Today I learned something about myself that I can't unlearn.
I asked two of my closest friends a simple question: "How much money would you need per month to feel like you don't need to worry about money anymore?"
My first friend didn't hesitate. "Ten million."
My second friend thought for a moment. "One million."
And me? I was sitting there, proud of my answer.
Thirty thousand.
30K.
I said it with my chest, like it was a reasonable, mature, well-thought-out number. And in that moment watching their faces, hearing their ambition, feeling the gap between their vision and mine something cracked open inside me.
I wasn't being humble. I was being limited.
The fishbowl I didn't know I was in.
There's a metaphor I keep thinking about the fish in a bowl. A fish raised in a small glass bowl can't imagine the ocean. Not because the ocean doesn't exist, but because its entire world is that bowl. The glass is its sky. The water is its universe. And it has no idea that something infinitely bigger is out there.
That fish was me.
My whole life, I've been operating inside a bowl I didn't even know was there. I've negotiated contracts by apologizing. I've priced my work like I was begging for a chance, not offering value. I've aimed low not because I lacked talent, but because somewhere deep inside, I didn't believe I deserved more.
Thirty thousand felt ambitious to me. That should tell you everything about the size of my bowl.
When your goal is big enough, failure is still success.
Norman Vincent Peale once said: "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars."
I used to think that was a nice motivational quote you hang on a wall. Today I understand it differently.
If my friend aims for ten million and only reaches one million, he's still a millionaire. If I aim for thirty thousand and hit it, I'm exactly where I started. The ambition of the goal determines the floor of your failure.
Their goals weren't unrealistic. My goal was just too small.
The target has to be so ambitious, so wildly beyond your current reality, that even falling short means you've gone further than you ever thought possible. In every scenario you win.
The way I've been asking.
I've always asked for things with a low voice. Literally and figuratively.
Every negotiation, every opportunity, every conversation where I needed to advocate for myself I walked in small. I undersold my skills. I accepted the minimum because I was terrified that asking for more would make people leave.
But here's what I'm realizing: when you ask small, people give you small. Not because they're being unfair but because they're taking your word for it. You're telling them what you think you're worth, and they believe you.
I need to learn to ask differently. To stand taller. To speak with conviction. To stop negotiating from a place of fear and start negotiating from a place of value.
Because I do have value. I just haven't been pricing it right.
"Don't change. Upgrade."
Here's where the story gets personal.
I spent a big part of today convinced that to get ahead in life, I needed to become someone else. Tougher. Colder. More aggressive. I thought I needed to harden myself, change my personality, change my body, change who I fundamentally am.
And then a woman I deeply respect, her name is Flora, said something that stopped me in my tracks.
"You don't need to change. I'd rather you stay who you are. That's what makes you, you."
That hit me. Hard.
Because she's right. The goal was never to install a new operating system. It was always to update the one that's already running. I don't need to become another person. I need to become a better version of the person I already am.
Stronger, yes. More confident, absolutely. Better at expressing myself, at carrying myself, at knowing my worth, all of that.
But still me.
The road ahead.
I won't pretend this shift happens overnight. It doesn't. Thinking bigger after a lifetime of thinking small is like trying to stretch muscles you didn't know existed. It's uncomfortable. It's unfamiliar. And some days, I'll probably fall back into old patterns.
But I know the bowl exists now. And once you see the glass, you can't unsee it.
I'm going to work not harder, because people say that too loosely but smarter. More methodically. More intentionally. With a vision that scares me a little, because if it doesn't scare me, it's not big enough.
I hope this touches someone. Maybe you're the person who always plays small. Maybe you're the one who apologizes before asking. Maybe you're the fish who didn't know about the ocean.
Now you do.
Let's swim. 🌊
Christ-Yvan