For context:
This article explores all 16 Hardwires from A2B Transformation – helping you move from dependency (A-levels) to independence and self-direction (B-levels).
What are Hardwires? Neurological patterns formed throughout your life – from birth to now. Shaped by your DNA, environment, parenting, choices, and experiences.
Exploring the first one on our list: 1/16
2 minutes reading.
The task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted.
— The journals of Kierkegaard
Last night I realized I'd stopped thinking like a builder and started thinking like an employee. Here's how it happened.
Risk taking, or rather, the spirit of risk taking moves parallel to feelings of self-reliance and autonomy. Whereas the spirit of settling for a job, corporate or otherwise, with minimal risk or minimal uncertainty on behalf of the individual, moves parallel to feelings of dependency and self-doubt.
When I dedicated over 3 years to learning investing and active trading — living on a $25 government subsidy and my mother's support — I mostly planned and visualized what I would build, how I would recruit, how I would diversify my wealth, how I would explore countries...
However, in recent months after landing a job in 2023, though I still develop myself and invest portions of my income and am no longer reliant on subsidies, I can notice my attention leaning more on: How I am perceived by colleagues, how I could get promoted to this or that role, how I could polish my CV for a higher paying job, how I could meet some employer who'll be impressed by my work.
It's crucially important to recognize something here — and I've tried to write about this before in Bruised but Not Broken:
"The universe is so designed that we humans and animals alike must get acquainted with the fact that life has guaranteed challenges.."
When I was unemployed, I had other challenges, which were as uncomfortable, but not greater: I worried about rent, food, and losing large invested capital. Now employed, I have other challenges which are as uncomfortable, but not greater: now I worry about colleagues' and bosses' impressions, ruminating over saying the wrong thing in a meeting, and losing out on promotions & bonuses.
Likewise, there are benefits. But here, there are serious differences and one is greater.
Now I can pay the rent, have monthly income, and my corporate skills are being sharpened. But the spirit hovering over me is dependency and a quiet erosion of self-reliance.
Before, I couldn't pay rent and I didn't have monthly income — but I had autonomy over my time, I was sharpening self-sustaining skills, I was focused on building my empire. And the spirit, now looking back, that hovered over me was self-reliance and independence.
"Independence in thought, philosophy, morals, and culture are as important as financial independence", writes Morgan Housel in an article: Pure Independence
Kierkegaard was right: I was noble-hearted when the task was difficult and mine. Now the task is easy and someone else's.
In closing, I value and appreciate my job for the sustenance and privileges it has exposed me to — but I recognize where it is leading. And frankly speaking, I highly doubt the dots will "connect" and somehow find myself in my once envisioned empire where I called the shots. Most likely to happen is just a wasting away of years, with the flicker of fire in me getting dimmer and dimmer. And my corporate camouflage getting larger and larger — the mask of someone who's grateful just to be here, who's learned to stop wanting what he wanted.
But awareness restores choice. The moment you see the drift, you can steer again.
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the comfortable swamps of good-enough, the almost, the not-yet, the never-will-be. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Sam Madlala
Let's talk about transformation!
This article explores all 16 Hardwires from A2BTransformation – helping you move from dependency (A-levels) to independence and self-direction (B-levels).
What are Hardwires? Neurological patterns formed throughout your life – from birth to now. Shaped by your DNA, environment, parenting, choices, and experiences.
How to assess yours? A2B offers assessments for all ages. Interpretation coaches help break down your results and their implications. Learn more: Hardwires Assessment
THE 16 HARDWIRES:
In the coming posts, we'll break down each hardwire in simple terms. Jump to the ones that interest you most!
Next up: Deep dive begins 🧵
People don't care about our problems, just like we don't care about other people's problems. And this is okay.
But it gets interesting — Most people don't even care about your wins & life-defining achievements, because they're too absorbed in their own wins.
I saw this clearly, recently, when catching up with a high school friend. He lit up talking about his grade 9 rugby season—how his team went undefeated, the thrill of that winning streak. I was in the same grade, I saw him nearly every day. But I remembered none of it.
While he was recounting what was clearly a defining achievement, all I could recall was seeing him lug heavy sports bags and wear that funny-fitting team jersey.
"Why?", I introspected. But the answer was simple. It is because I was living in my own highlight reel. In grade 9, I'd made the 1st Team soccer team and earned the number 10 jersey—the best player spot. I walked around thinking everyone noticed, everyone admired me for making first team so early. And till this day — I am happy to recount to anyone willing to hear, that I made first team squad so early in High School…
Standing there watching my friend's face glow with his memory while I drew a complete blank on his triumph—that's when it hit me. We're all doing this. We assume we know what others notice, what they value, what they remember about us. But we're mostly just projecting our own movie onto everyone else's screen.
This self-absorption isn't good or bad—it just is. But here's what changed for me: I stopped assuming my version of events is the accurate one. When I think 'they must remember this' or 'surely they noticed that'—I pause. Do I actually know? Or am I just seeing my own reflection everywhere I look? That small shift—from certainty to curiosity about how wrong I might be—changes everything.
Sam Madlala
Incredibly difficult.
Years ago, there was a man who was dear to me. He had made his way in our community from taxi driver to Taxi Association Rank Manager.
In his forties, he was warned by doctors that his health was deteriorating rapidly - daily bouts of drinking, numerous cigarettes a day. And here's the saddest part:
He KNEW what to do. And he BEGAN taking steps to change.
He ran at 5am for a couple of days. He stopped drinking for a few weeks. He cut down to two cigarettes a day. But to sustain change like that, you can't stay in the environment that encouraged the behavior in the first place.
Worse, he had to HIDE. He used back routes during his morning runs because his taxi friends would ridicule him: "He wants to run the marathon, hehehe."
Worst of all, he was consumed by anxiety about what people thought - which worsened his chances of quitting. Why? Black townships tend to be crowded. By age 25, most people know a lot about a lot of people. By 40, you're convinced everyone's watching you - because you yourself know everyone.
So those 5am runs didn't last. The alcohol abstinence didn't make it past a month - not around buddies who hadn't seen a doctor in years, who didn't care about their internal organs. In a community where healthcare access was limited and distrust of doctors ran deep, health was dismissed as "a white person's problem, or for nerds, or grannies." It wasn't a priority. It was seen as a luxury.
Here's what I learned from watching him struggle:
Change is difficult, but not really. What's difficult is changing a behavior or mindset while you're still in the environment that introduced and encouraged it.
Alcohol. Cannabis. Cigarettes. Porn. Gossip. Cheating. Illiteracy. Endless scrolling. Fixed mindsets. Laziness.
These behaviors destroy health, self-esteem, longevity, and clear thinking. But in certain households, communities, provinces - they're everywhere. They seem cool, normal, harmless.
But they're not. Looking at research, history, and what happened to the man I loved - they're harmful, destructive, and leave families vulnerable to poverty, aimlessness, and economic failure.
That man passed away five years later. Two years of affliction. Hospitalized. Wheelchair-bound. Swelling. Diabetes. Multiple diseases.
That man was my father.
And he couldn't sustain change in the wrong environment.
I left a month after burying him. I now live and work 100 km away. I read. I maintain routines. I lead teams. I write these words.
Not because I'm stronger than my father. But because I had the privilege of distance - something he never gave himself permission to seek.
If you're reading this and recognize yourself in toxic patterns - whether it's drinking, gossip, doomscrolling, or just going through the motions - ask yourself:
Is my environment helping me grow, or keeping me stuck?
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is leave. Not forever. But long enough to become who you're meant to be.
— Sam Madlala
Reading time: 2 minutes
From 2018 to 2023, I dedicated myself to mastering active trading—stocks, currencies, crypto. By 2023, I had to admit the truth: I needed a job to sustain my growing needs as a growing man. The dream of trading for a living was threatening my relationship and financial independence.
I got a job—and slowly transitioned to investing because there just wasn't enough time in a day to sit in front of screens, analyzing and researching. I have nothing against short-term trading, but it didn't work for me, nor do I think I'll try it again in the future.
Thankfully, every genuine effort yields results—so my active trading experience with patterns, mindset, and market information was now being applied to longer-term investing. And this is what I've learned.
Long-term investing teaches us "Active Patience." Because you know returns will take time—not months, but years to accumulate—you naturally don't sit in front of the screen praying, wishing, or trying to control their direction. Instead, at least what I do, I teach myself skills that will increase my income outside of investing: project management, writing, public speaking. And as my income increases, I invest more in my portfolio, which in turn yields more profits in the form of dividends and percentage returns.
The mental benefits are notable: I certainly sleep better, waking up early to practice skills rather than frantically checking my P&L dashboard. I notice more objective thinking versus wishful thinking, and reduced stress and emotional swings that trading, like gambling, comes with.
In the long run, I believe I'll be a better manager of my wealth with the extra career skills I'm developing. For example, with project management, I'll better invest my funds in initiatives that I can manage myself instead of hiring qualified managers. I can write my own quarterly reports to stakeholders, and I can market my own ideas and values to my staff and clients.
This path offers something trading never could: the space to build a life while building wealth.
Thanks for reading.
Sam
Grab a cup of coffee and prepare your mind for powerful, transformative words from some of the greatest thinkers of the last 2,000 years.
Every day, I read—a book, an article, an essay, or simply scroll through X for motivational quotes. I've developed a system for capturing the best insights I find: they progress from daily discoveries to 'Best Monthly Quotes,' and eventually to 'Best Yearly Quotes.' Below, I'm sharing my Monthly & Quarterly Best—the quotes that stopped me in my tracks and changed how I think.
On Action & Achievement
"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."
— Leonardo da Vinci
"When you think something's impossible, consider this: people who achieve extraordinary things are willing to endure what others won't.
Take SpaceX. In 2002, most experts said private companies couldn't build orbital rockets. Musk accepted years of failure and ridicule that others wouldn't.
What you call impossible is often just pain you're unwilling to endure."
— Shane Parrish
"The secret to success in almost all fields is large, uninterrupted blocks of focused time."
— Ryan Holiday
- Simplified: The most valuable skill you can build: The ability to focus for 2-3 hours a day and get your most important work done.
"The more you exercise, the more high-energy you become; the more you write, the more clear-minded you become; the more you take risks, the more ambitious you become."
— Orange Book "
"The right direction in life is full of painful rejections, you should actually be concerned if the journey doesn't hurt at all."
— Orange Book
"Humans never genuinely pursue happiness; they only pursue relief from uncertainty. Happiness emerges momentarily as a byproduct whenever uncertainty briefly disappears."
— Chris Williamson
You draw out of the world what you put into it.
- Want to attract exceptional people? Be exceptional.
- Want to attract reliable people? Be reliable.
- Want to attract trustworthy people? Be trustworthy.
- Want to attract welcoming people? Be welcoming.
— James Clear
"In a society where fewer and fewer people read books, if you just make it a habit to read old books, you will nurture a perspective that no one else has, you will get ideas that no one else has, you will naturally stand out by the quality of your thoughts."
— Orange Book
"There's no short-cut to any place worth going."
— Beverly Sills
Let's talk about Transformation! For context: This article explores all 16 Hardwires from A2B Transformation – helping you move from ...
