The Praise, The Pride & The Prize.

A love-hate essay about work, drive, and going too far.

When I first started sketching the playbook on Notion, I thought I’d only write about design and craft.

But as I piled up topics, I realized the most important ones weren’t about the work itself—but everything around it. The stuff we don’t talk about enough.

The stuff that’s still taboo.

So here’s one: workaholism.

I wasn’t exactly lazy growing up, but I sure wasn’t excited to “go to work.”

I hustled in restaurants for years. Long shifts. Fluorescent lights. Minimum wage. You don’t wake up stoked to do that.

That was my life, until I found design. And New York.

It hit me like a truck. There was no warm-up phase. One week I was floating, the next I was obsessed.

Design made me feel like I could build anything. Learn fast. Earn faster.

And most dangerously: it didn’t feel like work. It felt like a game I never wanted to quit.

At Behance, I was designing by day, working restaurants by night, brunch shifts on weekends. I’d get home at 3am and wake up at 7.

There was a window in the shower where I’d …