Where You Bloom Is Up to You

The JD Letter

May 3, 2025

In the 2006 film The Pursuit of Happiness, Will Smith plays Chris Gardner (based on Gardner's true story). He was a man drowning in debt, abandoned by his wife, and left to raise his young son while homeless in San Francisco.

He has no degree. No connections. No safety net. Just a dream of becoming a stockbroker - a job dominated by Ivy League graduates in pressed suits.

At one point, he’s sleeping in a train station bathroom, holding the door shut with his foot so no one walks in on them.

But he refuses to accept his circumstances as fixed.

He shows up to the Dean Witter internship interview in paint-stained clothes after spending the night in jail. He smiles, answers every question directly, and somehow gets the role.

Unpaid.

Every day, he runs between cold calls, daycare pickups, and shelter queues.

He studies at night. He doesn't complain. He doesn't quit.

At the end of the program, he’s offered the full-time job. He breaks down in tears, quietly repeating:

“This part of my life… this little part… is called happiness.”

Creating the circumstance you want. Moving to an environment that values you. Letting go of the myth of readiness - that’s the theme of today’s JD Letter.

From street vendor to NBA Champion

Giannis Antetokounmpo was born in Athens, Greece to Nigerian parents who had recently arrived from Lagos. As one of five brothers, Giannis grew up in poverty but with a strong family bond. The family faced significant challenges:

• They lived together in a single room
• Giannis and his brother Thanasis sold DVDs on Athens streets to help support the family
• He was stateless until age 18, as Greece doesn't automatically grant citizenship to children of immigrants
• Giannis and his brother Thanasis famously shared a single pair of shoes, swapping them during games

Yet despite these limitations, he never saw his circumstances as defining his potential.

"We didn't have a lot of money, but we had a lot of happiness, so I wasn't broke happiness-wise. When we were struggling back in the day, we were all together in one room, same room. We were having fun, we were smiling." - Giannis said.​

His ability to find joy in hard times became the foundation for everything that followed. Giannis refused his circumstances and actively worked to transform them.

He trained relentlessly. He said yes to every opportunity.

At 18, he got drafted to the Milwaukee Bucks. A city he’d never heard of. A league that had no idea who he was.

But instead of trying to fit in, he leaned into what made him different:

• His hunger

• His humility

• His work ethic

In a league of superstars that lived a fancy life, Giannis lived in a small apartment and sent most of his money back home. He didn’t go out. He trained. He studied. He transformed his body and his mind.

Creating the circumstances you want doesn’t mean waiting for perfect conditions. (We’ll dive deeper into this one in the next section.) It means having the vision to see beyond current limitations. It means having the determination to put in the work even when it's difficult.

Giannis didn’t wait for a system to validate him. He built a legacy on his terms. From street vendor to NBA Champion. Because he dared to create the circumstance he wanted for himself.

The Waitress Who Almost Never Sang

In the late 1980s, a 24-year-old waitress named Sara Bareilles was serving tables at a local bar in Los Angeles. She occasionally played the piano during open mic nights.

Bareilles had written songs since childhood and studied communication at UCLA. But self-doubt kept her from pursuing music professionally.

"I was terrified of failing. I kept telling myself I needed more time, more practice, more songs…always more of something before I could really put myself out there." - Sara shares in her memoir.

Despite her talent, Bareilles spent years writing songs in private while working service jobs. She played small venues but often turned down chances to record demos or meet industry professionals.

"There was always a reason to wait," she explained. "I wasn't ready vocally, my songs weren't polished enough, the timing wasn't right financially. The truth was, I was waiting for some magical moment when I would suddenly feel confident, and that moment never came."

The breakthrough finally happened when a friend secretly recorded one of her performances and submitted it to a producer.

"When I found out what my friend had done, I was initially horrified," Bareilles recalled. "I immediately thought of all the reasons I wasn't ready: Like my voice cracked in one part, I messed up a lyric, the piano was slightly out of tune."

But the response was overwhelmingly positive, leading to her first real industry connections. Even after signing with Epic Records in 2004, she still didn’t feel ready while recording her debut album, Little Voice.

"I was constantly second-guessing everything. I would literally walk out of the studio some days convinced we needed to scrap everything and start over," she said.

Released in 2007, the album's breakout hit "Love Song" reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Grammy nominations. All while Bareilles still felt she was "faking it" and waiting to feel truly prepared for the spotlight.

"The irony is that even when 'Love Song' was climbing the charts, I was still waiting to feel ready. I was touring the world, performing on television, and constantly thinking, 'If I just had more experience, I'd feel ready for this."

Since then, Bareilles has:

• released multiple acclaimed albums
• composed the hit Broadway musical "Waitress"
• starred on Broadway herself
• won two Grammy Awards

These achievements would all have remained dreams had she waited until feeling fully ready.

"What I've learned is that readiness is a myth. The butterflies never go away. The doubt never fully disappears. What changes is your willingness to coexist with the uncertainty, to say I'm terrified, but I'm going to do this anyway."

The Importance of Moving to an Environment That Values You

Born in a small village near Kyiv, Ukraine, Jan Koum grew up in a home without hot water and often without electricity. His mother worked as a housecleaner while his father labored in construction sites to make ends meet.

When Koum was 16, his family immigrated to Mountain View, California.

This was a dramatic environmental shift that ultimately changed everything.

In Ukraine, his technical aptitude had limited outlets.

But in Silicon Valley, it became a bigger asset.

Still, even in Silicon Valley, Koum’s talent wasn’t recognized at first. He swept floors at a grocery store while his mother collected food stamps to help them survive.

Koum taught himself computer networking from used manuals. But tech giants like Facebook and Twitter still rejected him early on.

At San Jose State University, Koum studied computer science while working as a security tester at Ernst & Young. This led to a security role at Yahoo. Which became his first environment that began to recognize his potential, though still far from his ultimate value.

The key turning point came when Koum left Yahoo in 2007, took a year off to travel, and then decided to apply to work at Facebook.

But once again, he was rejected.

Rather than continuing to knock on closed doors, Koum created his own environment. In 2009, he founded WhatsApp with Brian Acton (another Facebook reject). Their vision was simple: build a messaging app without ads that could connect people globally.

Initially, the app gained modest traction. But when Apple introduced push notifications in 2011, WhatsApp found its perfect environment. And suddenly WhatsApp became indispensable to millions of users worldwide.

Later in 2014, Facebook, the very company that had rejected Jan Koum twice, acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion.

Jan Koum was the same person, had the same skills, but received a different valuation based solely on environment.

As Koum later reflected: "I couldn't get a job, so I created one."

Koum's journey demonstrates a fundamental truth: your value isn't absolute. It's relative to your environment.

For example, the same bottle of water costs $1 at Aldi, $2 at a gas station, and $5 at an airport.

The water hasn't changed. Only the environment has.

This reveals a profound truth that extends far beyond retail pricing: your value is deeply connected to your environment.

The wrong environment may value access to you as free. The right environment can value access to you as billions.

You Are Not a Tree

The beautiful thing about being human is that we build and apply tools in a way that helps us adapt to different environments and situations. We can survive in the cold with a good coat and in the heat with shade and water.

Unlike trees, we aren't rooted to one spot. We can move, adapt, and reposition ourselves in environments that recognize and amplify our value.

This mobility is our greatest advantage. A tree must adapt to its soil, sunlight, and water. But humans can seek environments that fit their strengths.

As investor and philosopher Naval Ravikant puts it:

"Figure out what you're good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project."

But this projection needs the right environment to reflect back value.

I used to think I needed to fix something in me. But most of the time, I was just in a place that didn’t see what I could bring to the table. Maybe you’re there too.

I had a lot of fun researching stories for this newsletter. Here are some good questions to consider and go deeper on this theme:

1.Where are my skills most scarce?

Koum's coding skills were common in Silicon Valley but his unique approach to messaging was rare.

2. Who values my specific capabilities most highly?

Identify the people, organizations, or markets that would suffer most without what you offer.

3. What environments am I naturally drawn to?

Your intuitive interests often point toward environments where you'll naturally thrive.

4. Where do I lose track of time?

Flow states reveal environments aligned with your intrinsic motivations.

5. Who is already paying premium prices for similar value?

Follow the money to find environments that abundantly value what you offer.

It's worth remembering:

You are not in a cage.

You are teachable, open-minded, perceptive, creative, adaptable, and most importantly, you are free. Your ability to move between environments is your superpower.

You can create the circumstance that you want even when you don't feel ready to start.

The same water that’s worth $1 in one place is worth $5 somewhere else. Your skills, talents, and contributions are no different. Value is contextual.

You are not stuck.

You are not broken.

You are not behind.

You are a seed.

And it might just be time to change your soil.

That's it for this one.

Chat next week,

Jess

Inspire. Empower. Transform.

P.S.

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