Enemies By Design: How The US And USSR Shaped Each Other's Identity

    By Chris Ekeme

The fluorescent hum of the all-night diner paints everything in sickly yellow. Your third coffee sits cold, a bitter companion to the crumpled bills in your pocket—$17.28, the exact price of tomorrow’s ramen and regret. Outside, the city pulses like a living thing, indifferent to your trembling hands and the spreadsheet glowing on your laptop screen. Numbers don’t lie: you’re broke. You’re terrified. You’re so far out of your depth it feels like drowning.

Perfect.

This is where every revolution begins.

The Dirty Truth About "Ready"

They’ll tell you to wait. For the right moment. The perfect plan. The mythical "enough"—enough money, enough confidence, enough certainty. It’s a seductive lie, designed to keep you small.

Listen closer.

The first Apple computer was soldered together in a garage reeking of sweat and desperation. Spanx was born when Sara Blakely hacked the feet off pantyhose with kitchen scissors. KFC’s secret recipe was scribbled on the back of a gas station receipt by a man who’d failed at forty businesses before he turned sixty-five.

These aren’t fairytales. They’re battle plans.

The Art of War (When Your Wallet’s Empty)

Forget Silicon Valley fairy dust. Real scrappers fight with broken tools and bloody knuckles.

There’s a woman in Nairobi who turned a single sack of beans into a wholesale empire by walking door-to-door for six months straight. A tattooed kid in Bangkok who taught himself graphic design on a stolen library card and now brands Fortune 500 companies. A former convict in Detroit who started a moving company with a borrowed truck and a hand-painted sign—now his fleet wears his last name in gold lettering.

Their secret? They treated survival like a sport.

Step one: Sell your face, not your fantasy.
No capital? Sell what’s already in your hands. Can you write? Offer to polish resumes for immigrants at the community center. Know cars? Flip junkers on Facebook Marketplace. Good with kids? Tutor algebra to panicked high schoolers. The first dollar is a bridge—cross it fast, before doubt sinks you.

Step two: Steal like a starving artist.
Study competitors like they’re cheat codes. Copy their frameworks, then twist them into something only you could make. The sushi chef Jiro didn’t invent rice and fish—he obsessed over every grain until it became art.

Step three: Weaponize your shame.
That voice hissing "Who do you think you are?"—feed it to your furnace. Every great underdog story runs on spite. The Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics. Einstein was a patent clerk. Your current resume? Just the prologue.

The Ghosts That Will Try to Haunt You

They’ll come at 3 AM, these ghosts. The cousin who smirked when you quit your job. The ex who said you’d never amount to anything. The "friends" who suddenly remember your birthday when they need a favor.

Let them haunt you.

Then use them as kindling.

The First Time the Universe Bends

You’ll feel it before you see it—the shift. Maybe it’s the first client who refers you without being asked. The first time you say your rate without flinching. The morning you wake up and realize the terror has morphed into something sharper, brighter: hunger.

This is the fork in the road most miss. When the grind stops feeling like punishment and starts tasting like power.

The Darkest Night (And Why It Matters)

There will be a night. The bank account screaming red. The client who vanishes with your last dollar. The moment you’re kneeling on a bathroom floor, wondering if you’ve been a fool.

This is the crucible.

Every legend has this chapter. Oprah getting fired for "caring too much." Spielberg getting rejected from film school three times. That night is your initiation. Survive it, and you earn the right to call yourself something rare: a builder.

The Alchemy of Scars

One day, you’ll trace the map of your struggles like braille.

That shaky first sale? It taught you more than an MBA ever could. The betrayal by a business partner? Forged your instincts sharper than any consultant’s advice. Even the failures become sacred—because they’re yours.

The Only Question Worth Asking

When your grandchildren press their sticky hands against the glass of your office building, when the reporters ask how you did it, what will your eyes betray?

Will they see the ghost of the person who almost didn’t try?

Or the fire of someone who stared into the abyss and whispered:

"Watch me."

The diner coffee’s gone cold. The spreadsheet still glows. The city hasn’t stopped breathing.

What happens next is entirely up to you.