Man in his 30s attempts to cultivate a life of curiosity, health, and wealth through intense challenges performed in time increments of 30 - from seconds to years

I am a 30-year-old Black man from North Carolina living in Brooklyn, New York. By all traditional metrics, I am experiencing an above-average life. I have a capable body, a loving support structure of family and friends, a well-paying job, an Ivy League education, an intermediate grasp of Spanish, a full passport, a half-dimple, and a sterling sense of humor. Not bad.

What I have been missing recently is an enthusiasm for life. I feel the cold absence of a passion worth flying out of bed to pursue.

I remember when I felt truly alive. I was an impoverished Division 1 football player by day and an impoverished business school student by night. I was focused, social, active, and relentlessly curious about the possibilities of each coming day. Then my football career ended, my studies concluded, my teammates and I parted ways, and I found myself thrust into the “real world” I had ostensibly been preparing for. I was not impressed.

At first, I celebrated the lack of mandatory 5 a.m. weightlifting sessions, team-imposed curfews, and strict class attendance policies. I expected that with control of my own schedule (minus my job), I would finally be able to use my time to fully explore the curiosities I had developed. However, without any organized framework for consistency or measurement, my focus and engagement dimmed, and my interests became fleeting and shallow. I slowly became a sad corporate drone, struggling to escape my melancholy through brief trysts with women, binge drinking, and mindless entertainment — all the while convincing myself that I was experiencing freedom.

Deep down in the pit of my stomach, I knew I was lost.

Like many ambitious young men without a cause, I dove into self-help content. I read the books, listened to the podcasts, followed the Instagram accounts, and watched the Youtube videos — tirelessly searching for the magic piece of wisdom that would lift my life from the depths of obscure “above averageness” to the heights of the truly fulfilled.

I’ve spent countless days with the voices of Tim Ferriss, David Goggins, Naval Ravikant, Tony Robbins, and Andrew Huberman — to name a few — echoing inside my mind. I’ve spent sleepless nights haunted by the knowledge that my potential is far greater than what I exhibit in my day-to-day life.

In the real world, no coaches, playbooks, or scoreboards are provided. No professors, curriculums, or exams are supplied. Out here, a man must become his own mentor, choose the rules of his own game, and create his own roadmap to victory. And I wasn’t prepared.

The truth is, I was scared. I still am.

Afraid of the changes that will surely follow an attempt to chase my dreams. The pursuit will involve either accomplishing my goals and experiencing the discomfort of a new and unknown life or failing to achieve my goals and confronting the sobering reality that I was never as exceptional as I thought.

Rather than becoming the man in the arena — fighting for the purposeful, exciting, rich, and healthy lifestyle I claim to want and accepting whatever consequences may come with it — I have instead spent years hiding in the nose-bleeds, shielded from action by the guise of “preparation” and “research.”

This website and the challenges within it represent my reluctant and long overdue implementation of one of the most consistent and simple pieces of advice I have heard: Just start.

So here we go...