I'll stop striving for more

This intelligence and this potential I have in me was meant for something far greater than just being a corporate slave for 60 years and then just dying being a nobody.

I struggle with this all the time:

What have I really done for humanity and what could I be doing that has a much greater impact on us for the potential that I'm worth? The possibilities that I have?

In the words of truth from Toni Jones: Nobody thinks about who the hell do I think I am more than me.

I’m turning this drive into something bigger than me, and I want you to see it happen.

I want you to see that this feeling of insufficiency never goes away. You never truly "become" you just "are". We are creatures of infinity; the possibilities are endless.

Alex Hormozi contests this idea that you are the average of your top five friends and instead postulates that you are the average of the top five people you compare yourself to.

The root cause of my feeling of insufficiency took a lot of meditation and deep thought. Why do I feel so insignificant when I view myself. It's because I am comparing myself to the version of me that has already wrote the 12 books. Built the story. Created an empire around all the Kizano-branded resources folks can use. Changed the ruling structure into one that is more equitable, not just in opportunity or possibility, but culture and internal drive. A place where more of us find our inner happiness and wake up to the reality that's in front of us now, not the painted picture of doom on the screen because we still haven't resolved the shadow of humanity. A place where more people see things for what they are, not what others want you think of them to be. Where independent thought is paramount and free will is the ultimate expression. Where intelligence is valued, not ostracized. Where people find their universe from within instead of trying to play their part in the universe without. Only when you look within will you know what you want without. A world without unnecessary self-induced suffering and inner peace.

Even though I feel insufficient, I am not a slave to this feeling. It does not control me. It fuels me. It no longer is the friction that causes me angst, but the knowledge that I am driving for something, that I am geared towards something. It's affirmation that I have a north star and I believe in something greater than myself.

I really want you to be a part of that as we continue to build it together.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to walk this path with me. Come see the story I’m writing, and maybe even the story you’ve been waiting to live.

Sign up at story.markizano.net