A book by Imanol Galván · written at 19
I'm not yet ready.
Most books like this are written by people looking back from the top. This one is written from the middle, by a computer science student from the El Paso–Juárez border, while he's still standing in the space between where he is and where he wants to be.
Sixteen chapters. A fidget-spinner lunchbox business. A theater role he didn't get. A car ride with his dad. A bus trip to Lubbock. A beach in Miami. A grandfather meeting his favorite jazz musician backstage. Same idea, from every angle: you don't arrive and then become. You become through the moving.
“I can't is a wall. Not yet keeps the door open.”What the title means · Chapter 14
Each one takes the same argument, belief before proof, motion before clarity, and turns it a few more degrees.
That restlessness you can't quite explain isn't a flaw, it's the gift, the same one my parents saw in me before I'd done anything to earn it. Belief that arrives before the proof changes what excuses are even available to you. If nobody's given you that belief yet, you can build it yourself.
Nobody feels ready when they start, not the people you admire, not the ones who look like they have it figured out. Readiness isn't a precondition, it's a byproduct of moving, the same way mine showed up months after I stopped waiting for it. You don't prepare and then go. You go, and the preparation happens while you're already in it.
Being young in a room full of people who aren't works in your favor, the bar is lower and showing up prepared stands out more than it ever will later. I learned to take myself seriously before anyone else would, calling myself an entrepreneur before I had a company. The identity comes first. You grow into it after.
Feeling behind almost always means comparing yourself to a race you were never running, someone else's timeline has nothing to do with when you're supposed to arrive. Watching Lamine Yamal win the World Cup at nineteen taught me that the hard way. Their success only proves the thing is possible, not that you're late.
Most of what stops you isn't a good reason, it's fear dressed up as logic, and asking why not is how you catch the difference. My uncle lived by that question, backstage with a jazz musician my grandpa loved, then in a job he wasn't remotely qualified for. The no is already yours if you never ask. Why not just gives you a shot at the yes.
What looks like luck is usually just math, more attempts than anyone saw, positioned in the places where opportunity tends to show up. I stopped waiting for it and started building the conditions for it instead. The record everyone else sees is always missing its first two-thirds.
Clarity comes from moving, not from planning for it in advance, and the first version of anything is supposed to be rough. Every project I've built started before I knew what I was doing. Waiting for a better moment doesn't make starting easier, it just costs you time you don't get back.
Arrogance needs an audience to perform for. Confidence gets built quietly, one piece of evidence at a time, until you don't need anyone's applause to know the direction is right. I post on LinkedIn constantly, which makes this one worth writing carefully, the difference isn't what you share, it's why.
Everything worth doing happens in public before it's finished, and being misjudged along the way is the price of that, not a reason to stop. I've paid the quieter price too, staying invisible so nobody could misjudge me at all. Go anyway. Say the thing.
Momentum feels lighter from the inside, less negotiation before doing what you already know you should do, and the peak just confirms the direction was right. Losing it again doesn't undo that, it's part of the same cycle, not a verdict. I've felt both, on a beach in Miami once, and in the months since.
Losing forces an honesty about your preparation that winning never does, which is why the ten seconds after matter more than the loss itself. Showing up and losing still counts for more than never trying. The real loser is the one who never showed up at all.
Winning mostly happens off the scoreboard, in the version nobody's keeping score of, so define it on your own terms before someone hands you theirs. Messi barely talks about being the best, and that restraint is most of what this chapter is about. Stay on the ground after you get there. Analyze it like you would a loss.
Every phase is complete on its own terms, even the slow ones, and using a good one from before to make this one feel smaller is a trap worth naming. The dots you can't connect yet usually make sense later, not never. I learned that on a bus ride home that turned into a relationship I didn't see coming.
Not yet isn't a softer way of saying you failed, it's the most honest sentence available for where you actually are. I can't is a wall. Not yet keeps the door open and says the timeline just isn't settled.
Your spark was never the achievement, it's the aliveness underneath it, your music, your taste, the specific way you see things. Mine fades the same way anyone's does, through small adjustments that each felt reasonable alone. Keep choosing it on purpose.
You don't arrive and then become, you become through the moving, one decision at a time, and that was true for every chapter before this one whether it said so or not. Belief before proof was the engine the whole way through. I'm still not finished becoming. Neither are you.
“Nobody teaches you the hum. You're born with it.”Ch. 1
“You go, and the preparation happens while you're already moving.”Ch. 2
“The no is already yours if you don't try.”Ch. 5
“Call it whatever you want. It's still just math.”Ch. 6
“Quiet confidence is what's left once you stop needing anyone to clap.”Ch. 8
“You aren't late. You're just in between.”Ch. 10
Imanol Galván is a Computer Science student at The University of Texas at El Paso, minor in Entrepreneurship. Raised between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, he builds AI projects, runs a web design business, and posts too much on LinkedIn.
He wrote Not Yet at nineteen, while still in the middle of everything in it.
The real playlist is longer than this. These are just some of the albums that were closest, the ones that were with the book from a half-formed document to a finished manuscript.
Listen to the full playlist on Spotify9 Months and 50 HoursLatin Mafia & Fred again..
and Todos Los Días Todo El Día
you seem pretty sad for a girl so in loveOlivia Rodrigo
and Sour
A Fever You Can't Sweat OutPanic! at the Disco
and Death of a Bachelor
Apricot PrincessRex Orange County
and The Alexander Technique
Free SpiritsCartel & Paco Amoroso
and Papota
ZoéZoé
and Programaton
Manifiesto de un Tremendo DelirioLeón Larregui
and Solstis
La Vida Era Mas CortaMilo J
and 111
DeadbeatTame Impala
and Currents
The Crux DeluxeDJO
and Decide
If you feel something but don't really know what to do with it yet. If you know you're capable of more but you're waiting for the right moment, or more confidence, or someone to tell you that you're ready, this is for you.
I know that person, because I was that person. I still am, some days. I wrote this book at nineteen, while still living through everything in it, because I decided trying anyway was worth doing before I felt ready.
It's about the things I believe. That belief has to come before proof. That you figure things out by moving instead of waiting until you feel prepared. That luck is usually just how many times someone tried before it worked.
But it also taught me that it's never too early or too late to enjoy right now, instead of treating it as something to get through on the way to somewhere better, and to feel proud of it while I'm still living it.
Wherever you are, I don't think you're behind or too late or finished. You're just not there yet. And not yet is a good place to be.
Not Yet is out now, on Kindle and in paperback.