Finding The Future Starts With Hope

I have hope.

You could call it delusion, and it probably is, but I have so much hope.

Because without it, I won’t move towards the future I want.

Even if you’re looking to change your life, create, build something, be better, and do more, you need to have hope in your heart.

I know it sounds clichéd, but having hope is a good thing and the best way to look at life.

I’ve seen and experienced a lot of terrible things in my life. Betrayal and theft. Failure and loss. Corruption and scams. Rejected by the paternal side of my family. Experienced envious friends. Colluded against in poker. Accused of cheating in poker and had six figures of earnings taken away. The person I loved most destroyed me with vicious words. A failed coffee business.

And more recently, my Apple Macbook battery swelled up and needed replacing.

But in all the struggles, nothing was ever worse than the absence of hope. When hope is absent, the future of possibility is ripped away, and dreams are destroyed.

I’ve always been optimistic that life would turn out okay. But I can remember, with such clarity, the moment I lost all hope.

Heartbroken and directionless in my career and life, I was on the train back to Birmingham, feeling like I could do nothing. I felt like everything was pointless, and for one brief moment, I fantasised about what life would look like if I deleted my existence from this earth.

I imagined the shock on my ex’s face as she found out through social media about my death. I imagined she’d collapse into tears and how terrible regret and remorse would follow. She would blame herself for not understanding me, for being so cruel and hurtful, for being too impatient.

I felt useless and that the eight years I spent playing poker amounted to nothing. No skills. No value. No achievement.

Perhaps my ex was right. Who the fuck did I think I was trying to go from poker to business? What evidence was there that I could do it? And more importantly, what was I going to do if I failed? I had no skills, so what was the backup plan?

This was the only moment in my life where I felt such abject hopelessness. I had lost all belief in myself and that my dreams would never come true.

Then a few miraculous things happened. Small human moments, but enough to change everything.

The next day, I dragged myself to Nick’s — a close friend's — 30th birthday. The plan was to have dinner, say happy birthday, head home and contemplate my existence.

After finishing dinner, Nick stood up and gave a toast. He proceeded to roast everybody who turned up, and when he got to me, I was half expecting him to make some sort of racially humourous joke about me being his only Vietnamese friend. But instead, he thanked me for changing his life. For showing him, there was a different way to think about the world and that he was grateful for what I had done for him.

My eyes fought so hard to hold back the tears. Nick showed me I had more than just poker to offer to the world. When you desire so much, you focus on what you lack, not what you have. I fell for the trap of focusing on what I lacked, but Nick helped me see that I had so much more to myself than I believed.

The day after Nick’s birthday, I had a scheduled call with Beccy — then a member of the writing group Foster — about a piece she had written. I wanted to cancel. I could come up with an excuse and say that I had some personal issues to attend to. No one ever questions personal issues. But at the same time, I hated letting people down. I got myself ready, looked over the notes I had made on Beccy’s piece and jumped on the call.

I barely knew anything about writing back then. I was upfront with Beccy about my novice storytelling abilities and to take my comments with a pinch of salt. But she generously praised my critiques and said I had an eye for storytelling.

These moments seem trivial in the grand scheme of things. But for me, the praise from both Nick and Beccy was enormous. Life altering. They showed me I wasn’t so useless after all.

For a man who had lost all hope in himself, I found the light to start changing things for the better. It didn’t matter if I lacked the skills. What mattered was that I had to be willing to show up every day and obsessively commit to myself and the life I wanted.

Two years on, I can say I’m proud of the things I’ve achieved so far. I’m still a long way away from my goals, but for each day I show up, I know I’m getting one step closer.

But this email is not really about me. This is about you. I know some of you are reading this that are on the verge of losing hope. And I want to give you a smidgen of hope.

I’m no one special. I’m no genius. I’m no rocket scientist. But I believe anyone, no matter what hand they’re dealt in life, can achieve anything they want so long as they choose to commit to their goals and show up every single day.

I know it sounds simple, but we humans love to overcomplicate things for no reason. Poker, business and investing taught me that all you need to do is take the simple fundamental ideas and do them well for a very long time.

You can do it. I believe in you. Just keep creating. Keep building. Keep hoping. Work towards the life you want. Some days are going to be great. Some days are going to be terrible. And when you feel like you want to give up, all I ask is you just commit to one more day.

Can you do that for me?

— Jason Vu Nguyen

P.S. Bare bones email this week as my laptop is in repair.