Quiet Clarity is a 2x/week newsletter and podcast for people who want to build a life of presence, depth, and deliberate intention.
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How do you expect to get the most when you give the least?
I've been thinking about this question for a while.
The entrepreneur who cuts corners but expects loyal clients.
The friend who shows up only when they need something but wonders why no one's there for them.
The person who puts in minimal effort but dreams of maximum results.
We all know might someone like this.
In fact, we’ve all been someone like this (I sure have).
But here's what interests me: What if every disappointment, every betrayal, every failure is just life showing us exactly what we've been putting out?
And if that's true, then most of us have been making the same mistake:
We've been trying to withdraw from an account we never deposited into.
Where It Showed Up in My Life
This isn’t to scare you or make you feel bad about your past.
We've all been there. We've all cut corners. And we’ve all had imposter syndrome.
Some days I still wake up feeling like an imposter.
The difference isn't between those who make mistakes and those who don't.
It's between those who learn from them and take action in the right direction vs those who repeat them.
When I first started my business, I thought I had it all figured out.
Money was flowing in and clients were happy enough. Life was good.
So I did what any young entrepreneur would do - I lived it up.
I spent freely, traveled constantly and boasted to friends.
Systems? I'd figure those out later.
Fulfillment? The creators could handle it.
Client relationships? They seemed fine.
I was putting in surface-level effort and somehow expecting deep-level results.
Then one day, our biggest client called.
"We're moving in a different direction."
Just like that, 50% of our revenue vanished.
Then another client left. Then another.
Within weeks, we went from celebrating success to staring at an empty pipeline.
I remember sitting in my apartment wondering: Were we imposters? Was it all fake?
But the truth was simpler and more brutal.
We hadn't been imposters. We'd been amateurs.
We gave amateur effort - no systems, no depth, no real care.
The money that came easy, left easy.
The clients we barely served, barely stayed.
The success we didn't build foundations for, crumbled at the first storm.
I'd been so busy spending what I received that I never invested in what I was giving.
What the Wisdom Reveals
There's an old Indian story about a ghee merchant that my mom recently told me.
Every day, a merchant would sit in the market selling clarified butter (ghee).
And every day, he would secretly add a little water to the ghee to increase his profits.
Just a few drops that nobody noticed. The ghee still looked perfect.
Years passed, his wealth grew and life was comfortable.
Then one day, his daughter fell severely ill.
The doctors said she needed a specific medicine - one that required pure ghee as a base.
The merchant ran to every shop in the city, desperate to buy the purest ghee available.
But everywhere he went, he found the same thing: watered-down ghee.
Even in his desperation, even willing to pay any price, he couldn't escape the world he had helped create.
His daughter's medicine failed. She didn't make it.
The merchant realized too late: He hadn't just been selling diluted ghee.
He'd been diluting the very world he lived in.
You don't get what you want. You don't get what you deserve.
You get what you give, returned to you in forms you don't always recognize.
Give shallow effort, get shallow results.
Give diluted presence, get diluted relationships.
Give half-hearted work, get half-hearted outcomes.
The universe isn't keeping score to punish you.
It's simply reflecting your energy back, like an endless mirror.
And sometimes, that reflection takes years to fully appear.
How I'm Trying to Live Now
After my business crashed, I had two choices.
Blame the world or change my contribution to it.
I chose change.
But let me be clear about something.
I know I'm lucky and had opportunities others don't.
Some people are giving everything they have and still struggling because the system is stacked against them.
This isn't about blaming anyone for their circumstances.
It's about recognizing the power we do have, however small, to shift what we're putting into the world.
Because even if you can't control your circumstances, you can control your contribution.
So anyways, my brother and I rebuilt everything in the business, but this time with depth.
1) Real systems that served clients, not just us.
2) Real relationships, not just transactions.
3) Real value, not just the appearance of it.
It was slower and so much harder. And it’s still a work in progress.
But what we built the second time couldn't be shaken by one phone call.
Now I try to live by a simple principle:
Give what you want to receive, but detach from when or how it returns.
Plant seeds everywhere, but don't stand over them with a stopwatch.
When I write, I do my best to pour everything into it (with the help of Claude ofc).
When I’m with others, I do my best to treat them how I’d like to be treated.
When I build my business, I do my best to help clients as much as I can.
When I workout, I do my best to eat healthy and lift with proper form.
And I say “do my best” because that’s what it feels like to me.
I’m sure I’ll make mistakes along the way, but the important thing is knowing I gave it my best.
What you put out compounds invisibly until one day it doesn't.
And when that day comes, you want to be receiving interest on investments, not bills for debts.
And whether you know it or not, you're always making deposits.
The only question is: What kind of interest do you want to be collecting five years from now?
