Bet on yourself before anyone else does.

When I was just entering Class 8, the lockdown happened. Everything went online, and I didn't focus much on classes. I focused on the new things coming up — gathering knowledge, and trying to build something.

I didn't know where to start or what my goals were. But I knew I could do something. So I started with yoga and fitness — my health first, then every other part of my life.

I started multiple YouTube channels — gaming, faceless, because I didn't want to show my face. Free Fire, PUBG, Clash of Clans. I didn't have a PC, so I learned everything on a phone that belonged to my mother and father. I designed every thumbnail, logo and banner myself. That's how I learned design.

In June of Class 10 — my birthday month — I got my first PC with my parents' money. An i3 third-gen. A real potato. I wanted to do 3D animation; it couldn't handle it. So I learned Photoshop instead, on a version so old the app lagged just opening.

Then boards arrived. After the half-yearly exams I dropped everything and studied, for six straight months.

In November 2023 ChatGPT launched, and I got obsessed with AI — I was one of the few people using the Playground back then. But boards came first.

Then in January 2024 I saw a clip where someone asked, “What's the colour of your Bugatti?” That single line changed how I saw school, time and money. I started absorbing everything I could from people who'd actually built something — Goggins, Hormozi, Iman Gadzhi and more.

The result came out and it was very good — even though I'm honestly bad at studying. I was the only boy who scored 100 in Mathematics, and 96% overall. Before that I'd only ever scored 60, 70, 80. Even my parents didn't believe it.

Suddenly everyone saw a topper — the star kid who could do anything just by studying. In my own mind, I was thinking the exact opposite.

I told my parents I did not want to study. I literally stopped — not a single word — and skipped classes. I asked for one year to prove myself.

Both my parents are teachers. My father was very unhappy. My maths teacher looked at me like I was the most foolish person in the school; my physics teacher scolded me too. It was a very big risk. But I believed in myself, and that one thing changed my whole life.

At the start of Class 11 I joined a gym — after a lot of arguments at home. After the very first month I was diagnosed with tonsils; my neck swelled up. The gym was on a third floor where the ventilation didn't work, in the middle of summer. My parents blamed the gym, and I had to leave.

The night before my Class 10 result, my girlfriend broke up with me. A few days later she wanted to patch up. I said no — once trust is broken, it doesn't come back.

And the schedule was brutal, every single day:

Power cuts every hour or two killed my PC because the inverter was too old. So I switched the fan off and worked through the summer heat without it. I kept a diary of every idea and to-do. My attendance went from almost 100% to 30–50%.

I started a clothing brand with a friend. He left; I kept going. By July or August the website and the products were ready — dropshipping, manufacturer chosen, everything. Then the reality check: I needed money for Facebook and Instagram ads, and I had none. It was a very big failure.

That dead end pushed me into freelancing — design, for clients in other countries. My first order paid $5 (after fees, I got $3.75). I literally screamed and ran to tell my parents. That changed my entire life. The business side lives on rahulgautam.in →

I didn't have a bank account, so every payment landed in my mother's account. My mother's phone camera was terrible; my father's wasn't much better. On their anniversary, my sister and I secretly ordered new phones for both — about ₹22,000.

Hours later a message hit my mother's phone: ₹9,999 debited. She went completely blank, shaking, telling my father money had vanished. Then I told her. They both scolded me. Inside, they were very happy — other kids fight their parents for a phone, and I bought two for mine. I didn't even have my own; I was using my sister's.

Through Class 12 I gave almost every rupee to my parents for their loans. The only things I bought for myself: a chair, a table, books, protein and creatine, and a hard disk and RAM for the old PC.

I watched a creator who had recorded his entire past, and something clicked. As a kid I'd deleted everything because my phone ran out of storage. Never again.

I started live-streaming my home workouts, recording my work, filming every day — and I started a series called the OG Protocol. Today I've recorded more than 1.5 TB of my life across multiple hard disks, plus hundreds of gigabytes in the cloud. It's the number one best thing I ever did for myself.

My last Class 12 exam was Painting. The day before it, my friend Jay pushed me to join the gym, so I did. I had an unfair advantage: all those home workouts. In Class 11 I couldn't handle 2.5 kg dumbbells. Now I picked up 10 kg on day one.

Jay taught me everything — bench press, how to hold a dumbbell, even how to behave. But he didn't have the confidence to film himself, and he tried to stop me filming too. I kept recording and posting anyway. Six and a half months in that gym in Mawana, then a new home in Meerut and a new gym.

I'd given my parents everything I earned. After Class 12 they gave it back the best way possible: they helped me buy the beast PC I'd always wanted — an RTX 4060 build. Then came the mics, the ring light, the tripod, a tablet. I stopped using a single cracked app and paid for Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects. Everything I make is edited in 4K now.

At 18 I bought my dream camera: a DJI Osmo Pocket 3, built for exactly what I do — travel, vlogs, the gym. I can't explain that feeling. I'm very grateful.

I turned 19 this year. I ran all ninety days of the OG Protocol, hit my first 100 kg deadlift, posted a reel that crossed 404K views, and started the Winter Arc on 31 August. I still work from the same small room. I'm still documenting all of it.

I know not everything is about money. I also know most problems get easier with it — so I say my goals out loud: