Losing the ‘Perfect Life’ Made Me Rethink Everything

TL;DR: I lost the “secure life” (job, stability, identity) and discovered that rebuilding isn’t about adding more—it’s about subtracting down to essentials (food, health, shelter, connection, purpose) and reshaping life through focused 40‑day experiments. This site is the lab; you’re invited in.

It started with a single email—the kind that hits you in the chest. My heart sank. I stared at the screen, unable to process what I was reading.

I had just bought my first home. My kids were thriving in school. My career felt stable, with a steady stream of recruiters reaching out. For the first time, everything lined up, and life felt really, really good.

Then it was all gone. Like a wave pulling back everything I’d built—fast, quiet, and without warning.

The recruiter calls stopped coming in. The industry was saturated with qualified people who were like me—laid off. I felt completely lost. I didn’t see a way out. I started asking myself questions like:

• Do I even matter anymore?
• How am I going to take care of my family?
• Will I lose my home?
• What about my credit?
• Am I going to lose everything?

I felt like a scared kid again—I wanted to just crawl up in a ball and let the world disappear.

Okay, maybe that got a little dark—but hey, healing isn’t always cute. And in that moment, I wasn’t jumping off anything… I was just depressed. Binge-watching. Mindless scrolling. Anything to feel something else.

Until I saw an interview with Joe Rogan and David Choe—the artist who became a multimillionaire by taking Facebook stock instead of cash. One story from that interview hit me hard. David shared his time living with an indigenous tribe in Africa, where he learned profound lessons about simplicity and joy that completely shifted my perspective.

“They looked at me like I’d never caught anything in my life—which, to be fair, I hadn’t. I told them about supermarkets, and they thought I was joking.”

“When I mentioned America, they asked, ‘Isn’t that where people jump off buildings to kill themselves?’ They didn’t even have a concept of suicide.”

“And while I was there, the anxiety and depression disappeared. We hunted, cooked, danced, and celebrated every meal. Life was simple, and it was enough.”

Wow. I’m here all depressed about my situation and… these people—who have almost nothing—are smiling, laughing, thriving. They have so little… yet they are so alive.

And that’s when something clicked:

Maybe it’s not about what you have—maybe it’s about what you let go of.

I don’t need more. I need less.

No, I’m not moving to the jungle. But I am going to live differently. I’m going to rebuild from the ground up—I want to find out if all we need to live and be happy is the bare essentials:

• Food
• Health
• Shelter
• Connection
• Purpose

From there, I think we can start doing our best work. That’s when we’ll start being alive.

To take on this journey, I’m going to be doing it through a series of 40-day challenges:

• 40 days of nourishing food and mindful eating
• 40 days of healing my mind and rebuilding my body
• 40 days of stripping away the noise and rediscovering who I am

So why 40 days?

It kept showing up—everywhere. Ancient traditions use 40 as a period of testing and renewal. Modern psychology says real habit change starts to stick around the 40-day mark. Most people quit at 30. If you can push past that wall, Day 40 starts to feel different—it feels like you.

If you want the full story (history, science, and how to make it work), read: How the Number 40 Can Change Your Life.

And if you’re ready to try it with me, use the simple tracker I built to plan, log, and stay consistent: Start your 40‑Day Challenge →

This isn’t a reset. It’s survival. It’s resurrection.

If you’ve ever stood at the edge… If you’ve ever wanted to disappear… If you’ve ever felt like giving up… You’re not alone.

Join me as we figure out what it means to be alive again. And if this helps even one person take a step back from the edge—it’s worth everything.

If you’re ready to simplify… to breathe again… to find yourself… then join me. Let’s do this together—one challenge at a time.

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Ready to Start Your Own 40-Day Shift?

1. Understand why 40 works → /blog/why-40-days
2. Pick or plan a challenge → /forty
3. Get weekly experiment updates (signup on homepage)

“Remove what isn’t you. Repeat.”