My grind will pay off in the form of a successful future.

Some of the payoff has already been banked, quietly, in a currency that doesn't look like success. Watch a chef who has been at it fifteen years handle an onion. That speed was bought with a thousand dull evenings, and it belongs to them permanently now.

You have an equivalent. Something you now do without effort that would have cost you an hour at twenty-four.

Which door opens first isn't yours to specify in advance, and doesn't need to be. The accumulation isn't speculative. It is already sitting in your hands, and it doesn't depend on anyone eventually noticing.