Rehab, a ceiling someone handed me, and a mom who got braces in her sixties.

Has anyone ever handed you a limit and called it comfort?

Maybe it came from a boss, a parent or a friend. Maybe it came from your own head at 2am. It usually sounds reasonable, and that's what makes it so hard to argue with.

Here's the one I got.

At least you won't be drinking

Eleven years ago I had wrecked most of what I'd built. I'd been fired from Facebook for drinking, and I ended up in rehab. I've been sober since May 15, 2015.

Early in recovery, the message went something like this: you're probably never going to have the life you thought you'd have, but at least you won't be drinking.

I said yeah, sure. Then, mostly to myself: I think I can do better.

One sentence, two verdicts

That sentence felt like one thing. It was actually two.

The first part was stop drinking. That was hard, and it was right. The second part was lower your expectations for the rest of your life. That one felt just as heavy, and it was wrong.

Hard and wrong feel the same from the inside. That's why you can't settle them by feel. You have to pull the sentence apart and check each half separately.

Getting sober was right, and nothing here argues with it. What I'm arguing with is the ceiling that came stapled to it.

Here's what I figured out later. For years the alcohol had been slowing me down and keeping me from becoming who I was. Quitting took the brakes off.

Drift, drive, design

People tend to live by drift, drive, or design. I've done all three.

I drifted through my corporate years at Adobe and Facebook. I took those jobs because they sounded cool and paid well. I never really chose them. When you're drifting, something else fills the space. For me that was a fourth D. Drinking.

After I got fired, I got driven. I started my business out of desperation and hustled to keep it alive, because that's what you're supposed to do.

Being free of alcohol didn't fix everything. It still took me time to figure things out. It wasn't until I got honest with myself and started living by design that things began to happen. Most of the work you know me for came after that point.

You might be a late bloomer

In 2024 David Brooks wrote a piece for The Atlantic called "You Might Be a Late Bloomer." His argument is that late bloomers tend to run on their own curiosity rather than outside rewards, and that they often screw up early because they don't fit the systems built to reward early success.

When I read it, I recognized myself: a late bloomer with a drinking problem standing in the way.

If you think your window has closed, check whether that belief is really one verdict. "Starting now will be hard" may well be true. "So it's too late" is a separate claim, and it's usually the ceiling talking.

Two years older either way

Everyone tells the Colonel Sanders story about starting KFC in his sixties. It's a good story. I'd rather talk about teeth.

My friend Dorie Clark told me her mom got braces in her sixties. Her mom's reasoning was that in two years she'd be two years older no matter what. She could be two years older with straight teeth, or two years older with crooked ones.

That's the whole case for late blooming, and it fits in a dentist's chair. The time passes either way. The only question is what you have when it does.

The smallest step

Pick one sentence this week. The one someone handed you, or the one you keep handing yourself.

Write it down and split it in two. The part that's hard, you can keep. The part that's a ceiling somebody attached to it, you can cross out.

Then take one step past the ceiling, small enough to finish before the week is over. One of mine was a public post about what had happened to me. It led to a job.

Dorie's mom was in her sixties, and she got the braces anyway.

You might be later than you planned. Later isn't too late.

So pick your sentence and split it this week.

Then take the step. You've got more in front of you than whoever handed you that ceiling thought. Go find out how much.