beyond ambition

laguna takes about an hour and a half from west hollywood. small shops by the beach, surfboards on cars, hills in the background. it felt more lively than the parts of LA i had seen so far. all of it had that distinctly american feeling.

jack, a friend from hong kong, and i drove down to see one of his friends.

his friend is an entrepreneur based in LA. i had come across his youtube channel before the trip. he rarely spoke about work directly. instead, he shared thoughts about life, relationships and the things he was still trying to understand himself. that was probably why i was looking forward to meeting him in person.

i was not sure what to expect.

it was different in the best way.

at his housewarming lunch, he was surrounded by people he had known since university. nobody seemed to be trying to impress anyone. people were catching up, talking about shared memories. work barely came up.

when it did, it was not about the next step or the next number. it was about why.

why money matters. what you actually want it to do for you. whether the way you are building your life is something you can sustain.

he has built a career for himself, but carries it lightly.

he mentioned that he had always carried a quiet certainty that he would make something of himself. not urgency, just certainty. he went to university, took his time and kept his people close.

i have been in rooms where the first question is always "what do you do?" and the conversation never really moves past that.

this was not one of them.

watching someone who has found a way to let work and life exist alongside each other is rarer than it should be. it is easy to become so focused on building something that you forget why you wanted to build it in the first place.

he had not forgotten.

and he was not making a point of it.

that is the part that stayed with me on the drive back to west hollywood.