From Struggle to Success (My Best Week)
Week 12 (Sept 15 - Sept 21, 2025)
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Week 31 started even worse than I thought: I got sick.
Despite the setback, I turned this into my strongest week yet.
Hi! Zoli here, the 17 y/o (yep, got a birthday there) working on a business, documenting the journey, sharing it honestly so You can learn from it.
Here’s how my past week unfolded.
A “Sick“ Start
I started the week with a sore throat and runny nose, not the best combo. I’ve got great plans and big motivation for this week, but it has started to fade away.
Substack: soft relaunch, post 2-3 notes daily, and 3-4 long-form posts.
Coding: finally finish my first app - PassMate - and start working on the second.
Growth: continue the copywriting course and reading The 4-Hour Workweek.
Business: plan and start my first-ever real market research to validate my ideas.
Now let’s see what really happened.
The Tables are Turning
I’ll be honest, I couldn’t finish all my planned tasks. By success, I meant something different: I solved core problems that heavily influenced my productivity.
I shifted in mindset: I stopped treating my low focus and energy as excuses, and built a protocol as a solution to solve this once and for all.
And I shifted in strategy: I realized I was doing coding wrong. I was relying on AI constantly, didn’t actually learn anything. I successfully reworked this system, and now it’s better than ever.
I won’t detail how I solved these. Yet. I’ll break down my new energy + focus protocol step-by-step in a long-form post this week (stay tuned)!
My #1 Achievement
This is going to be boring, but I have to highlight Substack again.
I love the new formats I use for posts: they’re so colorful, and I simply enjoy putting them together. It feels like a combination of strategic engineering and creative work.
But the truly memorable moment(s) from this week?
It’s those 5 new people who decided to root for me by subscribing.
It’s not viral growth, but going from 1 to 6 in just a week feels like the first small proof that what I’m trying to achieve is possible. And this proof is worth more than anything.
What do you think, can I reach 10 this week?
Plans Ahead
Let’s see my plans for Week 4:
Substack: post another 3-4 long-form and 4-5 notes daily (get to 10 subs?).
Coding: start the new system, build the new app’s backend + database
Growth: continue the copywriting course + The 4-Hour Workweek
Business: close the first part of the market research
Do you want to shape the results of next week?
Here’s a 1-minute anonymous survey. It’s part of a research project I’m currently working on. I’d be super grateful for your thoughts.
See You in Week 4
This week proved something I’ll never forget:
A bad start doesn’t define the journey. The right mindset and strategy can flip it all.
Catch you in the next post,
Zoli
Week 3 of Season 2 is also Week 12 of my complete journey.