“A naively formulated goal transmutes, with time, into the sinister form of the life-lie” – Jordan Peterson
A few years ago, I started passively following a business teacher online.
I checked out his site, listened to a few of his podcasts, watched a few of his videos, and basically spent a couple days binging his stuff to see if it would be useful for me.
At first, it seemed useful enough.
Until he said something that instantly deflated my impression:
“My new goal is to make $100MM per year. My friend [name redacted] made that her goal, so I figured it’s a good enough goal for me too. This gives me purpose; from now on, everything I do will be focused on that goal.”
(side note #1 — this was not Alex Hormozi)
Now:
It’s not the $100MM part that turned me off.
(side note #2 — money is not the root of evil; fear is the root of evil, and greed is a symptom of fear)
What turned me off was the completely arbitrary process he used to choose something as important as the purpose of his life.We’re talking about one of the most important choices you’ll ever make, here:
The singular mission you’re organizing your entire life around.
And when I realized he wasn’t thinking deeply (or at all) about the foundational questions of his life, I knew I couldn’t trust his up-stream advice on scaling businesses.
After all, the first step to scaling is to know why you’re scaling in the first place.
(side note #3 — scale based on the requirements of the mission, not just arbitrary growth. SpaceX requires more scale than DeepGame. DeepGame requires more simplicity than SpaceX. Get clear on your mission first, then scale accordingly.)
Anyway, this message isn’t meant to be harsh, or to bash this teacher.
It’s only meant to urge you to think deeply about the core questions so few have the courage to ask, like:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
What am I meant to do?
What’s the point of doing it?
Yes, they’re difficult to answer.
They’re supposed to be.
True self-discovery is not for the faint of heart.
But if we said your entire life depends on your answers to those questions, we wouldn’t be exaggerating.
After all, how could it not?
– T