My entire life I thought I wasn't good enough

My entire life I thought I wasn't good enough.

When I went to competitions and didn't place, I thought I wasn't good enough.

When I graduated high school and wasn't in the top 20, I thought I wasn't good enough.

When I looked at the ivy league college applications, I thought I wasn't good enough.

When I got to college and my first friend had 4 years of development experience, I thought I wasn't good enough.

When he got an internship at Google and I went to "some email marketing company in Boston", I thought I wasn't good enough.

When I had to take a semester off to work for "A tax company", I thought I wasn't good enough.

When I finally got to Microsoft, I wanted to feel good enough.

I'd finally hit a big tech company - wasn't that the dream? Hadn't I achieved my goals?

But I went through the internship and struggled.

I looked at myself every morning and still felt I wasn't good enough.

I got a return offer to the company and thought "I don't deserve this".

I went back to school and became chairman of a huge organization, and I thought I'd feel good enough.But I struggled every day more than I could imagine, and still every day I thought I wasn't good enough.

I got all the way to Facebook, and I thought "this must be good enough"

But I struggled again, struggled more, and it took everything I had to catch up to what felt like a company moving 100x faster than me.

And even at the end, when I finally held a full-time offer in my hands, I didn't feel good enough. I sat in the room with my recruiter and held back tears. I knew they'd given other people better offers. I knew I was still behind. And the thought of that crushed me.

But in my last few days at Facebook, in these last hours I've had to look back on my time this summer, these past few years, the course of my career, hell my whole life, I realize I'm an idiot.

At every corner, every low point, my friends were there for me. Believed in me. Told me that I was good enough. But I never believed them. Failure wasn't "good enough". Being "ok", even being "good" wasn't good enough. There was only greatness. Only being the absolute greatest would be enough.

And I think that's why I went to startups. The life of entrepreneurship seemed rife with struggle, but in my mind the only true greatness had to be there. It was the only way I could truly feel I had surpassed that peak. Become something I could truly be proud of. Live an amazing, insane life that the whole world would be jealous of.

But it took me until today to really understand. Until today to be able to look myself in the mirror and say something different.

In these past few years I've achieved so much. I've lived a life so many would be jealous of, but I haven't been able to take even a second to appreciate it, to feel happy about it, to feel proud of it. But all that changes today.

I've landed jobs at tech companies high school Dan couldn't have dreamed of. I've spoken to my idols, learned more than I ever knew I could learn, and become so many of the things I always wanted to be. And today I take a step back and finally say what I've needed to say for a really long time:

I'm proud of myself.

I'm proud of the life I've lived and the progress I've made. I'm proud of every mistake and struggle, because pushing through them got me to where I am today. And most importantly, I'm proud that I haven't given up. Even when everything seemed hopeless I was dumb enough to keep trying, and that has led me to more success than I could ever have dreamed of.

When I held that Facebook offer in my hand, I cried. But I cried for the wrong reason. Tonight, I hold that same paper in my hand, and I cry with pride, knowing that I've done so much worth being proud of and never gave myself the chance to feel that.

I might have started a business for the wrong reasons. Maybe, I started it because I thought I had to be the best. Maybe I started it because I thought it was the only option I had. But regardless of why I started it, I know why I'm going to continue it.

I'm going to keep going because I love what I do. I love talking to people. I love feeling like the world is at my fingertips and I can go anywhere and do anything, with nothing in the way but myself. And I want to do amazing things.

But even if I don't, I'll still be proud. Proud because I've come so far, and even if I didn't move another inch from here I'd be proud that I got here forever.

There's an old saying - "Lead, Follow, or get out of the way". And today, I'm going to stop following the same mindset, get out of my own way, and do everything I can to lead myself to an even more amazing future, filled with the happiness and pride I should've felt all along.