Your Job Pays You. Your Career Builds You.

Your 9-5 is your job. Your 5-9 is your career.

Your 9-5 Is Your Job

A responsible person pays their bills and funds their own life. That's the standard of adulthood, the bar that's been expected for centuries. In your 9-5 — your day job — you spend the bulk of your day working not for yourself, but for someone else: an institution, a company, a project.

For most people, this is normal and entirely acceptable. It removes the risk of ownership, and ownership is always hard. Running a business, managing a project, leading an institution — it's complex, demanding, unforgiving. Most of us could handle that complexity if we had to. We just don't want to. It costs too much.

The 9-5 gives you stability, and stability is good. When the bell rings for home-time, you get to spend time with family, switch your mind off, have a beer, watch a movie, read a novel. You can tell your boss, "I'm not checking that email after hours," and if your contract backs you up, he has no choice but to handle it himself.

But there's also your 5-9.

Your 5-9 Is Your Career

Only a minority of people understand — let alone use — these hours. Most waste them, especially early in a career, which is exactly when they matter most. If you're reading this early in yours, I want to show you how to spend these hours building something you'll be proud of looking back.

It struck me while explaining this to two colleagues that "5-9" doesn't just mean the morning. It's the evening too — everything after the bell rings for home-time. Both ends of the day belong to you, if you claim them.

My Mornings

Mine start between 4:30 and 4:50 a.m., with a cold shower. Yes, it genuinely gets easier with time. No, it doesn't cause flu or sickness — it strengthens your immune system, even through winter, which is when I'm writing this.

I'll admit winter in central Pietermaritzburg is mild compared to an hour in either direction — up toward Richmond, or up into Hilton, Howick, and Dargle near Inhlosane Mountain. Their winter is brutal. I'm not convinced I'd still be writing about cold showers at 4:30 a.m. if I lived up there permanently.

Inhlosane mountain

Richmond Mountains

Start your day by doing something difficult — it sets the tone for everything after. A cold shower, an ice bath, a hard workout — and your mind and body arrive at the rest of the day already sharpened, already willing to take on difficulty instead of avoiding it.

Let's circle back, because career is what we're actually here for: what sets you apart, what protects you when layoffs are sweeping through a tough economy, and what gives you earned self-esteem — because self-esteem can't be bought or faked. It has to be built through work.

Five Ways to Strengthen Your Career in the Hours You're Not Being Paid

1. Build specific knowledge. This is highly specialized skill, insight, and problem-solving ability that's unique to you — the kind that can't be taught in a classroom, copied by a competitor, or automated away. It's the single highest-leverage thing you can build in your 5-9, because everything else on this list ultimately feeds it.

My own work increasingly sits at the intersection of project administration, youth development, digital systems, artificial intelligence, writing, and business development. Someone can learn each of those subjects on their own. But the combination — lived, connected, repeated — becomes something only I can offer. That's what specific knowledge actually looks like in practice. Find your own intersection, and use your 5-9 to deepen it.

2. Read difficult, technical books. Philosophy, economics, business — material that strengthens your specific knowledge or simply trains your mind to sit with complexity. Save the romance novels and gossip columns for somewhere else. These hours are for building, not escaping.

3. Write long essays — even if no one reads them. As one writer on X put it: the mental clarity you want is the painful writing you avoid. Take your specific knowledge apart, teach it, explain it, argue with it. Long-form writing clarifies your thinking in a way nothing else does — this essay is proof of the exercise, not just a description of it.

4. Exercise. Dan Go said it best: "Getting in shape is a spiritual process disguised as a physical one." Nothing in the last ten years has done more for my self-esteem, resilience, positivity, and mental health than exercise. It's the cheapest therapy you'll ever access.

5. Study the skills your era demands, even outside your lane. We're living in the Information Age, where technology sets the pace. Periodically study what's relevant to it, even if it feels adjacent to your field — investing, statistics and probability, cognitive biases, nutrition, project management. Ignore these and you inherit blind spots you didn't choose.

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That's my version of the 5-9. Your job may belong, in part, to whoever employs you — the role can be restructured, the department can close, the contract can end. But the knowledge, discipline, health, judgment, and body of work you build in your 5-9 belong to you alone. Nothing but accident or death can take them back.

Your job pays you today. Your career is what you're quietly building for tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Sam 

The Load of Trying to Change People

 

I’m reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall for the second time. I first read it in January 2025, and I’m reading it again this month, June 2026.

I want to crystallise the biggest lesson I’ve taken from it so far:

When we want something to be true, we will literally obliterate all the evidence trying to tell us otherwise.

There are more than 50 cognitive biases that I’ve read about—biases being mental distortions, habits, dispositions, or inclinations that cloud our judgement.

Some of the most common ones, which you can observe almost daily, include:

• The Dunning–Kruger Effect: When limited skill or knowledge causes people to overestimate their ability.

• The Halo Effect: When one standout trait distorts your judgement of the whole person.

• Hindsight Bias: When, after something happens, it suddenly feels as though it had been obvious all along.

And there are many more.

But today, I want to write about one particularly dangerous bias—one whose clutches I caught myself falling into yesterday:

Confirmation bias: The tendency to search for, interpret, and favour information that confirms your existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.

In The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the main character, Helen, falls directly into this trap.

Before marrying a man whom nearly everyone around her has warned her about, she deliberately searches for, interprets, and favours information that confirms her hopes and desires. She obliterates the evidence showing her how dissipated, vulgar, unstable, sensual, and undisciplined this man is.

In fact, she convinces herself that she has been assigned by God to change him—to deliver him towards holy and virtuous thoughts. She sees him as a worthy challenge.

It is only once she is trapped in the clutches of married life that she glaringly realises her mortal error. But by then, it is too late—particularly in the 1800s, when divorce or living independently as a woman was rare, shunned, and deeply despised by society.

Likewise, yesterday, I caught myself hoping that a certain lady who plays an important role in our company would read more books.

Because if she did, she would become this and that. If she did, she would lead better, contribute better, and whatnot.

This was her response when I shared a book recommendation:

Her: I’ll try to read it.

Me: Cool—enjoy.

A few weeks later, I shared another book—the one I’m interpreting above.

Her: Thanks—I’ll try to read it.

Me: Explain the word “try” to me in regard to books. Don’t you like reading? So that I won’t keep sharing them 😂

Her: I just battle to find the time to read. I have a lot of duties to tend to, so I never get the time. I’m also very impatient—I like to finish things quickly, and a book requires patience.

There!

I knew I was in the clutches of confirmation bias when I saw her response as an opportunity to double down on my efforts to “convince her.”

To explain why reading books would be good for her. Why reading requires patience. How she could make time by waking up earlier. How she could develop the habit by reading for just ten minutes a day.

And all the rest of it…

But who wants to be told to wake up earlier by a colleague almost the same age as them?

Who wants to be told to read for ten minutes a day when they are convinced that their duties are already insurmountable?

Who wants to be told to become more patient because words knitted together by some dude out there will supposedly transform their mind and career?

I knew I was caught in confirmation bias because I was ignoring the evidence directly in front of me in favour of what I hoped to see and hear.

Thankfully, I caught myself.

And when I did, a huge load was lifted from my shoulders:

The load of trying to be the hero.

The load of meddling with other people’s choices, beliefs, and habits.

The load of trying to convince someone to want something they simply may not want.

The load of trying to change people.

My message to the reader is crystallised by another of the Brontë sisters, Charlotte Brontë, who wrote one of my favourite novels, Jane Eyre:

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?

Cognitive biases, on their own, may not qualify as laws and principles. But integrated with our cultivated values and beliefs — they form the robust internal code that guides better decisions in health, relationships, and career.

Catching the bias is the law in action.

Sam 

Literacy, Compliance, and the Quiet Revolution of Taking Responsibility

Yesterday, my colleagues — particularly my General Manager, Faye Brownell, and my co-founder, Thabo Duma — taught and laid out a transformative way to think, process, and utilise information in all aspects and components of our company. It greatly benefited how I think about my component, which is businesses and side hustles. Below I want to show you what they shared, and then briefly single out one lesson I've learned because of their approach combined with my experience.

What was shared

Summarised, this is the framework — and it is predominantly used in research environments, where the quality and validity of data and information can make or break a department or organisation in the face of opposition:

What I wanted to focus on

My component, Small Business and Side Hustles, is interested in cultivating a responsive, contributive, and curious mindset.

Responsive, rather than passive to challenge and circumstance. Contributive, rather than exploitative in one's ecosystem. Curious, rather than indifferent to opportunity — whether it's work, learning, or earning related.

My component, also, as I personally see it — is trying to say to men and women of Africa:

You are responsible for your life. Understand this simple fact and your days will never be the same.

You are responsible for your skills, income, resources, network, habits, bedroom — everything. You are responsible. Not some politician, or spirit that visits at night to bless or curse your mornings. Because we live in an indifferent universe — governed by laws of cause and effect. But this is only my perspective.

The Wisdom I've gained in two years

Working with over a thousand individuals in the past two years — this is my conclusion, having gathered, sorted, connected, and observed the data and information at my disposal.

Literacy leads to:

• Compliance — those who are educated, with families who encouraged school and learning, tend to do better in programmes. They attend meetings, write reports, and ask questions when unsure.
• Then Competence — those who are compliant develop competency, because they realise what good work versus bad work looks like. They develop an innate grasp of the standards, expectations, and unspoken rules of the game.
• Then Contribution — those who are competent make all the difference. Their reports improve the whole, their efforts ripple across every component, their voices spark new solutions for the implementers who have the funds but not the experience at ground level.

And this is why my article is about productivity. I've noticed that it all boils down to how one uses their time — and that makes all the difference. It starts with education — self-taught or otherwise. But it's education that truly liberates the soul, long before it liberates the mind.

Sam

How To Make Your Life Worse

You've heard people say: "The odds are against me."

Today, that reality showed up on a soccer field. And it taught me something I want to hold close.

Despite adult obligations and work demands, every week or so I prioritise reuniting with a group of my most skilful soccer friends — guys who genuinely wanted to become professionals. Creative. Competitive. No weak links among them.

Today, only seven pitched up. Four against three. Uneven teams.

I raised my hand to be on the short side. Two brave boys followed — Asanda and Cee Jay. I always prefer the short team. It's where the fitness is earned, the pressure is real, and the lessons are sharpest.

We won, decisively.

Here's what performing under pressure actually looked like 👇

1. As the captain of my team, I encouraged constantly. Twice we were behind. I kept saying: "Don't give up — it's only 1-0. Don’t give up — it’s only 2-0. Don’t stress, take another shot." I continually fought the urge to lash out, to confront every poor decision out loud. Because that never changed a scoreline.
2. As the captain of my team, I focused on what was in my control. Defending our goal as if my life depended on it. Passing accurately under pressure. Not missing my chances in front of goal. This was in my control. Not the poor shot Asanda made. Not the wrong decision Cee Jay made. Not the talent of the opponent.
3. As the captain of my team, I owned my mistakes first. "I'm sorry — I should've passed earlier. I dribbled too much." Harmony doesn't come from demanding it from others. It starts with you. Every time.

Every day I'm reminded that I don't have a degree — odds are against me in the corporate space.

Every day I'm reminded that I'm not in a wealthy country with well-off parents — odds are against me economically.

But no one cares.

No one cares that just when I needed to lock in on my studies in Grade 10, my parents had to confront reality and ask me to sleep at my cousin's place next door — because the big house they had visualised was financially strained. That's when I met the wrong crowd. Gallivanted many nights undetected for two straight years. Got introduced to all available drugs in the black township.

But hold on — I might have locked in on my studies, passed matric handsomely, entered a decent university, landed a high-paying job… But I doubt that would have led to happily ever after. I've seen many of those stories turn sour. Precisely because certain phases were never experienced.

Today, I know what it's like to be addicted to cigarettes — to upturn your mattress looking for a cigarette butt just to fall asleep. I know what it's like to almost die driving under the influence. I know the highs and lows of an ecstasy pill that makes you dance all night like a performer going from club to club.

And because I know — I recognise the patterns that lead to addiction, the crowds heading toward a cliff, and the thoughts that lead to poor decisions.

Inner disharmony. Inner dissatisfaction. Inner turmoil.

A surefire way to make your life worse is to think negatively about yourself, your past, your mistakes, and your circumstances — especially when the odds are already against you.

You won't improve those odds by venting your helplessness. You won't change your trajectory by finding better ways to explain your bad luck in life, work, or relationships.

No one improves their odds by explaining them better.

Like my soccer lesson — you can do this instead:

1. Applaud yourself, every chance you get. "Well done for staying calm when that stranger was rude to you. Well done for not retaliating when your efforts went unnoticed. Well done for not complaining when your mother criticised you again, clearly ignoring your efforts." Words have power. Don't turn them against yourself when the odds are already stacked.
2. Focus on what is in your control. Today. Your attitude. Your effort. Your experience. Your family.
3. Stay calm and composed internally, despite the noise outside. The government will do what it wants. Let it. The economy will load-shed. Let them. Neighbours and colleagues will gossip about you. Let them. Your job is to remain kind, loving, and compassionate — with yourself first. Then with your family, in that order.

The odds don’t change because you complained better.

They change when you play better.

Sam 

Scott Adams - How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big

Chapter: Happiness (Page 210/300)

Reading time: 5 minutes 

 

Happiness

If you want to boost your happiness, it helps to understand what happiness is and how it works. Pursuing happiness without understanding the mechanisms behind it is like planting a garden without knowing the basics of fertilization, pest control, watering, and frost. It's easy to pop a seed in the ground, but it takes a deeper understanding to grow something wonderful. Happiness, like gardening, only seems simple.

Let's start by defining happiness. My definition is that it's a feeling you get when your body chemistry is producing pleasant sensations in your mind. That definition is compatible with the science of happiness.

It's tempting to imagine happiness as a state of mind caused by whatever is happening in your life. That's a helpless worldview and it can blind you to a simple system for being happier.

Science has done a good job demonstrating that happiness isn't as dependent on your circumstances as you might think. For example, amputees often return to whatever level of happiness they enjoyed before losing a limb. And you know from your own experience that some people seem happy no matter what is going on in their lives, while others can't find happiness no matter how many things are going right. We're all born with a limited range of happiness, and the circumstances of life can only jiggle us around within the range.

The good news is that anyone who has experienced happiness probably has the capacity to spend more time at the top of their range and less time near the bottom. To do that I treat myself like the moist robot I am and manipulate my body chemistry as needed. I also try to improve my situation and circumstances wherever I can, but I see that as 20 percent of the solution. The big part—the 80 percent of happiness—is nothing but a chemistry experiment. 

You can't always quickly fix whatever is wrong in your environment, and you can't prevent negative thoughts from drifting into your head. But you can easily control your body chemistry through lifestyle, and that in turn will cause your thoughts to turn positive.

Let's get to the mechanics. Obviously your doctor can give you a pill to change your mood. And you can change your chemistry by drinking alcohol or doing recreational drugs. The problem is that it comes with risks and side effects you'd rather avoid. I advocate a more natural approach.

For starters, the single biggest trick for manipulating your happiness chemistry is being able to do what you want, when you want. I'm contrasting that with the more common situation, in which you might be able to do all the things you want, but you can't often do them when you want.

For example, you might enjoy eating a delicious meal. But if the only time you were allowed to eat delicious food was right after you'd already filled your stomach with junk food, the delicious meal would not make you happy. A mediocre meal when you're starving will contribute more to your happiness than an extraordinary meal when you're not hungry. The timing of things can be more important than the intrinsic value of the things.

Napping is another perfect example. A good nap can be wonderful, but if the only available time to nap is an hour before bedtime, a nap would do you little good. You need to control the order and timing of things to be happy. It's important to look at happiness in terms of timing because timing is easier to control than resources. It's hard to become rich enough to buy your own private island but, relatively speaking, it's easier to find a job with flexible hours. A person with a flexible schedule and average resources will be happier than a rich person who has everything except a flexible schedule. Step one in your search for happiness is to continually work toward having control of your schedule.

Parents understand what I'm talking about. Most parents love their kids and are glad they had them. At the same time, kids remove almost all of the flexibility in your schedule. It's no wonder that parents who seem to have everything—nice house, great kids, and good friends—still find themselves in misery during the years their kids are young. Those parents might have all the "stuff" they could ask for but no flexibility to enjoy what they want when they want.

As I write this chapter, I'm sitting in a comfortable chair with my trusty dog, Snickers, while enjoying a warm cup of coffee. I just came from a good workout, so I'm feeling relaxed and in the mood to write. By any definition, what I'm doing is work, but because I can control the timing of it on this particular day, it doesn't feel like work. I've transformed work into pleasure simply by having control over when I do it.

In your personal life and your career, consider schedule flexibility when making any big decision. Just remember to keep your eye out for ways to maximize your schedule freedom in the long term. You won't all become work-at-home cartoonists, but you can certainly find a boss who values your productivity over your attendance.

That brings me to the next important mechanism for happiness.

Happiness has more to do with where you're heading than where you are. A person who is worth two billion dollars will feel sad if he suddenly loses one billion because he's moving in the wrong direction. But a street person will celebrate discovering a new Dumpster behind an upscale restaurant because it means good eating ahead. We tend to feel happy when things are moving in the right direction and unhappy when things are trending bad.

The directional nature of happiness is one reason it's a good idea to have a sport or hobby that leaves you plenty of room to improve every year. Tennis and golf are two perfect examples. Slow and steady improvement at anything makes you feel that you are on the right track. The feeling of progress stimulates your body to create the chemicals that make you feel happy.

When you choose a career, consider whether it will lead to a lifetime of ever-improved performance, a plateau, or a steady decline in your skills.

Taking care of my body always influences my happiness more than whatever task I'm involved in. That's an important point because normally when you feel unhappy, you blame your mood on your environment. It's easy to blame your environment because you know you can interpret almost anything as bad news. I'm here to tell you that the primary culprit in your bad moods is a deficit in one of the big five: flexible schedule, imagination, sleep, diet, and exercise.

Ask yourself this question: At times when you've exercised earlier in the day, eaten well, hydrated, and had enough sleep, what percentage of those times have you found yourself in a good mood? Now that I've put the idea in your head, you'll automatically find yourself noticing the link between daily body maintenance and your not-so-mysterious happiness. I predict you'll observe that your good moods are highly correlated with exercise, diet, and sleep.

Exercise has two very different benefits. The exercise itself releases natural pain-relieving substances, endorphins, and that gives you a direct feeling of well-being. But exercise is also a mental escape from whatever was stressing you. That's why I recommend forms of exercises that occupy your mind at the same time as your muscles.

Exercise also helps you sleep better, so that's a double benefit. Of the big five factors in happiness—flexible schedule, imagination, diet, exercise, and sleep—my pick for the most important is exercise.

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Recapping the happiness formula:

1. Eat right
2. Exercise
3. Get enough sleep
4. Imagine an incredible future (even if you don't believe it)
5. Work toward a flexible schedule
6. Do things you can steadily improve at
7. Help others (if you've already helped yourself)
8. Reduce daily decisions to routine

If you do those eight things, the rest of what you need to stimulate the chemistry of happiness in your brain will be a lot easier to find. In fact, the other components of happiness that you seek—such as career opportunities, love, and friends—might find their way to you if you make yourself an attractive target.

📚 Want the rest of the book?

This is just one chapter from How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams. The book covers systems vs. goals, energy management, business writing, persuasion, career strategy, and more—all in Scott's signature contrarian, practical style.

If this chapter resonated with you, the full book is worth the read. It's the kind of book that changes how you think about success, failure, and building a life that works.

Sam

The Sovereign Edge — #2

 

Words from the winners. Insights for the builders.

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99% of healthy people don’t do fancy workouts. They just go to the gym and do their boring routine. 99% of successful investors don’t trade stocks. They just buy and hold good index funds. 99% of entrepreneurs don’t travel around the world closing deals. They just find a few processes that make them money, and they execute and optimize those processes daily. Success comes from doing boring, useful things over and over again. Simplicity and consistency get results.

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Roger Federer on the kind of talent you can practice:

Yes, talent matters. I’m not going to stand here and tell you it doesn’t. But talent has a broad definition. Most of the time, it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit. In tennis, like in life, discipline is also a talent. And so is patience. Trusting yourself is a talent. Embracing the process — loving the process — is a talent. Managing your life, managing yourself. These can be talents, too. Some people are born with them. Everybody has to work at them.”

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The fastest way to become amazingly confident is to become dangerously competent.

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Track everything. Your time, your thoughts, your habits, your sleep, your words. What you don’t measure, you don’t master. Progress isn’t accidental, it’s audited. Treat your life like a high-performance machine, and you'll stop living like everyone else.  

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The secret to success in almost all fields is large, uninterrupted blocks of focused time. — Ryan Holiday

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I hope this added value in your week.

Keep building. 🔥

— Sam

A Game of Thrones - Two Observations on Season 2

 

Building Identity Before Capacity: Leadership Lessons from Game of Thrones

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I'm rewatching Game of Thrones—Season 2—and the patterns are impossible to ignore. What looks like drama on screen is actually a masterclass in power, identity, and the cost of waiting for permission.

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Observations:

Catelyn Stark Wasn't Stupid—She Was Human in a World That Punishes Emotion

Lady Catelyn is easy to criticize. Capturing Tyrion Lannister? That ignited a war. Refusing to kill Jaime when she had leverage? That cost the North dearly.

But she wasn't stupid. She was emotional in a world that punishes emotion.

Capturing Tyrion was maternal rage—she wanted justice for Bran. Refusing to kill Jaime was maternal desperation—she believed it would save her daughters. Both moves were deeply human. Neither was strategic.

Ned Stark loved her because she balanced his rigid honor with warmth and love. But here's the brutal lesson: love without power is weakness. Good intentions without leverage get you killed.

Catelyn operated from the heart in a game governed by calculation. She paid the price.

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Khaleesi's "Premature" Attitude: Building Identity Before Capacity

This is where it gets interesting.

Daenerys Targaryen has an attitude long before she has power. In Season 2, her dragons are babies—useless in battle. She's been betrayed, abandoned, starving in a desert city with a ragtag band of followers. She has no army. No resources. No leverage.

And yet, she demands. She speaks like a queen. She expects obedience.

To everyone around her, she looks arrogant. Delusional, even.

But here's the insight: she's building identity before capacity.

Most people wait until they're powerful to act powerful. By then, it's too late. The identity never forms. Dany's "arrogance" isn't arrogance—it's rehearsal. She's practicing being a queen when she has nothing but three baby dragons and a burned-out city.

It looks stupid now. But when the dragons grow, her identity is already formed. She doesn't have to become a leader in that moment—she already is one.

This is the pattern most people miss: you don't wait for power to act powerful. You rehearse power so that when capacity arrives, identity is already in place.

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The Pattern

• Catelyn loved without power → destroyed.
• Dany built identity before power → conquered.

The difference? One waited for circumstances to change. The other changed herself first.

When people call your confidence premature, when they say you're acting above your station, when they tell you to "wait your turn"—they're revealing their own strategy: wait for permission.

But permission never creates power. It only recognizes power that's already been built.

The dragons are always small at first. The question is: are you rehearsing victory while they grow, or waiting until they're fully grown to start?

The attitude isn't arrogance. It's preparation.