Naval says it best: "Desire is a contract we make to be unhappy until you get what you want." This is often relegated to the notion of material possession or the grind culture. However, it's far more insidious. In Buddhism, they might say it even better: "Suffering is wanting that which is otherwise."

For many of us, our desires are a metaphorical mashing of the gas pedal when we find ourselves losing momentum. Sometimes this might be the answer, but if you have ever actually been stuck in a vehicle, you know that mashing that pedal is a death sentence. Getting out and assessing the situation is likely a better option. Getting out is accepting: "OK, I'm stuck, how best can I attempt to move forward?"

Suffering is a choice. Because desire is a choice. Because who you are becoming is a choice. The real gift of acceptance isn't lazy complacency—it's tactical assessment. Is what I desire in line with who I want to be, and where I want to go, or is it just something I want, something I'm trying to escape?

My monkey mind — like yours, I suspect, if you're reading this — caters to the notion of big wins and grand slams. The entrepreneur's agency is both gift and curse: through it, we've learned our will can be forced upon the world for the better; a powerful drug. But like any drug, without checks, addiction follows.

After thousands of hours working with busy entrepreneurs, I noticed a pattern: No one lacked action or ideas — quite the opposite. Every client I worked with was in a situation they wanted to change, certain they hadn't cracked a code, mastered a skill, or found an answer. But with every single one, upon deeper examination, it was never about what they were missing — but rather what they needed to put down.

Most choices in most lives, most of the time, are distractions. Actions taken in response or reaction to a stimulus. The distraction dumpster overflows with certainty. The traction can brims with curiosity, replenished by "what ifs" and "why nots." It's not about eradicating distraction. It's about setting and protecting time to fill the traction can.

Here I am, holding the late-payment form, potentially negating all that hard work and negotiation—and worse, leaving me to remember that I might just be full of my own crap. Who can celebrate structure and responsibility while simultaneously forgetting to pay a simple fine they worked so hard for? This guy, that's who, and I can because I am human.

I thrive in chaos. For as long as I can remember, my life has been chaotic, but despite that chaos, I have managed to beat most of the odds. You see, I didn't succeed in spite of my odds; I succeeded because of those odds. My subconscious, like yours, does not look for opportunity—it looks for familiarity and consistency. But when things are good? Cue wild behavior. "Good" is unfamiliar; an unknown opportunity state. My default-mode network prefers entropy so it can be efficient. I, like many of my clients, will nuke good times to create chaos because to my supercomputer, my subconscious, my chances of survival are better in chaos than they are in nirvana.

The quality of your life is a simple equation: Fitness multiplied by freedom equals vitality. As I move silently through the dark at 3:13am, I'm well aware of the lunacy—I'm about to do something unnecessary to distract myself from something unnecessary, while eliminating what is necessary: rest. This cycle is almost guaranteed to repeat because of fatigue, and it makes me just like so many entrepreneurs I work with.

What might be different though, is that I am aware of the equation. When designing a life of high quality, fitness cannot be overlooked. It's not a negotiable you'll get to if you have time—it's the necessity you engage to ensure you end up with time. Everything in life takes your time; there are few things that give you back time—fitness is one of them. And true freedom isn't escape from responsibility, but rather the intentionality of response-ability: your ability to choose how you respond to the world around you.

The Default Mode Network (DMN) operates as a neurological anchor, constantly pulling you back toward familiar territory. When you attempt to adopt new behaviors or mindsets, your brain literally fights back, triggering discomfort that drives you to return to known patterns. This explains why, despite your best intentions, you often revert to old habits—it's not a lack of willpower, it's neurobiology working as designed.

The breakthrough comes from understanding that you must become before you believe. Rather than waiting until you "feel like" the person you want to be, you must act as that person first. This counterintuitive approach aligns with neuroplasticity research showing that the brain doesn't change through thinking alone—it changes through doing. By creating pattern interruptions, implementing specific action plans, and collecting evidence of your new identity through consistent actions, you can override your DMN and establish a new baseline for who you are.

Excerpt: Multitasking is not a gift. It's not a talent. It is purely the act of being distracted. Rather than being focused in your effort and attention, you're doing a little bit of a lot of things, and that's never going to work as well as intentional action.

What got you here won't get you there, and that will be true throughout life. Looking to the past for answers won't solve your future goals—we must look forward. To do this effectively, we have to leave behind the belief that you're going to do it alone, and that you're going to do it by multitasking. Instead, we must drill down on key tasks and apply all your focus to them.

Multitasking is not a gift. It's not a talent. It is purely the act of being distracted. Rather than being focused in your effort and attention, you're doing a little bit of a lot of things, and that's never going to work as well as intentional action.

What got you here won't get you there, and that will be true throughout life. Looking to the past for answers won't solve your future goals—we must look forward. To do this effectively, we have to leave behind the belief that you're going to do it alone, and that you're going to do it by multitasking. Instead, we must drill down on key tasks and apply all your focus to them.

The Core Four framework helps you identify the four major moves that will make your goal possible, allocate 60% of your time to these efforts, and designate all else as distraction, delegation, or lower priority. Once you've defined your four, they must be protected—and by protected, I mean the time needed to advance them.

When disruptive businesses first emerge, each is a unique expression of its founder's vision. There are no playbooks, no "best practices," and certainly no industry standards to follow. This freedom leads to unprecedented innovation in product development, customer experience, and business models.

The irony? As businesses grow more successful, the pressure to conform to "proven" models increases. We shift from asking "what could we do?" to "what should we do?" – and innovation suffers as a result.

Shifting from "should" to "could" opens up new possibilities: unique product adaptations, creative customer engagement, innovative pricing models, novel market positioning strategies, distinctive business designs, and thriving creativity. The future of business doesn't lie in perfecting what already exists but in imagining what could be.

n periods of high effort, our physiology changes. Field of view narrows, frame rate quickens, we enter fight or flight. This state shuts down valuable states like curiosity and creativity. For obvious reasons—curiosity isn't exactly certain and not good at immediate survival.

However, the antidote to this state is the horizon. When you move your focus from what's right in front of you to a distant horizon, the same physiology shifts, and so does your mental state.

The point of this clarity break is to step outside your routines. Wherever you go and for how long is irrelevant. But while you're there, you're going to focus only on the horizon—the future. You're going to zoom out, not zoom in. Use this space and moment to set new goals and vision, not worrying about how you'll achieve them at this point.

Unlocking High Performance: The Internal Drivers of Extraordinary Success