When I lived in NYC, I always wanted to live in West Village. 

A lot of people who live in The City see West Village as basically the pinnacle of life.

Why?

Most Millennial women who moved to NYC in their 20’s grew up watching the show “Sex and the City.” 

They were obsessed with the character Carrie Bradshaw who lived in West Village. 

That show is completely unrealistic in the real world btw - the only journalists who live in West Village 1BR’s are ones with parents bankrolling it…which actually happens quite often.

So the large majority of millennial women have this Carrie Bradshaw fantasy which leads them to have a deep attachment to the cobblestone streets and Italian restaurants of West Village.

Most Millennial guys who moved to NYC were obsessed with the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” A straight man typically has two main reasons for moving to NYC:

1. To get super rich

2. To get hot girls

A lot of guys will land some bigtime job in finance in NYC…but after a few years realize that they’re still not getting any hot girls.

So what do they do?

Move to West Village. 

West Village is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city.

Therefore as a guy, having the ability to tell women that you live in West Village is a pretty easy way to subcommunicate “I’m rich.”

When I lived in NYC I lived in several different neighborhoods…

First -

There was a trap house on 14th st.

This apartment had:

• an illegal number of tenants

• an internal war between my 2 pothead roommates and my commercial real estate agent roommate

• 1 roommate who was completely MIA (I saw him twice in 6 months)

• A pool table that had to be physically dissambled and carried down 5 flights of stairs (WAY harder than it sounds btw) and

• A standoff with our landlord that eventually led to her selling our building to a Korean fried chicken franchise

Second -

I lived in Midtown East near Grand Central - the mecca of the world of finance.

When COVID hit, I was trapped in the apartment with this crazy Korean finance bro who talked WAY too much and somehow managed to get fired 3 times in one year.

This guy was taking tons of steroids and would go through these ridiculous periods of anger that usually culminated in him cooking squid at 3 AM and screaming on the phone with his family in Korean.

He’d scream “SHIBAL” (like the dogecoin dog) all the time.

I was also unemployed and spent most of my days running up and down 21 flights of steps, doing pushups with my weighted vest, and writing 4 emails per day to practice copy for my non-existent ecom brand. 

Third -

Then I lived in East Village with my college roommates/doubles partner. Everything was pretty smooth aside from the fact that I was working as a setter and making like $3,000/mo.

$3,000/mo is basically poverty level by NYC standards btw.

Fourth -

I lived in the studio of my girlfriend (now wife) with our new puppy for a month since our lease endings didn’t match up.

To say July 2022 was a rough month for our relationship would be the understatement of the century.

Fifth -

My girlfriend and I FINALLY moved to West Village.

We made it!

The end goal had been achieved.

…and guess what?

I HATED IT.

From literally day 1 when this old dude wearing a sweater vest sneered at me for moving my own stuff (inside of hiring movers).

I couldn’t stand it.

The people SUCKED.

I grew up in an immigrant Filipino family and have made about 45,000 cold calls in my life.

…so I think that I have thicker skin than most. 

But I could not STAND these fucking people. 

I’ve also lived in a lot of places throughout my life (Milwaukee, Virginia, Washington DC, NYC, and now Miami).

For the most part I liked the majority of them (Milwaukee kinda sucked but atleast the lakes are nice).

West Village is the one place where in hindsight I would be happy to see it wiped off the map along with the people in it.

I swear it was nothing but a bunch of pretentious old money pricks whose great-grandpa built railroads in the 1800s.

Also random side note (too important not to be addressed).

Atleast 1x per week, I’d see some random guy with his dick out in the middle of the street. 

I’m sorry…but I just don’t wanna see that EVER. 

I didn’t sign up for that.

I don’t think anyone else signed up for that. 

INCREDIBLY uncool. 

Why do I bring this up?

I think that in life it’s very easy to REALLY want something…but not be sure why you want it. 

Then when you bust your ass for a few years and finally get it, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be.  

You see this a lot with business owners.

Guys think that they want this BIG business that makes multiple 7 figures.

They spent YEARS building their team, adspend goes through the roof, their monthly overhead is over $100,000.

They finally hit it big and start making tons of money.

…but they’re also trapped in their business. 

What they realize is…

All they really wanted was to not have to worry about money in the first place.

They’re not really an “entrepreneur” type personality…they simply didn’t want to have a boss.

If they had the self-awareness to figure this out in the first place, they could have accomplished this with 1/10 of the time and with 1/100 of the effort.

(realistically they would have been happier by securing 3 rental properties and moving to South America).

So I would encourage you, as we’re a few weeks into this New Year to not only think about your goals…

/

Your processes…and systems…and habits… 

But also take some time to think deeply about what it is that you REALLY want. 

…and WHY you want it. 

…and if the path you’re on is actually conducive to that end goal. 

I’m not the best at this by any means and have had to course-correct many times over the last few years.

But I’m also very happy that I did.

and I think you will be too.

• D

P.S. My other email newsletter, the Future of Disruptive Tech is almost to 10,000 subscribers. Want to learn more about Virtual Reality, AI, Crypto, and other crazy shit that’s going to completely change the world in the next few years?

Click here to subscribe for free now.