Years in the Desert
For ten years, Jan Schloesser couldn't finish the book he was meant to write. Five weeks and three conversations later, he wrote his first draft within six days
Jan started his mornings with a hot cup of coffee and writing.
His most important project: writing his first book.
At the time, it was the first thing he worked on at the start of each day.
But this day felt different. He tapped into the flow state and couldn’t stop writing.
Jan rescheduled everything he’d planned for the afternoon, went out for a short walk, and kept writing until late in the evening.
At half past nine, he finally stopped.
And when he checked his word count, it flashed:
9,000 words
In just one day.
His normal pace was three thousand words on a good day, five thousand on a great one.
Nine thousand was unheard of.
This was six days after a call with someone he looked up to.
Six days after ten years of trying.
“All my internal obstacles suddenly disappeared.”
February 24, 2022
For four weeks before that day, Jan worked nonstop on client projects, and on February 23rd, he finished his final one. He’d earned a break. So that evening, he went out with his friends for a few beers.
They talked about the possibility of war. Russian troops had been massing at the border for weeks. But Jan didn’t believe that was even a possibility.
“I was saying, no, that’s never going to happen. They don’t have enough troops. And you could talk to anybody in Kyiv, and everybody would tell you we’re going to stay here and fight them.”
Jan woke up at 8am the next morning. He walked to the kitchen, prepped his coffee, and headed to the balcony overlooking Peremohy Avenue, watching the city wake up.
It took him a few minutes to notice that something was off.
Usually in the morning, he saw cars traveling west to east - people heading to work downtown. But this morning, nobody traveled to the center and instead, thousands of people were travelling away from the center. Massive traffic jams stretched out across the streets, with everyone in a hurry to leave.
“As soon as I saw that, I thought, damn I better check the news.”
Russia had attacked Ukraine.
“At first, I froze like a deer in headlights. I didn’t know what to do. Around 10am, news broke that Russians were about to capture Hostomel Airport in the northwest of Kyiv. That kicked me into action.”
Jan was lucky to get one of the last tickets out of the city that night. Friends of his tried to buy tickets at the railway station, but couldn’t get any. Yet somehow, someway, Jan got his hands on one.
He left Ukraine for good on April 2024, two years later.
“That experience made me really picky with how I invest my time. One lesson, maybe that’s the biggest lesson I learned on that day, was that security is an illusion. Life is now. Life happens now.”
That day kickstarted a process of change that went on for months.
Jan knew what mattered.
It was time for something else.
The Attempts
“I’ve tried three times and only the fourth time finally worked.”
Ten years ago, Jan decided to write a book. He’d been a full-time writer for just over a year then and he knew this project would be completely different. It’d be the first thing that would have his name on it. And in the past, that thought kept getting in his way.
“The project was just too big for me. I just wasn’t a good enough writer to do it. This would be my first book.”
He tried again a few years later, with more experience. More skill in his craft.
However, this time, something else stood in his way.
“I wanted it to be the best book on this subject, but at the same time, I didn’t have that much experience in the field. There’s so many open questions, and I was never sure if I was ready or good enough to write this book.”
The voice in his head kept saying:
“Who am I to criticize real coaches when I’m not a certified coach?”
On 7th June 2024, Jan started writing on Substack through a method he calls ‘processing writing’ — his way of getting ideas out into words. With time, he noticed a golden thread emerge from his collection of essays.
“I was actually writing the book that I had been trying to write before, but just couldn’t. I’m now writing it as pretty long articles that could be chapters.”
The material was now right in front of him.
His next challenge: assemble it into a book.
The Conversations
August 2025, Jan saw a post in Paul Millerd’s community about Act Two with the call to finally ship a creative project in five weeks.
Part of him knew this was exactly what he needed. So he applied for a scholarship, got accepted, and signed up.
“I wanted some kind of container that allows me to focus on just one thing. Something outside of myself. If there’s a challenge, I can’t do it on my own.”
He’d comitted to giving his book one more shot using the material he’d written on Substack. But still, his internal blocks were still present.
During a Take Two Tuesday breakout session, he described his imposter syndrome to Act Two’s coach-in-residence, Harrison Moore. They got in touch once again soon after and spoke on a call for thirty minutes.
Harrison had read Jan’s Substack article, which in many ways was “the MVP version of the book”.
“He told me, ‘I was nodding along as I was reading your article.’ So for someone who is also a coach to resonate with my ideas felt like a really big thing.”
There’s one quote from that conversation that’s stuck with Jan:
“The greater the artist, the greater the self-doubt. Only the fool is completely convinced.”
“I can’t really explain what it did, but I kept thinking of that quote and it helped me get over the imposter syndrome.”
Around the same time, Jan connected with Rick Lewis. They’d read each other’s letters to future selves shared in the Circle community, jumped on a Zoom call, and hit it off immediately.
Rick shared Jan’s MVP article with his writing community, Write Hearted. Suddenly, other coaches and therapists were commenting and joining the conversation. One of them said: “This is good. Keep doing that. This is what’s needed in coaching.”
“These were all little pieces that allowed me to go forward with my book.”
The Slingshot Mentor
One of Act Two’s assignments is to reach out to a “slingshot mentor” — someone that you admire and inspires you. Jan chose Tom Morgan, writer of The Leading Edge on Substack.
When Jan asked for thirty minutes of his time, Tom’s responded: “Absolutely not. I insist on one hour.”
“That was a really fun start to that conversation.”
Jan set up in his kitchen downstairs, knowing the light would be better. He took some notes beforehand, and felt that familiar fear of finally talking to someone you look up to.
Tom was kind and his sense of humor eased Jan’s nerves.
Few minutes into the call, Tom asked Jan what he was working on.
Jan explained his book. The struggle. The self-doubt about whether his ideas were rational or crazy.
“When I told him, he told me: “I think you’re doing God’s work.” I couldn’t believe it. He even mentioned a couple of people that I should check out, and that really encouraged me.”
Jan’s book was personal and inspired by his father’s life and death. That immense emotional weight made it almost impossible to write. So when Tom heard about that, he said to Jan,
“Maybe your dad chose this life so that this book can be written.”
“To hear that from somebody you look up to, that what you’re doing is the right thing to do... I needed this confirmation. That’s what that conversation gave me.”
They spoke on Friday and by Sunday, Jan had a new daily word count record.
“After that call... friction and resistance were finally out of the window.”
The First Draft
Jan protected his time and attention ruthlessly from that point forward.
“All these obstacles were finally removed, or at the very least, lowered considerably. So I thought, okay, I need to get it done now. If I wait too long, this internal bullshit will come back to bite me.”
Writing felt completely different this time.
“The gap between what I want the book to be and what I’m writing on the page was shrinking. It’s not completely gone, but it’s shrinking to a degree that I can say, yeah, this is okay. I can live with that.”
Six days after speaking with Harrison, Rick, and Tom, Jan completed the first draft of his book.
“Realizing I finally completed the book I’d struggled to write for over a decade but a truly special feeling.”
In fact at first, he couldn’t even grasp it.
“It was like my mind was just hanging behind and didn’t really understand what I had just done. I couldn’t really understand my success. It took some time for it to settle and then it was like, wow, I did that.”
Jan is a PhD in cognitive psychology and actively teaches people about escaping the logical left-hemisphere machine that values credentials and validation over creativity and authenticity. For over ten years, he couldn’t finish writing his book about what he loved because he trapped himself in that very pattern of needing credentials, enough experience, and a belief to be ‘good enough’ first.
“I didn’t really make that connection at the time. I’m probably too close to it to see it. But yeah, there’s an irony there.
“I think for this book to be born, a person within me had to die. It’s the person who doesn’t trust himself just because he doesn’t have as much experience as other people. The person who is just a writer that keeps in his field of competence and never goes beyond that. I needed to become an adventurer who goes beyond his comfort zone and has confidence in his mission, even though he can’t see where it’s going to lead just yet.”
So, if he could go back 10 years in time and talk to himself the moment he chose to write his book, what would he say?
“Nothing because that guy wouldn’t listen to me anyway. I really think I needed these 10 years of wandering in the desert, not knowing what to do, where I’m going, or how the hell I’m ever going to write that book. I feel I needed that. Maybe I just wasn’t ready 10 years ago.”
Walking the Path
Jan is now writing a novel. What he planned as a novella has grown to forty-five thousand words and counting. It’s another childhood dream he’s tried before and couldn’t finish. But this time, it’s flowing with ease.
He’s planning second and third drafts of his book soon, then getting it into the hands of beta readers and an editor before publishing later in 2026.
His coaching practice is building as he works with clients one-on-one, and his transformation during Act Two changed how he approaches his work.
“I can now coach with more conviction and more commitment... I firmly believe what I’m talking about is something that people need. But maybe the bigger thing is that I now embody the thing that I coach people to become. I have lived it. I have manifested that unlived life to somebody who did it and to somebody who wrote that book. I want to embody what I help people become. And that’s what that project helped me to do.”
The adventurer that trusts his mission is now born.
For years, Jan taught about escaping the machine without being able to escape it himself, but a container and three conversations gave him permission to live what he’d been teaching.
Now when he coaches someone struggling with their unlived life, he doesn’t just know the path.
He’s walked it himself.
Jan Schloesser is a PhD in Cognitive Psychology, full-time writer for 11+ years, and existential coach helping people live their unlived life. His book will be published in the first half of 2027. You can connect with him on LinkedIn and follow his work on Substack at The Unlived Life.
Pranav, thank you for this beautifully written account of how my book got written at last - after what really felt like years wandering in the desert.
For anyone reading who feels trapped in that same gap between the life they are living and the one they know they are meant for: I can't recommend Act Two enough. This program and the community it provides were the key to finally getting out of my own way. If you have a project that feels 'too big' or a dream that’s been sitting on the shelf, this is the place to finally bring it to life.
Grateful to have walked this path with you, Pranav, and with the Act Two community!
Looking forward to Jan's sequel, "The Lived Life," after he has left a trail of goodness and purpose-driven service in his wake. Great article by the way Pranav.