what kawhi taught me about bitcoin
toronto, 2019. the raptors were in the finals and the whole city felt like one giant, pulsing nervous system. if you were there, you remember the tension. it was heavy. it was constant. it was the feeling of a million people holding their breath at the same time.
and then there was kawhi leonard. quiet. unmoved. he was the eye of the storm. while the media was screaming about legacies and the fans were losing their minds over every whistle, he just kept repeating one thing... stay in the moment. he didn’t talk about the trophy. he didn’t talk about his future free agency. he talked about the next possession. he talked about the single defensive stop he had to make right then.
six years later, i finally get it. bitcoin didn’t survive a decade of "deaths" and 80% crashes by thinking about $1 million price targets. it survived because the tech still worked, block by block. 10 minutes at a time. the network doesn't care about the noise; it just keeps hashing. it is the ultimate "stay in the moment" machine.
this is the secret for anyone building anything that matters right now. ai won’t be built by people arguing on x about agi timelines or the end of humanity. it will be built by the engineers who are present enough to find the bug in the code today. humanoid robots won’t automate the world because of a viral debate about the future of labor. they will do it because a roboticist spent ten hours fixing a sensor that was just two milliseconds off.
the people who actually move the needle aren't reacting to the noise of the crowd. they are present with the work that is sitting right in front of them. they understand that the future isn't here yet and the past has already happened. the only thing that is real—the only place where you actually have any leverage—is this single moment.
championships, in sports or in tech or in life, are not won on the podium. they are built in the long, quiet hours of being present. stay in the moment. it is the only one you have. and if you win enough moments in a row, the future takes care of itself.
