The hardest thing was watching others beat me

Knowing what I 'could' do and not being to do it for years was very painful.

Youtube

When others ask me what it was like to go in these circles the past ~11 years they often expect to hear about how painful it was.

Or how I missed my previous appearance as I was always a decent looking guy before this stuff hit me in 2014.

But none of that really mattered.

They were nice-to-haves.

The thing that ate at me most was watching others beat me.

Colleagues that I knew if I was healthy… I’d moonwalk past them without flinching.

That was what hurt the most.

And today I want to talk a bit more about this element… because to me it’s the part that almost matters more than all others.

And i bet some of you out there are a bit like me. ie. we’re competitive.

This stuff crushes your ability to compete

The first time this happened to me was in 2014.

I’d moved to Vietnam from Ukraine and had a pretty senior commercial position at Lazada (sort of an Amazon play for SE Asia that now does around $25bn GMV).

Anyway soon after I moved is when the dentist drilled my teeth and my brain and energy started degrading fast.

I had a pretty large team, but they didn’t know me.

Didn’t know my past or what I’d done.

For example just a year or so earlier I was the CEO of Groupon Ukraine and had outpaced something like 50+ other Groupon countries in average growth rate for my first 14 months.

I did it by operating by a completely different strategy that i’d devised. Plus I was managing a team of 100+ people at one point and we were often written up in the media because Groupon was ‘sexy’.

I was proud then. But that had all changed.

And my new team in Lazada just saw this latest version of me who appeared to be a bit slow and a bit of an idiot.

It tore me up and I didn’t know what to do.

I knew I was far better than this but it was like I was trapped in someone else’s brain.

I couldn’t hack it. I asked to be demoted two levels and switched to the tech team (which was less intense) to buy time. Hoping my brain would turn back on.

The way that it crushes you almost looks ‘natural’ to others

What I mention above happened a number of times to varying degrees between the years 2014-2020. I’d get better and then get worse again depending on how my biomechanical dental experiments were working.

Each time i got worse it was as if i became dumber.

But when it happens nobody can tell anything abnormal is happening to you. You look and act relatively ‘normal’.

And therefore everyone is going to just assume that that is just who you are. That that is your level of capability.

And so that is the way they look at you and treat you… with not much respect.

You may have just gone from say your prime (in your 30s) to the equivalent cognitive thinking of a 60 yr old, but you still look more or less like the same dude.

It’s only you that remembers who you ‘should’ be and even that belief begins to erode with time.

One metaphor I like to make is it feels like what i’d imagine being in a coma to be like. You remember yourself as you were but everyone else around you sees this very different person.

And you’re just screaming to get out of this nightmare and go back to being yourself.

But the road back (ie. figuring out these biomechanics) is very very complex.

It’s easy to just accept this fate

This is the fight I fought constantly with myself when i was not doing well. I had to keep telling myself “this is not who you are Ken.”

Despite the fact that everyone around you is treating you like this new (shitty) you is here to stay. Your friends, your colleagues, even members of your own family.

The closest I came to letting go of believing the ‘old me’ would ever come back was late 2014 when I first entered the ‘game’ due to a dentist drilling many of my teeth.

I didn’t know if there was a way to reverse what was happening to me and just figured… “Ok… i guess I might have to accept this new version of myself.”

And it was depressing as hell.

I had semi-suicidal thoughts back in Fall 2014. Because I didn’t know how I was going to take care of my family.

My son had been born just a couple of months before and although I had some savings it wasn’t enough to just ‘retire’.

Which meant that if I stayed in this condition I would have to continue working at a level that was a fraction of what I was used to. And report to people far less capable/intelligent than i had ‘been’ for the rest of my career.

I had nightmares of putting my old McDonald’s cap on. Hahaha

For a highly competitive person like me… it was a hard thing to accept.

The only way to prove your ability is to actually come back from it

After I came back the first time in 2015 I knew that it was possible.

From late 2014 to late 2015 I had improved significantly but then plateaud. During that rise I was promoted twice and felt amazing for awhile.

But then it fell back down.

However after that I knew that I ‘could’ come back and that I’d done it once already. This made the circles that were to come the next 6 years more palatable.

Because no matter how bad i got i never accepted that this was how I was going to remain. I kept thinking to myself… “I’ve done it before and I’m going to do it again.”

But you also know that no amount of logic or arguing is going to convince anyone of anything. Not even my own parents.

When I tried to explain this biomechanical stuff to them during the more frustating periods of my life I could tell that it kind of just went in one ear and out the other. They figured I was getting older or whatever.

The only way to prove to them and others was to actually come back and start kicking ass.

And that’s exactly what I did.

You prove that the problem was biomechanical by coming back and kicking ass

Starting in late 2021 when I finally fully figured out how this stuff works.. that is exactly what i did.

In 2022 it was relatively incremental change. I started focusing better and having more energy. I was definitely already performing better.

In 2023 it improved some more and I started being able to work daily from 8am till 10pm without getting tired or burning out.

In 2024 I had even better energy plus my ability to focus and think through complexity just seemed to continue to improve. If i worked with twenty year olds there weren’t any that I thought had the stamina and level of focus that I could maintain.

And now in 2025 I just consider myself a kind of machine. I go non-stop finishing task-after-task, steering my team, answering messages and so on.

If you saw all of the different projects we’re doing at Reviv right now you’d think we had a 10-person team. But it’s me and some freelancers.

I just work like an insane mad man who does not burn out.

And it is due to the combination of the energy/drive/focus that these biomechanics give you as well as a MASSIVE chip on my shoulder.

It’s time to prove what I can do. And there is nothing but open road in front of me babyyyyyyyy!

Closing thoughts

A number of folks worked with me during the periods when I was struggling and they remember the old ‘Ken’.

I’ve met a few of them in the past year or two and they kind of act initially like they are with that old Ken.

Till they realize, even without me saying, that that Ken is dead. And what they are looking at in front of them is something different.

Something between a crazy fucker and an extremely driven one. LOL

And pretty soon… all they’ll be seeing is the dust as I zoom right past them.

It was painful what I endured for years… and what many of you have probably endured.

But I can assure you this…

When you come back and you start whooping some asses with these biomechanical superpowers….

IT FEELS GREAT!

So let that drive you.

Because this journey is not easy and it is not quick.

But it is very worth it.