I grew up in a family of over achievers.

My Mother came from the USSR when she was a teen, picking up both English and French, then going to a top University just 3 years later. My father was making over $1,000/hr as a software contractor when I was 10. My two cousins, Steve and Earl, went to top schools in their state and graduated near top of their class.

My very own brother beat me at everything I did.

“Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.”

I was able to hold onto this statement for a bit, watching others smoke weed and get into drugs while I kept looking forwards. My slow improvement got my highschool average up 15%, but it wasn’t enough, as my brother got into my top choice University and I didn’t.

But I kept looking forwards. Not the smartest tool in the shed, but failure after failure made me try harder.

My parents got divorced in my first year of University. My father thought his skills could get an even younger women, meanwhile I was struggling to even get a job. Steve referred me to his old position as a software dev, where I was a complete imbecile and felt like trash each morning. But learning a lot, I put in my best every day.

Earl was taking pre-med, but didn’t have the math skills for some of his required courses. A single tanked class is a huge deficit to an average, and it’s an average you need to keep straight. Fifty extra hours to boost your 85 to 87% is required ten times over to average out a single 63. So I took the easy route and only had four courses, which gave me the time I needed to create my first open source project.

Steve was amazing at Leetcode, turning down offers from Facebook and Amazon for even better positions while he was still in school. Steve grew comfortable, and now sits at a mid-sized company without the options he once had. “A Leetcode a day isn’t bad”, I thought. “I can manage it now that I know where I’m going in life.”

And that’s where I am now. It took seven years.

Seven years since I started pushing myself and boosting my 70% high school average to 85. Knowing only it would be worth it, but not why or how.

Then I get a call from my Mother today.

“I asked your brother what he was doing today and he said “work stuff”. I pushed for an answer and it turns out he’s running D&D games online for money. I asked how much he’s getting, and he said “not much”. When did he get so unmotivated?”

My brother, the final piece, always gifted and never had to try hard, has been out of a career path for years. Always succeeding but never with direction, he never experienced failure.

And that call made me realize the danger of success.