Hello and welcome to the Potential Leader Lab podcast. And I'm your host, Perry Maughmer. And today we're going to be talking about how success sucks. Um, so I want to start off with a quote to kind of frame the discussion. And the quote is from Jiddu Krishnamurti and the, and he said, the most important thing in life is not what we achieve, but who we become in the process. And I thought I thought about that a lot. I've thought about it a lot in the context of what I'm doing personally. And so that's really how this is getting framed and kind of what led me to want to talk about this, because I see it a lot in folks that I work with. And we have very high expectations of ourselves and others when it comes to this thing called learning and learning in the way in the E three framework that I use, which is explore, experiment, evolve. The evolve part is the learning. It's the application of the learning. It's what I'd say is, the behavior change that other people can see in us, that that's how we know that somebody has learned something. Because if we haven't learned it, then we don't behave differently. And if we don't behave differently, then conversely, we haven't learned it. And in that evolving piece, that learning piece is a heavy lift and it only gets harder the more successful we are.
At least that's my belief. And I think that it stems from the fact that as we get more and more successful, we get more comfortable and actually have a t shirt that said comfort once you dead. And I think that that's entirely true. But I also think it's human nature because as we become successful, we have more stuff and then we go from being risk. We go from taking risk to being risk averse. You know, we go from being risk tolerant to risk averse because now we have stuff that's that we're risking. And most of it, to be honest with you, isn't isn't stuff, it isn't material stuff that I'm talking about. It's actually more reputational risk. It's more about who we are and how we look to other people that were risk averse with. And I think that that's that's what I'm talking about here. It's just very hard to evolve, not change, because I don't think that's part of it. And I think I think a big part of this is how we frame it for ourselves is the is the framing of what are we trying to do? And when we frame it as change, it becomes there's a judgment attached to it because most of the time the inference is if we're changing something, that means we want it to be better than it was. So the thing that we are the people, that we are, the way that we are, whatever that is, is somehow not good enough or bad.
And we want it to be better or good. So therefore, we're judging. Right. And we're also that weighs heavy on our own minds because it isn't about everybody else. It's about what we believe about ourselves. And in the very even the smallest change, the smallest evolution, the smallest adaptation requires huge effort and it requires huge effort to do and to maintain. And you have to continue to make that choice. And that's really what this becomes, because anything we evolve into is a different set of choices. Right. We choose something different. We choose to say something different. We choose to act differently. We. We choose to eat differently. We choose to exercise differently. We choose the stairs instead of the elevator. All of those little things really add up. And so we get into the mindset of making those different choices every day. And that's what our life is reflective of. Our life is reflective of our choices. And so if we want something different in our life, then we have to make different choices. And that's hard. I don't you know, this is not a thing where it's like, Oh, now that I know that, I'll do it. It's like, Gee, I wish I would have known that ten years ago. It doesn't work like that. We all are very intentional. Most of the time human beings and we know when something isn't going the way we want it, but it is still very difficult to make those choices.
In a different way. And I really think it stems from the fact that the more successful we are, the more we, quote unquote, know how to do things, the less likely we are to be open to new things. And I don't think that's there's nothing horrible about that. It's not judgmental. It's just kind of fact based as far as I'm concerned. Right. I experience it myself. I mean, I'm doing let's see, right now I'm involved in three different things that I put myself into places where I'll be uncomfortable in order to evolve and grow, right? And so one of them is a course or two of them are courses that I paid for. And then one of them is a group that I belong to. And a lot of it is there's technology element involved in it, there's homework involved in it. There's the conscious decision to spend time that was spent other places doing this instead of the things I did before. And I find myself. Um, I use, I guess I use the term struggling and it isn't, it isn't a negative term. It's just literally thinking about the things I have to do differently now. Right? There's time. I have to set aside that before was taken up with X, that now has to be for Y. And after you get into kind of a routine with your life and you do certain things for a long period of time, if you do want to learn something different, if you want to evolve in certain ways, then you have to place yourself in those places, right? You have to you have to participate.
You have to know that. Okay, I have to I have to read these things now and then I have to comment on them or I'm going to engage in a community with other people. So the expectation is I'm going to give them comments as well. I'm going to take the time and invest time in them so that I can learn from them. And that all requires a shift in focus. It requires that I that I modify my calendar, that I actually put these things in my calendar that I block out time to do them because that's the other part of this, is these things just don't happen automatically. We like to think that, well, once something becomes important, we'll just do it. And it doesn't work like that. We're just not that good at it. And this is not about willpower and discipline and all those things. I truly believe that when I started this off with saying, you know, success sucks, aka evolving is a heavy lift. And you don't have to do it, and I don't judge. But if you want to do it, just recognize what you're getting into because you are going to have to do some adaptation in the time you spend in the money that you spend, in the effort that you spend.
And really the other things are the time and the then the money, I'm going to say, are easy. What's hard is the actual doing. What's hard is investing in yourself and enforcing those new connections in your brain so that you can learn something new and then have it translate into a changed behavior. Right? That's going to net you something positive. And I think that's the other part of this is. But the more I hear, there's a lot of judgment, right? So there's on the ends of a spectrum, there's judgment and curiosity. And those are different ends of a spectrum. And the more we judge, the less curious we are and the less curious we are, the less we learn. Right? Because I know is the enemy of I can. So once you know something, you're done. Like. I know. I know that. All right. So that that. That puts a stop to everything. So once you know something, it puts a stop to it. And then when you know something, everything new that comes to you, now you're judging against the thing, you know, because again, back to risk, right? Back to reputational risk. I know certain things which then becomes my identity. And so now if I don't know those things or those things are no longer true, then who am I? So, so now we have an identity issue because we tie ourselves to what we know and what we do.
And so we actually have to actively rage against our own minds because our brains are trying to keep us safe. The number one thing our brain is wired to do evolutionarily is keep us safe. Learning and evolution on your own and evolving into the best person you can become isn't safe. It is far from it. It's awesome. It ain't safe. And so your brain's going to work against you. Your brain is not helping you in this. And our brain really to be, to be fair, isn't wired for self-actualization. If we go back to Maslow, you know, the it's wired down towards the physiological and safety, belonging, esteem all those things are important and our brain is wired for those things. It is not wired for self-actualization from an evolutionary standpoint. It's wired for the other things, physiological needs, you know, Do I have enough food to eat? Do I have a place to sleep? Am I safe? Do I belong to a group? Those things that's wired for? But that top piece of that, that pyramid, that self-actualization or I prefer self-transcendence, which is what Maslow came to later in his life. I love those things, but that's where we separate from allowing our brain to work on autopilot. That's where we have to attack it. That's where we have to take over control of our brain.
We can't sit back and think that it's working for us to move us in that direction because it absolutely is not. It is hard work, heavy lifting, risky, all those things your brain's going to avoid if given the opportunity. So we have to make different choices. You know, our life is reflective of our choices. We want a different life. We have to make different choices. And those are those are choices every day. Those are choices down to if I want to be healthier. Am I going to am I going to stop and grab a bag of chips? Am I going to pick up those free mints? Am I going to do any am I going to drink water or am I going to drink coke? Am I going to drink orange juice, which has as much sugar as coke? Am I going to go out after work and have some beers and then which leads to having some food? Again, there's nothing wrong with any of those things, but you have to decide what aligns with what you're trying to accomplish. That's why success sucks. Because it makes you comfortable. Because there's no Archimedes said, Give me a lever long enough and I can move the world. Well, for us to want to do these things, we have to find that lever. We really do. We have to find a lever and a fulcrum on which to place the lever to move.
And that's more than anything, that's what drives this. We have to have something that we have an emotional attachment to. There has to be something pressing for us to make these decisions because most of the decisions that we're going to make are ones that are going to be challenging to us. They're going to require extra effort. All right. They're not going to be easy. And they're going to require work because building new connections, building, having new synapses form, learning something later in life is hard. It takes effort when we're when we're young and our brains are more plastic as the term there's there's more plasticity. It's easy to learn. Right. It's not a challenge to learn. But as we age, those things get harder to do. It's not impossible. We can learn far. Our brains remain plastic and there's lots of neuroplasticity. Later in life. Science has caught up with us and told us that you can learn well into your 60s, 70s and 80s. You can do whatever it is you want to do. It just takes effort. It takes focused effort. And that's what we're talking about. We're talking about not getting comfortable. We're talking about understanding that we're going in for a heavy lift. Right. Nothing wrong with it. But let's just let's just recognize that's what it is and that it isn't going to be easy and it isn't going to be comfortable. And we and we're okay with that.
But our brain's not going to be because our brain wants comfort. Our brain wants safety. And none of the stuff that we're talking about that we want to achieve in our lives is done with safety. And by safety, I mean no risk from a reputational standpoint, a belonging standpoint. You know, sometimes you have to move on from people in your life because those people don't support the things that you want in the future. And that's hard. There's there's absolutely no doubt about it. None of the stuff we're talking about is easy. And there's a there's a saying that I ran across years ago which is all can most won't few do. All can. Most won't. If you do, that's just an observation. That is in judgment. That's just purely objective, because if it were easy, everybody would do it. And it's not in. Very few people do. And those are people I used to refer to as the relentless few. Are you relentless enough to keep at it? Even when it doesn't go well, because that's the other part of this. It isn't always going to go well. The expectation isn't that it all goes right all the time. The expectation is, are you willing to put in the work even when you have to take two steps back because the road does go that way, The road goes three steps forward, a step back. Then the next time you might get one step forward and three steps back.
And do you have the resilience to stick with it? Is the is the road? Is the path you're on and the direction that you're headed important enough to you to overcome that? So that you're not taken off track by a couple of steps backward. You're committed to the long haul. Like there's those. Those mountains become molehills. Because of perspective. Because if I'm looking long term, it isn't going to matter if I've committed to this is what I'm doing because it aligns with my values and it aligns with who I want to be in my future self. Because that's the other part of this. If you want this to work, you cannot allow your past self to create the situation, to move you to your future self. Because as we sit in the present, if we allow the things that we've done in the past to be the benchmark for how we're going to do it going forward, we're never going to get where we want to go. We have to have clearly in our minds the image of our future self. Who is it that we strive to evolve into and then allow that image and allow that person to drive the decisions in the present? All you have to do is ask yourself, what would my future self do? It's interesting. I'll give you one example and then we'll kind of wrap up.
I was meeting with a client today and their company is about $5 million right now. And he, he said, I used to want it to be 10 million. Now I'm thinking like 12 or 15. I said, okay, awesome. Let's do a little experiment. Right now, you're the owner slash president of a $5 million company and you're and you're making decisions based on your experience of it being a $3 Million and $4 Million and now $5 Million Company. Awesome. Nothing wrong with that. Now, if I ask you, let's project forward and say you're now the owner slash CEO of a $15 Million company. With that person make different decisions than you're making right now. What decisions would that person make about personnel and strategy and capital investments and all of those things? Do you think they would be the same as the decisions you're making today? And he just stopped and he thought about it for a couple of minutes and he said, well, no, I don't. Probably not. I'm like, okay, do you see where we're at now? Talking about the future changes the present. So if you put yourself into that position now, if you say to yourself, I'm going to conduct myself like the CEO of a $15 Billion company. Does it impact the way you make decisions today? Do you have different expectations of yourself and others? Because now you're the CEO of a $15 Million company making very different decisions in a very different manner with very different results than you do today.
That's what all of us need to do. Whatever we aspire to, whatever we want to evolve into, we have to have clarity as to who that is. Once we have clarity to who that is, then we allow that person to make decisions for us today. Because we have to act our way into that. You can't think your way into that person. You have to act your way into that person. You have to behave like that person. That means you have to make choices about your behavior that are reflective of that person. Sound simple isn't easy. It is simple, just not easy as many things in life are. But so I'll leave you with this. I want you to think about for yourself. I don't care about where you are right now. What we care about is what? What our quote was at the beginning. The most important thing in life is not what we achieve, but who we become in the process. It's who we become along the way. The goal is irrelevant. So that evolution along the way is what's important. What you need to do is think about get clarity for yourself, absolute clarity around the person you aspire to be, the person that you want to evolve into, and you have to have clarity around what that person looks like, what that person does every day, what kind of physical activities that person do, What's that person eat? Who are their friends? What do they do over the course of a day, a week, a month, A year? How often do they take vacation? Where do they go on vacation? Figure all that stuff out.
And then think about, okay, that's the person that I envision myself being and then allow that person to make decisions for you today. And you're going to find you make quantitatively and qualitatively different decisions than you would have before. All right. So with that. Remember, if you want your life to be different, you have to do different. If you want your life to be different, you have to do different. And that's entirely within your control. So own that today. Do that today. Make different decisions today. Based on what you want. Based on what you believe your best self is. We create a better world by evolving into the best version of ourselves. And I think that we create a better world by doing what John Wesley told us. And so I'm going to leave you with what he said. He said, Do all the good you can in all the ways you can, to all the souls you can in every place you can, at all the times you can, with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can. Thanks for listening and I hope to see you back in the lab soon.
