Dan Martell and Gary Vee are both wrong

Dan Martell and Gary Vee are both wrong. 30 isn’t the starting line or the finish line… and their "age debate" is distracting you from what actually matters.

While the biggest online voices argue about your expiration date, you're missing your actual window. This age obsession is engagement bait (disguised as insight) and likely keeping you from real transformation.

Let’s address the elephants in the room, the outliers that drive this talk track:
→ Melanie Perkins co-founded Canva in her mid-20s and became one of the youngest female billionaires.
→ Vera Wang entered fashion at 40 and now defines bridal luxury.

Other paths don't tell you what's possible for your life.

Using them as measuring sticks is like comparing your chapter 3 to someone else's epilogue.

Here's what gets lost: behind every success story is a unique combination of circumstances, leverage, talents, obstacles, and timing that can't be replicated.

The real privilege isn't having resources at 20 or wisdom at 50… it's believing comparisons matter at all.

The only life you can actually direct is yours, and that's as terrifying as it is liberating.

So... What's really happening in those comment wars?

In my opinion, debating whether your 30s are the beginning or the end isn’t triggering because of your age. It fires you up because you've outgrown something and you know it.

The urgency you feel is really about the gap between who you are and who you're becoming.

Here's what gets twisted: two focused years can reshape the trajectory of your life. Not two years of relentless grinding; two years of intentional, aligned action.

But two years spent refusing to adapt, clinging to containers that don't fit? That's where you lose decades of momentum.

Multiple burnouts taught me that pushing through misalignment isn't resilience—it's self-sabotage.

Becoming a mother forced a complete work-life reinvention. What worked before suddenly didn't fit the person I was becoming.

Now I notice I'm shifting again. My interests are evolving, my boundaries are clearer, and I've stopped expecting to settle into any one role permanently. I'm (gleefully) constantly outgrowing previous versions of myself.

Sometimes I think people mistake that feeling for instability... I see it as intentional evolution. And going with that flow rather than fighting it has taught me that adaptability is the skill that makes age and circumstance irrelevant.

These are the important questions:
What container have you outgrown?
What are you ready to unlearn?
What version of yourself are you afraid to let die?
Who are you becoming?

Being early gives you more runway—but not more wisdom.
Being late gives you urgency—but not necessarily curiosity.

What matters is your willingness to evolve when evolution calls.

Age isn't the variable. Adaptability is.

Stop letting other people's timelines dictate your urgency. 

The only deadline that matters is the one between staying stuck and choosing to grow.

Cheers,
Marissa