You're Preparing for a Life You'll Never Live

Today's podcast is very personal for me because what I'm going to talk about today is something that has impacted me and I think it's impacted a lot of people who are listening to this who are, you know, the quote unquote, high performing, super ambitious people. We're always trying to push the next level, get to the next milestone. I think that a lot of us are so afraid of wasting our lives that we've forgotten to live them. Let me explain what I mean. When you started your business, you started your career. You'd be happy if you made a hundred K. You'd be happy if your business hit a hundred K in sales and then it was two hundred K and then it was five hundred K and now you're making more money than your parents ever dreamed of and you're still not living the life that you promised yourself that you would live when you quote unquote made it because your goalposts keep moving and you keep chasing them and you are convinced that the next milestone will finally give you permission to stop optimizing and start living. It will finally give you permission to go on vacation. It will finally give you permission to work less hours. The next milestone will finally give you permission to buy that condo and settle down and the next milestone will finally give you permission to have kids because how could I afford them right now but all of that narrative that is all made up in your mind and those goalposts that keep moving well they're not moving themselves. You are moving them because every single achievement creates a new problem. Every single level that you unlock reveals ten more levels. Every single financial milestone that you achieve it gets swallowed up by lifestyle inflation and then you discover people who have even more and you become this world class optimizer and world class achiever and kind of an amateur human being but the irony is in your desperate attempt to avoid mediocrity which is really what we're all trying to escape. We just don't want to live a mediocre life. You are actually creating something way worse. You are creating a life that you are absent from. You are creating a life that you are actually not living because we all tell ourselves this story right. Once I hit X number then I'll have the freedom to enjoy life but freedom isn't a destination. It's truly a decision that you make about the life that you already have and you have convinced yourself that your current dissatisfaction with life is just temporary. It's just this necessary sacrifice on the way to the life that you deserve so you postpone joy and you postpone presence and you postpone actually living all in service of some future version of yourself who will finally have permission to be happy. But what's sad is that that person doesn't exist. They never will because here's what actually happens when you finally hit your number. Nothing. Nothing changes. You don't suddenly become somebody who can enjoy life. You become somebody who needs a bigger number. So every single time that you tell yourself I'll be happy when you're actually training your mind to look for what's missing. You're hunting out all the problems. Instead of noticing what's here right now. What do I have right now? How good is my life right now? And if you do this for years you'll become physically incapable of satisfaction. You will rewire your brain so that you can never be happy because your brain gets really good at spotting problems and terrible at recognizing them when things are actually fine and highly ambitious people. We are not just falling into how our brain works. We are reinforcing and continuously telling our brain to spot problems that life isn't good enough that we're not happy yet. And if we tell our brain this enough it's going to start to believe it. This is what's going to happen. The person making a hundred K who thinks 200 K will solve everything will turn into the person who's making 200 K who now thinks 500 K will solve everything who will then turn into the person making 500 K who thinks 1 million will solve everything. Now you're not climbing towards satisfaction. You are running on a treadmill that you built in your own mind. But the part that really stinks is that most high achievers actually learn this as kids. So you are probably the child who got hugs for good grades and silence just for existing and a lot of love came through performance and being yourself wasn't enough. You had to be accomplishing something that mattered. So now you're 35 years old or 40 years old or 45 years old and you're still trying to earn gold stars and you're subconscious from a teacher who isn't even there anymore. From your parents who don't care because you've already surpassed them because the 75 K person who's worried about rent the 150 K person who's worried about the mortgage on the house have upgraded to the 300 K person who worries about the private school tuition for the kids. It's just different numbers same anxiety different lifestyle. But if you're not careful same emptiness because happiness fulfillment and security is a feeling not a number we keep thinking it's a number. Feelings don't follow bank balances. Now let me show you how this is not something that just you are dealing with. So don't stress because this is a very common problem that high performing people have to deal with. Literally one of the most powerful people in the world at the time Marcus Aurelius. Well actually he was literally the most powerful person in the world at the time because he controlled armies vast wealth basically an empire that spanned three continents. So you could say that he had accomplished a lot he could have anything he wanted could do anything he wanted he could live his life in any way he chose but he spent his private moments this is documented history writing reminders to himself he would always write out you have power over your mind not outside events realize this and you will find strength so the most powerful man in history needed to remind himself that external circumstances don't create internal peace. So if a Roman emperor struggled with this what makes you think that your next promotion is going to solve all your problems the same patterns of trap you at 100k are going to trap you at a million the same dissatisfaction that you feel in your current apartment that's going to follow you to the penthouse because your problem isn't your circumstances it's your relationship with them external achievements can't fix internal dissatisfaction and you've been trying to solve a feelings problem with a money solution now this is what changed everything for me this is what actually helped me overcome this mental block about achievement and success and it didn't this exercise and I'm going to get you to do didn't stop me from wanting to achieve more or to be more ambitious but it helped me live in the moment in the present and not keep running on this treadmill that I've created for myself and allow me to sometimes take some time off from work not feel guilty about it and spend time with friends and family and on other things so what changed everything for me was writing down my enough number what is that enough number it's how much you have to make right how much money you have to make so it's not enough to be comfortable or enough to feel secure it's a very specific annual income that you have to take home that would let you live the exact life that you want without compromise that's very important we're not talking about making no money and not living a great life we're talking about the amount of money that you would want to take home every single year so you could live a life without compromise and for me it's actually quite low subjectively I know this number could be large for some people but for me most of my money that I make goes right back into my business but what I like to spend money on is traveling two to three times a year dinners without checking the prices on the menu the ability to help my family when they need my help and really enough left over not to worry about money I don't spend a lot everything above that number is really just lifestyle inflation disguised as ambition so you have to write down your enough number not what society tells you to want not what your friends and your peers are chasing the actual amount of money that would let you live the life you want if we look at Warren Buffett he still lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for thirty one thousand five hundred dollars not because he can't afford better but because he decided it was enough he could buy anything he wants in this world and he chooses to need very little that's not frugality that's freedom so your homework is to write down your enough number and then you ask yourself well what would I do if I already had that number because for some of you you probably already do or you're closer than you think and you're postponing living you're postponing friends and family and travel and fun and hobbies and pastimes and life because you're chasing a number that wouldn't even impact your life significantly you're chasing a number that would make you so much money you wouldn't even know what to do with because you wouldn't spend it on things that are important to you so it's fine to be ambitious it's fine to push the next level but don't do it while forgetting everything else you can live right now let me do some math that's gonna hurt if you work 60 hours a week and I know that some of us work more than 60 hours a week but if you work 60 hours a week for the next 20 years to build the perfect life that is 62,400 hours of preparation 62,400 hours of getting ready to live that is more time than most people spend awake with their families in a lifetime that's more time than most people spend doing things they actually enjoy but you are spending more time preparing for life than living it but the cost isn't just time it's relationships because while you've been preparing and optimizing for some day in the future the people who matter most have been living in today your partner your spouse stopped inviting you to spontaneous dinners because you always say you're too busy your kids stopped asking you to play because you're always working on something more important and your friends stopped calling because every time you hang out you're just stressing about your next goal you've been so focused on building a life worth living that you've ignored the people who make life worth living and the cruelest part is that at the end of those 20 years where you've been preparing because you have conditioned yourself to not be happy you're probably going to set new goals and spend another 20 years pairing for the life that you live someday and you're going to do this until you die because you on your deathbed your deathbed self they're not proud of optimization and preparation they are heartbroken by you missing out on all the life that you have available to you right now they are lying they're wishing that they could go back and tell you what it's really all about family friends and experiences the Tuesday morning conversations the unplanned adventures the quiet moments of just being present with someone you love so maybe you should listen to you in the future because you can keep preparing for that extraordinary life or you can show up to the one that's happening right now but you can't do both and as Marcus Aurelius wrote confine yourself to the present the present that you've been avoiding while optimizing for the future and the choice is yours but choose quickly because while you're deciding how much is enough how much should I push what can I accomplish your life is happening without you