After writing forty-two Dirt Codes, I thought I was done.
I wasn’t.
I had a suspicion for quite some time that the system would ultimately contain forty-four cards. The number has a habit of showing up in my life, so reaching forty-two felt more like a pause than an ending. What I didn’t know was that the final two cards would become the most important of all.
Somewhere around code forty-two, I began to notice something interesting. Every code I had written, regardless of whether it lived inside the laws of nature, karma, shadow, control, healing, or sovereignty, seemed to be pointing toward the same two questions:
Who am I?
And who is Other?
At first, I thought Self and Other would simply become the final two cards in the deck. A nice way to close out the project. Instead, they became the crown. What I eventually realized is that every wound, every adaptation, every betrayal, every projection, every healing journey, and every moment of growth ultimately leads back to these two forces.
As children, we begin life completely dependent upon Other. Other feeds us, protects us, teaches us language, and reflects back to us who we are. Long before we have words, we are studying faces, reading body language, tracking emotional weather, and learning what earns love and what threatens attachment.
We are, in many ways, born as students of Other.
For some children, this process unfolds in relatively stable environments. For others, it becomes much more complicated. If love feels conditional, unpredictable, absent, or unsafe, children often become exceptionally skilled at reading the room. We learn to anticipate needs, adapt to expectations, manage emotions, and shape ourselves around the people we depend upon. This is not weakness. It is adaptation. In many cases, it is brilliant. These strategies often allow us to survive environments that otherwise would have overwhelmed us.
The challenge is that what helps us survive childhood can quietly sabotage adulthood.
Looking back over my own life and career, I can see that I became extraordinarily skilled at building for Other. In the automotive industry, I wanted recognition. In the foreclosure industry, I wanted to prove myself. When I built my first company, RentLucky, I wanted to show everyone, including myself, that I could build something successful on my own.
If I’m being completely honest, much of that proving was tied to money. Financial success became evidence. Evidence that I was capable. Evidence that I was valuable. Evidence that I mattered.
Later, when we built Modern Day Sniper, I was building for Other once again, although I couldn’t see it at the time. Part of me wanted to show the people closest to me, and an entire firearms industry, what I was capable of creating. It amazed me that I could move from cars, to credit, to housing, to firearms and continue to build successful companies and communities.
The industry itself almost didn’t matter. I had become very good at creating value.
And here’s the interesting part: even while operating from an unconscious worthiness wound, I still helped build companies that generated more than eight figures in revenue.
Apparently, you can get a lot wrong and still create tremendous value.
What I couldn’t see was that I was still trying to create value outside of myself because I unconsciously believed that external value could repair an internal wound. I carried an unworthiness wound that had been established long before I ever entered the workforce, and achievement had quietly become one of the ways I attempted to heal it.
If I built something successful enough, perhaps I would finally feel valuable. If I cared enough, perhaps people would stay. If I provided enough, perhaps I would finally belong.
What I really wanted was much simpler. I wanted to contribute. I wanted to help build something meaningful with people I cared about. And, if I’m being completely honest, I wanted to be seen and appreciated for what I brought to the table.
Instead, as had happened before, betrayal entered the story and another projection shattered.
Over time, I learned that these unconscious bargains can become very expensive. I projected family onto employees. I projected loyalty onto collaborators. I projected belonging onto communities. I projected worth onto achievement itself. Then I suffered when people failed to become who I unconsciously needed them to be.
“The people weren’t family. I needed them to be family. There is a difference.”
One of the hardest lessons of my life has been realizing that not everyone enters relationships, partnerships, or communities with the same intentions, values, or vision. Much of my suffering came not from who other people were, but from who I imagined them to be.
The Dirt Codes eventually gave me language for what had been operating beneath the surface my entire life. Much of my energy had been organized around Other. I was serving Other, providing for Other, seeking recognition from Other, and trying to become worthy through Other. From the outside, much of this looked admirable. It looked like leadership, generosity, service, and contribution. But unconscious motives always carry consequences.
As I became more self-aware, I began to notice another pattern. When we habitually abandon ourselves, over-give, over-function, or organize our lives around the needs and approval of others, we often find ourselves in relationships that unconsciously complement those patterns.
“One person seeks worth through giving. Another seeks value through receiving. Together, they create a system until someone becomes conscious.”
For years, I gave away enormous amounts of energy, creativity, loyalty, labor, leadership, and vision. I did so willingly, often believing that if I contributed enough, people would reciprocate, remain loyal, or finally see my value. Sometimes they did. Sometimes they didn’t. But the deeper lesson had very little to do with them.
The lesson was that my worth could never be secured through another person’s gratitude, loyalty, or recognition.
“Because anything we hand to Other can eventually be taken by Other.”
What I eventually discovered is that Other can never tell us who we are.
Other can only reveal where we have forgotten ourselves.
Perhaps this is the real work of adulthood: the slow retrieval of the projections we have scattered across achievement, relationships, communities, audiences, and identities. It is the process of reclaiming the parts of ourselves we abandoned in order to belong. It is learning to stop asking achievement to make us worthy and relationships to complete us. It is discovering that worth was never something to be earned in the first place.
This is the movement from Other to Self.
These final two Dirt Codes are the Crown Codes because they sit above the entire system. Everything else has simply been preparing us for this conversation.
Know thyself. Everything else follows.
The final two Dirt Codes are the Crown Codes: Self and Other. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring both. For now, I’ll leave you with the song that captures the entire journey home, ‘I Know Thyself’. If you want a jumpstart on The 44 Dirt Codes you can listen to them in order here on SoundCloud.
