(This is a lightly edited transcript from a raw, luckily-recorded conversation. I was riffing on some ideas that have fundamentally changed how I operate, and a friend asked some great questions that pushed my thinking. I found the exchange insightful and worth sharing. The goal is to preserve the raw energy of the original conversation. The ideas discussed are a synthesis of wisdom from thinkers like Naval Ravikant, Charlie Munger, and others, filtered through my own lens.)
Part I: The Unhappiness Contract
Okay, let’s boil the last 40 minutes down to a single principle. It’s this: The more things you want, the more you sign a contract with yourself to be unhappy until you get them.
This contract has hidden clauses. The more you want, the more fixated and distracted you become, making it impossible to achieve any single goal. The truth is, you can have almost anything you want in life, but not everything at once. You must choose.
Our biology doesn't care about the scale of our desires, only that they are met. The billionaire craving his eleventh car experiences the same neurological reward—the same dopamine hit as a guy who simply has been out of jail for fresh air and sunlight. Your brain isn't wired for luxury; it's wired for survival.
We operate under a biological glitch that equates wanting more with achieving more. In reality, survival belongs to the adaptable. The cockroach thrives because it needs little and adjusts to everything. As humans, our strength lies in being just as dynamic. This is a first principle, a fundamental truth that applies as much to building a meaningful life as it does to building a successful startup.
Part II: The Breakup Parable
Shezan: Let’s talk about salience — how real something feels in your mind. Around 80% of what we think is just stuff we make up.
Let’s make it visual,
Scenario One: The Victim.
A guy goes through a breakup and collapses. Three months in a dark room, angry, bitter, telling everyone life is unfair.
Scenario Two: The Victor.
Same breakup. But this guy turns it into a revolution. He gets fit, travels, builds, lives. The breakup becomes fuel.
Now tell me was the situation any different?
Friend: No. Same event, different response.
Shezan: Exactly.
People let trauma define them. But that’s only true if you let it. The past is for lessons, not residence.
Guy #1 repeats, “The world’s against me. I’ll never get it back. What’s the point?”
Guy #2 says, “Maybe this was a wake-up call. Time to fix my patterns. Time to build myself. Maybe she left so I’d stop abandoning me.”
Friend: That’s deep. So one is powered by pity, the other by perspective.
Shezan: Exactly. And here’s the real distinction:
Guy #1 says, “Nothing matters. Full stop.”
Guy #2 says, “Nothing matters... so everything I do matters.”
Same world. Different lens. Adapt a lens that better serves you.
Part III: Life Is a Video Game
Shezan: Think of life as a game like Grand Theft Auto. Nothing in GTA actually matters, which is precisely why it’s so fun. You’ll still play for six hours straight, customizing cars and exploring the world, not because you have to, but because you can.
Friend: But you have a playbook for GTA V, missions...
Shezan: Forget the missions. The missions are chores. They’re society's expectations, handed to you when you don’t have a mission of your own. They’re what you do when you’re bored.
The people who have the most fun in the game are the ones who ignore the default quests. They create their own. They invent their own rules. They play.
The same is true for life. The moment you realize it's all a grand simulation, you stop asking for permission and start chasing curiosity. That’s when you unlock the game. That’s the power of salience: one shift in perspective unlocks a different reality.
Part IV: Hacking Your Belief System
Friend: Okay, so define salience in the simplest terms.
Shezan: Salience is the dial you turn to control how real an idea feels.
In school, I’d hear “practice makes perfect.” That’s Salience Level 1—a hollow theory. Now, I live by it. That’s Level 10—embodied truth.
Someone who says, “I might succeed,” is living at Level 1.
Someone who says, “I will succeed,” is operating at Level 10.
Friend: So how do you turn the dial from 1 to 10?
Shezan: You recognize that your mind is a story machine. It creates narratives some of it true and some of them are false —false fears, false anxieties, false limitations. Why not use the same machine for creation instead of destruction? Reverse-engineer the mechanism.
Life is subjective. Eighty percent of the chains on our minds are imaginary.
“That person hates me.” Fiction.
“I’ll look foolish if I try that.” Fiction.
“I’ve never succeeded before, so I won’t now.” Fiction.
If in three generations, no one will remember our name, why are we so afraid of judgment? It all comes back to one liberating truth: we're all going to die. This is your one shot. Live accordingly.
Friend: So, you're saying we should choose the beliefs that serve us best.
Shezan: You got it. Believe your way into better outcomes.
Part V: The Optimist’s Wager
Shezan: There’s a saying in Silicon Valley: “The pessimist gets to be right while the optimist gets to be rich.”
The pessimist wins the argument. The optimist wins the game.
In life, you only have to be right once. One breakout idea, one defining relationship, one moment of true conviction can change everything. Jeff Bezos described it perfectly: business isn't like baseball where three strikes mean you're out. It’s a game with infinite swings and exponential upside. If one hit could score a million runs, why would you ever stop swinging?
That’s what practical optimism is. It’s not delusion; it’s a strategy built on asymmetric payoffs. You can be wrong 99 times, but the one time you’re right pays for all the misses and then some.
Part VI: Process Over Prize
Friend: Okay, let’s make this practical. You told me to stop focusing on getting my startup funded and focus on the process instead. What does that actually mean?
Shezan: Great question. Think about Hyatt. When you walk into a Hyatt hotel, what is the single goal of every employee?
Friend: To give the customer the best possible experience.
Shezan: Exactly. Now, think of a shady, failing hotel. What’s their goal?
Friend: To make as much money as possible off you.
Shezan: Yes. They’re obsessed with the prize—the money. Hyatt is obsessed with the process—the experience. One thrives, the other dies. It’s the same reason Uber won against haggling taxis and why instant delivery services like Zepto are winning. They are ridiculously obsessed with the user experience. The money simply followed.
The product is rarely just the physical thing. For Red Bull, the product is the feeling of rebellion when you hold the can. For a premium wine, it’s the status your friends feel when you serve it.
Focus on the process of creating an undeniable experience for your customers, your team, and your investors. The prize—the money, the fame, the success—will take care of itself.
When I say focus on the process, I mean design the experience so well that the outcome becomes inevitable.
Friend: So the goal takes care of itself.
Shezan: Exactly. The moment you chase the prize, you lose the craft. The moment you serve the craft, the prize chases you.
Epilogue
Desire is a contract you sign with unhappiness. - Naval
Belief is a tool you can learn to wield.
Reality is a story you get to write.
Play the game.
Create your own missions.
And remember: nothing matters…
which means everything you do can.
A final note for my friend Vidit, who hit record: Thanks for asking the questions that unlocked this. My ideas are only as good as your prompts.
And a heartfelt thank you to Jake & Tomas for sparking my curiosity about salience in our conversation two years ago. That moment has stayed with me and shaped my thinking ever since.