This is a video for two people. The first is the 20some year old who I recently had the pleasure of talking to recently after one of my Q&A sessions. He had told me that he just graduated with the CS degree. He had told me at first he had started coding because he wanted to build cool things and eventually help his mom's local street food business take off with an app and a website. However, that was the original intent.

But he said he kind of lost steam. He said he didn't have the passion to pursue this anymore because he felt inadequate in this era of AI. He said after he graduated there was no help, no support, just silence. Then there is another person. He is in his 40s and he is a mentee of mine. We've been building a SAS product recently. He started off really hot, even landing an interview or two in which we feel we came close to landing a junior role.

But maybe the holidays hit and I feel like we lost some momentum we used to have. You told me that perhaps programming isn't really for you. I'm going to guess here that you feel too late, too behind. There's talks about AI and layoffs every day. The competitiveness. Maybe you're thinking maybe I missed my window. I wanted to make this video because I didn't really have time to answer each of you for a few weeks now, but I have some time now and I wanted to give you both a longer answer.

So, in both cases, you guys both lost your passion in coding, especially when things got a bit stale, maybe a bit boring, and when results stopped happening. The reason I wanted to record this is because I was in your position. Before coding, I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to be a guitarist for a band. In my teens and in my 20s, I worked really hard to be a lead guitarist for multiple bands. I put college on hold and went all in on something I was passionate about.

Eventually, I lost passion for music because I was surrounded by too much competition. I didn't get the results I was looking for in my band and the obvious reason which was I didn't make a dime for a whole year. Then I tried cooking and well, for those of you who are new to my channel, I didn't end up being a guitarist or chef. I actually ended up becoming a programmer and took that all the way to six figures every year, working as a senior dev and tech lead for multiple 7 to eight figures in revenue companies.

Along the way, I failed here and there, succeeded here and there, but eventually this was the one thing that I was able to take from the bottom all the way to the top. So, I wanted to share with you how I ended up here today. The short answer is if you're ambitious but inconsistent, it's because chasing passion is probably sabotaging you. Coding did start out as my passion at first. I chose it because I felt if I choose this career, I will be doing something I enjoy, which is building and creating.

So, I technically would feel like I wouldn't have to work a day in my life. But let me tell you that passion is a terrible decision filter because passion is emotional. It's vague. It's a vibe. And your feelings don't ship software. Here's what passion sounds like in tech. You might have experienced it firsthand. I'll code when I feel inspired. I'll quit this stack because it's not fun anymore. This bug is annoying. Maybe I'm not built for this.

And I'm not saying that to roast you. I'm saying it because I lived it. When you're inconsistent, it's usually not because you're lazy. It's because you're letting your feelings drive the car. And feelings are the worst driver in the world. Because the truth is, real mastery in coding is built on the boring stuff. Debugging when it's stale. Reading docs when it feels like eating cardboard. Fixing edge cases nobody will clap for.

Refactoring code that technically works, but is a mess. That's the job. And AI makes this more obvious, not less. Because AI can write happy path code all day. But it can't understand messy business logic. Read vague requirements. Untangle legacy code written by three different devs who hated each other. Debug a production bug that only happens on Android or in Korea or on Wi-Fi or after midnight. Or make trade-offs between speed, scale, and safety.

That's the part people don't want to hear. Software engineering is basically a funnel for the hardest and worst problems of the things you supposedly love. So, if you're using passion to decide whether you keep going, you're going to quit the moment the work stops being romantic. And it always stops being romantic. Now, let's talk about the lie that God sold to all of us. Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life.

That sounds cute until you build something real. Because the only way to only do what you love in coding is to stay small forever. If you want to only build fun little side projects, only write fresh green field code and do UI, only do the cool stuff, then you also have to accept you won't scale, you won't be relied on, you won't work on serious products, and you won't earn serious money because real engineers deal with authentication nightmares, database migrations, legacy refactors, security issues, performance problems, CI/CD failures, and sometimes the fun one.

Getting cold at 2 a.m. because production is on fire. Even with AI, someone has to own the system. That's why do what you love only works if you're okay. Staying small forever. Now, here's the part that might staying a little. A lot of people aren't losing passion. They're using passion as an excuse to avoid discomfort. I don't like backend. I'm not into data structures. DevOps isn't my thing. This is too hard. I'll switch stacks.

Bro, that's not preference. That's avoidance. Because mastery comes from sitting with confusion, wrestling with broken code, being bad publicly, shipping imperfect things, debugging for hours. AI doesn't remove this. It just accelerates the people who can tolerate discomfort. That's why some people are leveling up fast right now and some people are stuck. Same tools, different tolerance. And I'll say it straight. Proficiency will take you further than passion ever will.

So what do you replace passion with? Responsibility. Because responsibility is stable. Passion is like a girlfriend in high school. It's obsessed with you one week and the next week it's like, "Yeah, I don't think this is working." Responsibility is different. Responsibility is I said I was going to do it, so I'm doing it. In tech, real meaning doesn't come from syntax, frameworks, fancy side projects. It comes from being useful, from solving real problems, supporting teammates, making systems reliable, being the person people trust.

That's where confidence comes from. That's where income comes from. Not dopamine, not hype, not vibes. Pride comes from reliability. Now, let's talk about the real killer. It's not difficulty, it's boredom. Most aspiring devs don't fail because they're dumb. They fail because they jump stacks every month, restart courses, abandon projects, never finish anything. And AI has made this worse because now people start faster and quit faster.

They chase novelty. They avoid depth. But real mastery looks like one stack for 6 to 12 months. One serious project, hundreds of iterations, thousands of tiny fix bugs. People don't quit coding when it gets hard. They quit when it gets boring. Which leads to the next truth. Motivation is unreliable. If you're waiting to feel like it, you're finished. What actually works is reinforcement. Seeing progress, shipping features, fixing bugs, helping real users, solving problems.

That's what keeps you alive. Even pain becomes fuel when it's tied to meaning. Debugging sucks, but it makes you competent. Databases are confusing, but they make you dangerous. Tests are boring, but they make you trusted. And AI should reinforce you, not replace you. Use it to explain errors, generate test cases, summarize docs, suggest refactors, not think for you, support you. Now, let me tell you the real skill. It's not React.

It's not Python. It's not leak code. It's frustration tolerance. Can you fail 100 times, ship ugly things, look dumb publicly, fix the same bug 10 times, stay when it's boring, because you are going to suck for a while. That's normal. That's required. And I promise you, AI doesn't remove this face. It compresses it for the people who stay. And let me hit you with something else. You care too much about others opinions.

You're scared to post projects, ask questions, be wrong, look beginner, start late. And I get it. But the people you're worried about, they won't hire you. They won't mentor you. And they sure as hell won't help you. and they won't matter in five years. The only voice that matters is the future version of you who either stuck it out or quit early and regrets it. And listen, failure is mostly imaginary. You're not behind.

You're not too late. You are not done. You're only out if you stop. Bad interviews aren't failure. Bad projects aren't failure. Bad code isn't failure. Quitting is failure. AI didn't end software careers. It ended lazy ones. It ended the I don't have to understand it era. If you can build, you're safe. If you can't, you're vulnerable. All failure besides death is psychological. So, here's what I want both of you to do.

Pick a path and don't quit. Front end sucks. Backend sucks. DevOps sucks. AI engineering sucks. Mobile sucks. Every path sucks. Every path takes longer than you think. Winners aren't smarter. They just don't stop. And persistence makes you dangerous. Now, let's get practical because I don't want this to be a motivational TED talk. I want you to actually win. Here's the 2026 playbook. Step one, pick one stack, not five.

Nex.js, Postgress, Spring Boot, MySQL, Python, Fast API. Pick one and commit. for real. No stack hopping for dopamine. Step two, build one serious project. Not tutorials, not clones. A real problem, something you or your people actually need. Something you can explain like a story. Step three, use AI as a multiplier, not a crutch. Use it to explain errors, generate tests, suggest refactors, explore approaches, but never skip understanding.

If AI writes something and you can't explain it, you didn't build it. Step four, finish what you start. Shipping beats perfection. And step five, repeat for 12 months. That's it. That's the game. And I'll end with this. The person you want to become is on the other side of the pain you're trying to avoid. The boring reps, the awkward early stage, the I don't get it phase, the nobody cares yet phase. That's where the builders are made.

So to the 20-some grad, you didn't waste your time. You're just early now. Stop looking for passion. Start building proof. And to my 40-year-old mentee, you're not too late. You're just in the part where it's supposed to feel heavy. Don't confuse heaviness with failure. It's just the reps. You keep showing up and the world starts moving out of your way. Now, close this video. Open your laptop and go do that one thing that fixes inconsistency every time.

One stack, one project, one hour a day. No excuses. Let's go. And if you made it this far into the video, comment below what sucks for you right now. What is your roadblock? Tell me. I am starting today and I will personally respond and advise you in the comment section. Just remember, if I can do it, you can do it, too. Coding saves lives.