At age 25 I was trying to figure out how to really get into the game. I had a promising job offer in the mountain west and decided instead to move to Portland a

At age 25 I was trying to figure out how to really get into the game. I had a promising job offer in the mountain west and decided instead to move to Portland and wait for the awesome tech job offers to flow into my inbox. I ended up moving to PDX and burning through my savings, finally taking a job at a company that turned out to be deeply unethical. They spied on personal phone calls, asked employees if they were on birth control, you name it. The IT guy was something of an Edward Snowden who opened up an encrypted channel with me just to vent. What he shared with me blew my mind. A few short months later my in-laws offered to let my wife and I live in their home rent-free in a town in California that no one's ever heard of. We had weirdly good "vibes" about this offer even though we couldn't explain it. We had no jobs lined up but my wife knew lots of people there and the in-laws were traveling internationally and free rent would allow us to stretch our little savings for a while longer. After we moved here I started working as an independent hire-a-webmaster. It's so rural here that people still use that term. It turned into a very successful business and I found out that I really love living in a rural area. I also hired a coach and had an amazing experience working with him to understand my business and learning to make the most of who I am. My life changed a lot after that and I'm now a coach myself, but for 20-something-years advice: I'd say I think I could have done a lot better for myself had I more readily shared my problems with others and listened to them more. I wish I would have hired my own coach earlier, someone who would hold me accountable, and help me accelerate my self-knowledge. If you're in a pit, keep doing what you're doing here, consulting outside sources and listening to what they have to say. Then try out the ideas, make observations, and develop theories. Soon you'll have a reliable model for who you are and what powers your problem-solving and achievement processes. It's important to actively test out others' ideas and reflect on the results, because most advice you get will be of the "be like me" variety; it's not necessarily suited to your personal psychology. Good luck.