On why the biggest transformations require you to lose yourself to find yourself

Dear friend,

There's a photograph I keep coming back to.

It's from March 2018—me standing in front of a massive Disney hotel in Orlando, Florida, surrounded by 3,000 entrepreneurs from around the world. I'd flown across the ocean hoping for answers, for some secret formula that would help me break through the plateau I'd been stuck on for years.

My business was doing fine. I had passive income. The systems worked. But "fine" was the problem. I'd been "fine" for 3-4 years. And deep in my bones, I knew that "fine" was just another word for "stuck."

What I didn't know—standing there in that hotel lobby, jet-lagged and slightly overwhelmed—was that I was about to hear a single sentence that would completely reorganize my reality.

Not immediately. Not obviously. But in the way that certain truths work on you slowly, like water wearing down stone, until one day you wake up and realize you're not the same person anymore.

The sentence was simple. Almost deceptively so:

"If you want to truly take off, you can't think about doing better or just doubling. You have to embody your version at 10X."

At the time, I nodded. I wrote it down. I thought I understood.

I had no idea what it would actually require of me.

Let me tell you something that isn't often discussed in the world of entrepreneurship and personal growth:

Most people who achieve a certain level of success get stuck there.

Not because they stop working. Not because they lose ambition. But because they've reached the limits of their current way of thinking, and they don't realize it.

You optimize. You improve. You refine your systems. You work harder. You get more efficient.

And nothing fundamentally changes.

You're running faster on the same treadmill, making incremental gains that keep you busy but don't actually move you forward in any meaningful way.

I know this because I lived it.

By 2018, I'd built something real. I had an audience. I had products. I had revenue coming in while I slept. By many measures, I was successful.

But I'd been at roughly the same level for years. The same revenue range. The same impact. The same identity.

I was optimizing a game I'd already mastered instead of learning to play a new one.

And the frustrating part? I couldn't see it from inside the system. I was too close. Too invested in my current way of doing things.

It took being in a room with people operating at levels 10X beyond me to recognize what I couldn't see: I wasn't thinking differently enough. I was still playing by the rules of my current reality.

And you can't quantum leap to a new reality while following the rules of the old one.

Here's what most advice about growth gets wrong:

It focuses on the doing and the having—the strategies, the tactics, the external changes you need to make.

But transformation doesn't start there.

It starts with being. With identity. With who you are at the deepest level.

Because here's the truth: You can't sustain a level of success that's mismatched with your identity. Your external reality will always, eventually, collapse back to match your internal sense of self.

This is why lottery winners go broke. Why people who lose massive amounts of weight gain it back. Why entrepreneurs who have a breakthrough year often crash the next.

The external change happened, but the internal identity never shifted to match it.

So when I sat at those mastermind tables in Orlando, listening to entrepreneurs who were operating at levels I aspired to, I realized something crucial:

They weren't just doing different things. They were different people.

They thought differently. They carried themselves differently. They made decisions from a completely different internal operating system.

And if I wanted to reach that level, I couldn't just copy their strategies. I had to become someone capable of executing those strategies.

Not the person I was. The person I needed to become.

In the weeks and months after that trip, I did something I'd never done before:

I stopped trying to improve who I was and started trying to envision who I needed to become.

This might sound like a subtle distinction. It's not. It's everything.

Improvement keeps you in your current paradigm. Transformation requires you to step outside it entirely.

I asked myself three questions—and I sat with them for a long time before anything resembling an answer emerged:

Not what they've accomplished. Not what they have. Who they are.

What do they believe about themselves? How do they see the world? What kind of internal experience are they having?

For me, this was painful to confront because it revealed how small I'd been thinking. How much I'd been playing it safe. How deeply I'd been invested in being liked instead of being powerful.

The 10X version of me wasn't a content creator hoping to be noticed. He was a leader who owned his authority and didn't apologize for taking up space.

That realization terrified me. Because I knew what it would cost.

What are his daily rhythms? How does he make decisions? What does he say yes to? What does he refuse?

This question revealed uncomfortable truths:

These weren't just new habits. They were fundamental shifts in operating system.

Not just money or material things—though those matter too. But what resources? What relationships? What systems? What knowledge?

This showed me the gaps. The bridges I needed to build. The investments I needed to make, not someday, but now.

These three questions didn't give me a to-do list. They gave me a north star. A completely different way of being to grow into.

Here's what happened next, and it wasn't comfortable:

I had to make decisions I'd been avoiding for years. Choices that scared me. Changes that felt impossible.

Decision One: Becoming visible in a way that made me vulnerable

I had to stop hiding behind "valuable content" and step into visible leadership. This meant speaking on stages. This meant having opinions. This meant accepting criticism I'd carefully avoided before.

The fear of judgment—especially in France where tall poppies get cut down—was paralyzing. But 10X me didn't have the luxury of playing small to stay safe.

Decision Two: Protecting my time like it was my most precious resource

I'd built my entire brand on being accessible. Responding quickly. Being there for people. But that generosity was keeping me stuck.

I had to create boundaries that felt selfish. Say no to requests that used to be automatic yes's. Become less available. Watch some people be disappointed in me.

This was excruciating. But necessary.

Decision Three: Learning the power of a clean "no"

Not "maybe later." Not "I'll think about it." Not softening the rejection with elaborate explanations.

Just... no.

This simple word became the guardian of my transformation. Every no to something misaligned was a yes to my actual mission.

Decision Four: Releasing control and trusting others

The control freak in me died a slow, painful death here. Hiring people. Letting them represent my work. Accepting that things wouldn't be done exactly as I'd do them—and that being okay.

This required a level of surrender I'd never accessed before.

Decision Five: Betting bigger on what was already working

I was playing it safe. My advertising budget was tiny because I was afraid of a bad return on investment. But 10X thinking meant amplifying what worked, not protecting what I had.

This required a stomach for risk I hadn't yet developed.

Each of these decisions felt like dying. Like losing a part of myself I'd been attached to.

And in a way, that's exactly what was happening.

Here's the part nobody prepared me for:

When you transform, some people will hate it.

Not everyone. But some. Sometimes people you care about.

When you prioritize your time, they'll call you selfish.

When you claim authority, they'll call you arrogant.

When you create boundaries, they'll feel excluded.

When you become visible, you'll become a target.

This is the tax. The inevitable cost of expansion.

In 2019, I experienced this viscerally. As my business exploded, as I became more visible, as I stepped into the leadership role I'd been avoiding, the criticism came.

Comments I'd never seen before. Attacks from people I thought were supporters. Distance from relationships I'd valued.

I had to learn to protect my energy in ways I'd never needed before.

And the hardest part? Accepting that some people's resistance to my growth wasn't about me at all. It was about them wanting to keep the version of me that made them more comfortable.

Your transformation triggers other people's fear of their own stagnation.

This doesn't make you wrong. It makes you free—if you can bear the cost.

The sorting happens naturally. People who resonate with your new frequency stay. Others drift away. It hurts. But it's also necessary.

You can't take everyone with you. And that's not your responsibility.

Here's something I wish someone had told me about transformation:

It doesn't happen linearly. It happens in leaps—quantum jumps—usually preceded by periods of complete disorientation.

You work. You implement. You make changes. And for a while, nothing seems to happen. You might even feel like you're going backward. The doubt creeps in. You wonder if you've made a terrible mistake.

And then—suddenly, inexplicably—reality reorganizes. You leap to a new level. The plateau breaks. Everything that wasn't working suddenly works.

This is why the promise of "easy, fun growth" is a lie.

Real transformation is often messy. It's frequently painful. The biggest leaps usually come after the darkest valleys.

I experienced this intensely in autumn 2018. After an incredible summer—launching successfully, doing a speaking tour, feeling like I'd finally broken through—I crashed.

Everything felt flat. The high was over. The doubt arrived in force: Was any of that real? Can I sustain this? Who do I think I am?

I was invited to a mastermind in Thailand. Right before leaving, I needed a visible symbol of transformation—so I bleached my hair blonde. Super Saiyan style. (Yes, really. Sometimes transformation needs a costume change.)

In Thailand, I had space to breathe. To integrate. To let everything I'd been through settle into my nervous system.

That valley wasn't a setback. It was integration. It was necessary preparation for the next leap.

And it taught me something crucial about sustainable transformation:

It's not fueled by results or external validation. It's powered by something much deeper: enthusiasm.

The word "enthusiasm" comes from ancient Greek—en theos—meaning "inspired by the divine" or "having god within."

It's not manufactured motivation. It's not forced positivity. It's not hustle energy.

It's a deep, inexplicable joy. A connection to something larger than your ego's desires. An inner fire that burns regardless of external circumstances.

And here's what I discovered: When you're animated by this enthusiasm, you're not fighting. You're not forcing. You're in flow.

But when you're only chasing results—validation, revenue, recognition—you burn out. You exhaust yourself. You lose the thread.

This is why I built a business model that allows me to step back when I need to. To recharge. To create in peace without endangering everything.

Because the more you reconnect to your own inner momentum, the less you need the noise of the world.

Your enthusiasm doesn't depend on:

It's yours. It's internal. It's the fuel that sustains transformation over years, not just weeks.

And protecting it—prioritizing it above almost everything else—is what allows you to keep going when the valley arrives, as it inevitably will.

Let me bring this back to where we started.

Most people approach transformation backward:

"When I have more money, I'll do what I love, and then I'll be happy."

"When I have success, I'll do bold things, and then I'll be confident."

But it never works that way. It can't.

Because your external reality is a reflection of your internal state. Change happens from the inside out, never the reverse.

You must become the person operating at 10X before you have the results of 10X.

Not fake it. Not pretend. But genuinely embody the identity—the thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and decisions—of that person.

The external world has no choice but to reorganize around your new internal reality. That's not magical thinking. That's how transformation actually works.

So the question isn't: "How do I get to 10X?"

The question is: "Who do I need to become to make 10X inevitable?"

Answer that. Make the uncomfortable decisions. Pay the taxes. Let go of what needs to be released.

And watch reality bend to match your new identity.

Before you move on from this letter, I want to leave you with something to sit with:

Where in your life are you trying to optimize when you actually need to transform?

Where are you making incremental improvements to a game you've already outgrown?

Where are you staying small—not because you lack capacity, but because expansion requires you to become someone you're not sure you're ready to be?

What would your 10X version look like? How would they think? How would they move through the world?

And here's the harder question: What are you willing to lose to become that person?

What comfort? What approval? What version of yourself that people have grown attached to?

These aren't easy questions. They're not supposed to be.

But sitting with them—really sitting with them, not rushing to answers—is how transformation begins.

If you're reading this in a difficult period—in the valley before the leap, having lost your thread, wondering if any of it matters—let me offer this:

Your enthusiasm hasn't disappeared. It's still there, buried under fear and expectation and the weight of trying to control outcomes.

It returns the moment you remember why you started. The moment you create for the joy of it, not for validation. The moment you reconnect with the deep YES that brought you here.

That enthusiasm is yours. It doesn't depend on results. It's the most precious thing you possess.

Build a life that protects it. Create space to recharge. Step back when needed. Let yourself integrate between leaps.

The transformation is happening. Trust the process. Trust yourself.

And never, ever lose your thread.

Until next time,

Johann

P.S. — I'm genuinely curious: If you projected yourself into your 10X version—the one full of enthusiasm, operating from a completely different identity—what's the first thing that would change? What's the decision you've been avoiding that 10X you would make immediately? Hit reply and tell me. I read everything, and sometimes naming the thing out loud to another human is what gives us permission to finally do it.

Take these questions into your week. Don't rush to answer them. Let them work on you:

On Identity:

On Behavior:

On Resources:

On Transformation:

On Enthusiasm:

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