I started my career early, at fourteen years old. My dad owned a small business, and I had been pestering him since I was about eight that I wanted to work. So, when I reached the minimum legal age to work in Brazil, he hired me.

You might imagine I’d be hired for a position just for show, one where no real work was necessary. But no… My dad assigned me arguably the most painful work possible for me.

You see, I am a highly introverted person. To say I’m uncomfortable with people and new situations is an understatement. So, naturally, my dad assigned me tasks like calling customers and partners, going to the bank, dealing with Brazilian bureaucracy, and running all sorts of errands that usually required me to talk to people and ask for help or directions. This was the early 1990s, so the only way to figure out which bus to take home from an unfamiliar neighborhood was to ask someone at the bus stop. Remember, this was Brazil. At the time, bus stops were often just wooden poles painted red and stuck in the ground, with no signs indicating which bus lines served that stop, schedules, or anything else.

I hated running those errands. But the experience taught me something crucial: Figure It Out.

Unsurprisingly, this mindset proved very helpful when I started tinkering with computers. I didn’t know anyone else who knew how to use them. I had only one friend at school who actually owned a computer, and that was it.

My resources were limited: a few books (they were expensive, so not many), access to BBSes, and later, the Internet, plus those almost-useless manuals that came with computers.

Well, those resources might be enough if you have the right mindset. I can’t claim to be one of those geniuses who could write an operating system in assembly just by reading code from a monthly magazine, but I definitely made progress.

When I entered high school – where, in Brazil, you could also receive vocational training – I chose an IT track. There, I finally found like-minded individuals to exchange ideas, share books and information, and generally just figure things out together. Many of our teachers weren’t very helpful, and by the end of our final year, a few of us were more technically competent than most of them.

College proved disappointing, involving several false starts. The only time I truly felt I was making progress and learning was at the last university I attended. There, I discovered a few students running a “Linux Lab.” I finally found a group of nerds who were figuring things out on their own, and we started spending time together, learning from each other.

But since that still wasn’t enough, I dropped out again and decided to work full-time. I joined a very small ISP – just four people, with no overlapping skills. As the only Linux guy on the team, I had to get the work done with no one to “coach,” “mentor,” or “guide” me.

I’m not opposed to those things – quite the opposite, in fact. I actively engage with and mentor many people, offering advice and helping them accelerate their careers. I truly wish I’d had someone doing that for me back in the day.

However, I find that not many people today seem willing to do the hard work of “Figuring It Out.” They often want precise instructions, a detailed roadmap, and step-by-step guidance on what to do next.

Well, most of the time, I don’t have that information for them. Most of the time, I don’t even have it for myself when facing my own challenges.

Look, I know that staring down a problem without a clear path forward can be incredibly uncomfortable, maybe even scary. Believe me, I remember that feeling vividly from my teenage years running errands or later, wrestling with tech problems alone. It’s natural to wish someone would just hand you a manual for life, or at least for the next step in your career.

But here’s the thing I learned from being thrown into the deep end, time and time again: those moments of uncertainty, the ones where you have to dig in and find your own way, are where the real growth happens. That’s where you build resilience, resourcefulness, and the unshakeable confidence that you can handle whatever comes next, even without instructions. Waiting for the perfect roadmap often means waiting forever, letting opportunities pass you by while someone else figures their stuff out.

Nobody is going to care about your life or your career trajectory as much as you do. They have their own challenges to figure out. So, stop waiting for permission, for the ideal mentor to appear, or for someone else to draw you the perfect map. It’s your journey. Take the wheel, embrace the messy parts, and start Figuring It Out for yourself. Your future self will thank you for it.