I learned to hustle real quick. I learned that who I was inside was worthy of ridicule, but what I could pull off was commendable. I stockpiled the early goods that turn a child into a king — candy bars, 

cash, and capability. Granted, I was still socially awkward and uncomfortable — so next, I learned rage and aggression. Then I became known as the kid who protects others, provides resources, and was capable of pulling off the un-pull-off-able.

Fast-forward 40 years, and I'm still trying to unwind that fuckery.

Are you measuring your worth by your exhaustion instead of your impact? Most high-achievers believe that struggle equals effort—that sleepless nights and endless straining prove their commitment to success. But here's the paradox: the harder you push, the further you get from your goals. This article reveals why successful people stay stuck despite maximum effort, and introduces the perspective shift that makes achievement feel effortless. Learn about the 600-pound barbell you've been trying to lift that should be disassembled instead, and discover the "Right View, Right Effort" methodology that's transforming how accomplished entrepreneurs create results. Stop forcing square-shaped circles and start seeing the elegant solutions hiding in plain sight.

"While I savor my coffee watching the forest spring to life, most find themselves inside pods of steel, careening toward a brutalistic downtown dystopia—all in pursuit of making a living. And in doing so, they forgot to make a life. The ecological path isn't about rejecting conventional work, but ensuring whatever path we choose emerges from authentic desires rather than imported ones."

"The irony of our distraction addiction is that constant stimulation doesn't solve the problem it's meant to address—it merely postpones the inevitable reckoning. When we use distraction to avoid silence, we're avoiding something within that silence. But what might have been manageable discomfort becomes unbearable tension the longer we wait."

Learning is the ultimate advancement, yet many of us carry a defeatist notion about our abilities to learn—a legacy of traditional education. Science reveals a surprising truth: confidence isn't about celebrating past achievements but embracing your capacity to learn anything.

There are two types of business owners. One that sees everything that happens as not only in their control, but in their responsibility and perception. The other that sees everything as a consequence that conspires against them. And it's not an even split. I'd wager 90% or more in the second camp of existential crisis. And it's no coincidence there that it's eerily similar to the well-known stat of how many businesses fail.

The industry is easy. The human is hard. You can fix one all you want, but don't be shocked when you keep finding yourself in perpetual and repeat problems. However, fix the other, and be truly shocked that you stop repeating problematic scenarios. The root problem? Well, that requires finding the constant in each problem. And when you dig deep enough, you find a pretty common root problem. The human, the owner, the leader, the entrepreneur.

If everyone around you seems to be the asshole in your business story, it might be time to look in that mirror. Not with judgment or self-criticism, but with curiosity and compassion.

Almost overnight, my seemingly simple, lean, and efficient company turned into a complex firehouse. Its every asset directed at problem management rather than business development. Despite how exciting the future seemed financially, the writing was clear: This was not only unsustainable, it was also not the business we set out to build. So, I killed it. In almost the flip of a switch I turned off half a million dollars in revenue and gutted a would-be blossoming valuation. Why? Vitality.

I'm not here to tell you to cut your revenue and become a monk. What I'm implying is that you get clear on what success looks like before you have it—because if you don't, when you start to experience it, you start moving those goal posts. And before you know it, you look up, and you not only do not have quality of life, you're throwing your whole life at chasing this thing.

The reality is life—a real, true, quality life—looks like way less than you think. It looks like freedom in five areas: Time, money, purpose, relationship, and health.

The cold feeling of disconnection does not mix well with the comfort of the bedding. Yet the scenario plays out again: Two people, less than a foot apart, yet miles from each other. It's not a bedtime argument—it's far more insidious. He checks his email to "close out the day"; she "decompresses" by scrolling social media. In today's day and age, two people don't share a bed. Most get in bed with thousands.

Our hyper-connection to the outside world comes at the cost of our connection to our present world. And this is a tax we pay in spades—over and over, till most become bankrupt. Bankrupt on attention. Freedom is the ability to be where you are at—with Time, Money, Purpose, Health, and Relationships. Because the opposite of freedom is suffering, the definition of which is "wanting that which is otherwise."

Well-placed desire moves mountains. Ill-placed desire places mountains on top of you. Before you go to bed tonight and bring the whole world with you, consider first whether your whole world isn't already right next to you.

"I'm sorry," I replied. "I can't help you." Flabbergasted, he looked me dead in my soul, and he was furious. All humans have problems. Eighty-three problems, as the Buddha-Dharma would suggest. You can work incredibly hard and eliminate one of those problems, but another will quickly arise to take its place. "Perhaps I just did help you. Now you are aware of the 84th problem." "84th?" he asked. "Yes," I explained. "The desire to have no problems at all."

Chasing the absence of problems is not only a treadmill of impossibility, it's also a distraction from the simplicity of the solution. You already have everything you need. You just need to wake up. Awareness is not the ability to find the answer to all your problems. Awareness is the ability to find your presence in all your problems—so you can break the patterns and processes that drive these problems.

The truth is that problems are not actually problems at all—they are merely situations. Get you to believe in yourself as easily as you believe in others. It's always been you.

"I feel lost," she begins exasperated. "I hit our goal, I didn't step in, the team did just like they were supposed to. I donated, I served, I took care of myself, I did and do everything we say I'm supposed to do. But somehow I feel further away, lost, defeated."

You probably know a lot of people like Kate. Maybe you're even one of them. With long lists of goals and longer lists of accomplishments, but missing vibrancy in life—and all the accomplishments aren't bringing it back. When achievers struggle, they forge on. Push through. Grit it out. Things are good, so they don't want to ruin them.

Clarity, first of all, is not something you just have. Everyone refers to clarity in a defeatist nihilistic notion, "I just don't have clarity." No one does, because clarity, like energy is created, not possessed. You don't have high energy, you create it. Clarity is created by questioning. Exploring. Trying. Failing. Pursuing. Progressing. Creating.

I share all this not to claim the victim position but in the honest vulnerability that I, too, struggle. But I don't suffer. To suffer is to want that which is otherwise. And I have come to appreciate the vibrancy of my subconscious mind.

They land on my calendar desiring things to be different. And for good reason, of course. Desire is the contract we make to suffer until we achieve what we are after. The vast majority of us are driven not by ecological pursuit but by mimetics. To escape the way things are for a more enviable alternative.

It would be easy to will away my struggle of chaotic dreams. But this would relegate me to a life of suffering. Instead, I can ask: "How can I use them to help me?" My mornings have become that answer. A reframe. One where the investments are consistent and the outcomes ecological. No life is without struggle. Suffering, however, is a choice.

"Want to go to the mountains with a small group of humans, connect over a fire, do something hard the next day, reflect over dinner, and leave after sharing a breakfast?" I've sent that text countless times recently. The response is telling: "YES! You have no idea how bad I need this right now."

We've become masterful at maintaining the appearance of connection while systematically avoiding its substance. We collect followers but have few confidants. We amass likes but rarely feel truly seen. A Harvard Business Review study found that 61% of executives feel lonely in their role and believe it hinders their performance.

Social media platforms are engineered to trigger dopamine responses through likes, comments, and shares, creating a false sense of validation that approximates but never truly satisfies our need for genuine connection. We become performers rather than participants. True vulnerability, the kind that forms the bedrock of authentic connection, isn't curated. It's messy. It's real-time. It happens eye-to-eye, not screen-to-screen.

Your brain performs a cognitive marathon every single day, and it's been running this race for years without a proper rest stop. You're asking a brain designed for occasional bursts of focused attention to maintain constant, effortful focus for 12-hour stretches. It's like asking a sprinter to run a marathon at sprint speed. Eventually, something breaks down.

Social media feels like a mental break, but it's actually demanding directed attention as you process information and navigate constant stimulation. This is why you can spend an entire weekend "relaxing" and still feel exhausted on Monday. You never actually gave your directed attention system the restoration it needed.

Research shows that a 40-minute walk in nature can improve cognitive performance by 20%. A weekend in a forest environment can restore attention capacity for up to 30 days. But most people haven't experienced 40 minutes of true natural restoration in months. The question isn't whether you can afford to restore your attention—it's whether you can afford not to.

There's a particularly cruel irony in entrepreneurial life: The higher you climb, the smaller your world becomes. When you were starting out, anything was possible. Every door could open. Every idea had potential. Now? Your calendar is full of commitments you made when you thought they would energize you. Your decisions ripple through so many lives that every choice feels like it carries the weight of the world.

Here's what no one tells you about building a business: Every system you create to ensure success becomes a constraint on your freedom. Every process you implement to scale becomes a box you must operate within. The very competence that got you here becomes the cage that keeps you here. You wanted financial freedom, so you built a business. Now you're chained to quarterly numbers.

The way out isn't back—it's through. You can't return to the naive optimism of your startup days, but you can learn to hold responsibility without being imprisoned by it. You can learn to make decisions from vision instead of fear.

In moments of transition, chaos, uncertainty, and more, your brain essentially chooses to catastrophize something that doesn't exist rather than explore the opportunity of potential. To say that more clearly: In moments of progress, your brain chooses to focus on problems instead of potential... Let that sink in.

The Default Mode Network gets activated when you are met with new information that looks similar to a past problem, especially one that might have been scary, chaotic, or you didn't have the resources or tools to manage. Your DMN will activate when new information correlates with past experiences of your inability to cope. And once the DMN kicks on? It will repeatedly practice the problem and pattern from the past; it does not look for solutions.

The simplest thing, the most available thing, is just recognize the pattern. "I'm just reidentifying the same problem or pattern." When you recognize the pattern, you switch off the DMN. At least for that instant. The next thing is to ask yourself questions. The antidote of overthinking is to direct your focus and start answering questions.

Yeah, but I didn't go all the way" was going to fit way easier into her story of herself than "I did it" would. As the team splinters to achieve a further objective, one riddled with complexity she doesn't have the skills for, they tear off—and with them, the victory she allows them to take. As if their forward movement makes her accomplishment insignificant.

Her story is not at all uncommon. It is the story of mimetic suffering—and it's present in all of us. It's too common for people like us to achieve objectives we set out to do, only to be met with self-imposed realization that we could—or worse, should—be able to do more. If suffering is wanting that which is otherwise, few things sound more like suffering than denying yourself celebration of achievement simply because someone else has done more.

False summits are par for the course. However, impossible summits are a choice, and one that serves no champion except perpetuating self-doubt. Success is a two-part equation: one part personal victory, one part social celebration. The difference between those who succeed and those who struggle? They relish their summits; they don't get caught up in others'.

Vitality no doubt includes length of life and lack of disease, but it's also a measure of how accessible your life is. For example, a long but sick life is not ideal, in the same way a long, sickness-free, but busy life is not either. Most of us are so busy working we forget about living. So what we're after is a long life, free of disease, with freedom. That's Vitality.

When most people land on my calendar, they have checked the boxes. They have built the career, scaled the business, bought the house(s)—but most are after more meaning. What most arrive saying without saying is "I got so busy making a living, I forgot about living." This requires one important first step: Defining Vitality. Because until we define Vitality, we cannot evaluate and quantify the degree to which you are pursuing it and achieving it.

The Vitality Formula: Health Span + Life Span × Freedom. Freedom means five things: Time, Money, Purpose, Relationship, and Fitness. The degree to which you are free in each category is a direct measure of your ability to respond. I don't care whether you say yes when a friend calls with a dumb idea. I care that you can say yes to whatever calls.

In 2001, neurologist Marcus Raichle made a discovery that revolutionized our understanding of the human brain. He found that when people weren't actively engaged in focused tasks, their brains didn't simply quiet down—they activated an entirely different network of regions called the "default mode network" (DMN). Here's what makes this discovery so crucial: The DMN isn't just "background noise"—it's where your brain goes to practice problems, not solve them.

When your executive's brain is exhausted from constant decision-making, it shifts into DMN mode. This network becomes active when we think about others, ourselves, remembering the past or planning for the future—exactly the kind of rumination that feels productive but actually depletes performance further. Your brain thinks it's being productive by analyzing past failures and future threats, but it's actually practicing the very patterns that prevent clear thinking.

The solution isn't to eliminate DMN activity—it's to restore the natural balance between directed attention and healthy default mode processing. Natural environments restore directed attention capacity while simultaneously quieting the DMN's rumination patterns.

She is what I would call high-functioning asymmetrical: in that she is highly successful at creating and completing things and ideas, yet ultimately terrible as it applies to those things having any benefit on her overall life. Her actions are asymmetrical as they apply to her intention in life. What makes her rare is not this behavior, which is all too common. What makes her rare is her awareness.

The collective societal ideal, especially perpetuated by social media, is one of grinding. There's a belief that if you trade your time, your life, your energy, for success, the backside will reward you. But as a species, we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish and underestimate its costs.

There is a separate way, one in which balance is attainable. One where you can work incredibly hard and purposefully on something while also building your quality of life rather than trading it. She became twice as productive and half as busy. A win in any book. This is a paradigm shift, and it's the magic of a life well-lived.