Don’t Settle

This is going to piss some people off… but it’s worth it.

• Born on 3rd base
• Being in the middle is the least motivating place to be.
• Being good enough is not always good enough.
• Be uncomfortable.
• Curse of competency.

I was born on 3rd base and yet thought I’d hit a triple.

I won the geo and genetics lottery. I was born free in Canada in the ’70’s, a white male, to a middle class family. Some people would probably call me privileged, and rightly so. My parents were a teacher and a business executive making good money, and able to retire with a good pension. They were taken care of by their companies and the government. I grew up living in a nice house, with a summer cottage, food on the table every day, and able to play sports and travel. I was born into great circumstances that the vast majority of the world would want to have. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had tremendous advantages in life from day one.

‘So what’s the problem with that?’ you might ask. ‘What are you complaining about?’

The problem with all that is the lack of drive for more. It’s easy to settle given all that.

Realistically, I’d been given everything I needed, literally without even trying. This was an amazing gift, I don’t knock it and I’m grateful for it. I was born into the right place and time with all I needed. Not only that, but everyone around me were on second, third, or were hitting home runs, so it was all I knew. Yet it wasn’t enough, and I was made to feel guilty that it still wasn’t enough for me.

Let me explain my perspective a little.

It was really hard to look around and truly see the people who are just barely able to make it to bat, or the people who were on first or trying to steal second. It was hard to see the challenges they faced simply because they were treated differently than I was.

What I learned from all that experience is being in the middle, being OK at everything, having things handed to you, has got to be one of the least motivating places to be. It’s a trap that’s almost impossible to get out of.

Now I’m not complaining, or whining, or doing some kind of humble brag. What I’m trying to say is I was stuck and didn’t even know it, and had settled there. Everything was OK, so why work harder? All the basics were covered, so why try for more? Do you really need to strive for more when you are ahead of 99% of the world population? Do you really need to make another sale, to make your paycheck even bigger (because it was already decent to begin with)?

Do you really need more?

The answer to all that, from an outside view, is no. No I didn’t. But something wasn’t right. The answer deep down inside was yes, I do need more. Yes, I do need to keep trying. There had to be more to life than just this: Get up, got to work, pay your taxes, go to bed. Repeat until you die.

Why would I bother to change? Why would you bother to change? I’m explaining this to you because you are starting from the same place I was. We, your parents, didn’t have to fight poverty, or oppression, and you have it pretty good. You were born in a great place, with all the things you could ever want. The house, the cottage next door, all the food you can eat.

The reason I bothered to change was because there was more to me, just as there is more to you, than just your environment, your upbringing, your circumstances. The main reason I’m writing this is to shortcut your journey, so let me tell you a bit more about mine so you can avoid the traps I fell into.

I was bored, and unhappy, but I didn’t know why.

So I started challenging myself to see what I could do. At first my goals were flawed. Not knowing any better, I looked around, saw what other people had that I didn’t have, and started wanting those things too. I chose more.

I first started by buying whatever I wanted, loading myself up with debt and forcing the motivation to be better on myself. It worked, I got the motivation to do more, but it was an unhealthy and stressful place to be. It took me decades to get over those bad choices. What I finally realized was something so simple it should have been obvious. By comparing what I had, to what other people had, I was using the wrong measuring stick.

I was measuring myself against other people’s successes, and societies expectations of me. That’s when I realized, with the help of my mentor, that success is only truly realized when you reach your own potential. When you become the best version of you possible. When you don’t settle. That is why I was unhappy.

I realized I was coasting, and finally saw that moderate success was a bit of a trap. I could go at this pace indefinitely, and be OK. I could coast, fit in, pay my taxes, get by, and then die. But when I really thought about it, I was a long way from being the best version of me I could be.

I feel I still am.

It made me realize that being good is not always good enough. In the dark early hours of the morning, I will know if I’ve put in 100% or not. It doesn’t really matter what the outcome is, what matters is the effort put in, and if you’re moving one millimeter closer to your goals it’s a win. It doesn’t matter what other people think, it matters what you know.

This also made me look around at the people who are exceptional in their lives. They may be a great businessperson, or basketball star, or YouTuber. But how did they get there? How did they avoid the trap? Here’s what I’ve learned.

When you do something good, accomplish some goal, or hit some milestone, the easiest thing to do is to ride the wave and coast on your successes. But not everyone does that. Some people keep striving, keep working, keep going, even after they’ve done the seemingly impossible. I dug into it, and realized some people are driven beyond reason. Something in their past happened that caused them to drive forward even when they’ve reached levels of success beyond the reach of most.

I’ve discovered it’s usually a negative experience early in life, often around being poor and not having enough money, that drives them forward. They had an experience, and their young minds decided on a path that would prevent that experience from happening again.

Jordan Belfort (the Wolf of Wall Street) told a story about some guys who used to work with him years ago that may provide some clarification. As a young man he used to sell ice cream on a beach in California, and selling one bucket made him as much money in a day as he would make in a week working a normal job. He would go out there, sell two, three, four buckets in a day. He thought this was great, so he told his friends, and recruited more people to work with him and get a fraction of the money they made. Capitalism at it’s best.

What he discovered was some of his buddies would only sell one bucket and then stop. That was enough for money for them. They weren’t as driven as he was to keep going, to make more, to sell another bucket, and another. They just weren’t that driven. They settled.

Most people are one bucket people.

Some people are two or three bucket people, and some people will never have enough. You might think that insatiable drive is sad, but it’s just the way some people are. Most highly successful people have an innate drive to be more, to want more. Look at Steph Curry. He’s one of the best in the game, and he still practices hours a day. Or Warren Buffet, he reads hundreds of pages a day, and is constantly trying to get better. Anyone you can think of at the highest levels is driven to be more. They don’t settle.

But enough about them, let’s talk about you. You’re stuck in the middle with me. You’re doing OK, but not the best, or the worst. There is something in the back of your mind that you push away from time to time, because it’s easier to just stay where you are, rather than push forward.

But maybe, just maybe, you want more. More life, more love, more money, more whatever, but you aren’t that driven. You didn’t have the gift of being poor in your childhood. You didn’t have to overcome major hurdles early in life.

I’ve got some good new for you. The rest of us can develop habits to build that kind of drive, those results, but it all starts with you. Whenever I’m tempted to settle, to stop because I’ve made it, or have enough, I picture a moment in my future that will come to all of us.

I picture, in my last moments on this earth, meeting the man I could have become if I worked at it. The man who did all he could, lived all his dreams to the fullest, and realized all his potential. My goal is to have the man I could be, and the man I am, to be one and the same. That makes me realize, no matter how tempting things are right now to stop and stare, there is more to be done. More that I can do.

So I simply ask, are you settling? Or is there more you can do to reach your own potential?

One thing to bear in mind is it’s easy to settle. You’re good at something, and that’s great, but what if you want to get to the next level. Everyone has a plateau. Everyone gets to a certain point and then struggles to progress. This is a problem in life, in love, and in business.

One last thing I will talk about is what I call the curse of competency. Some people in life just aren’t reliable, just aren’t good, just aren’t able to do the things you want them to do because they are lazy or they’ve simply gotten away with doing the minimum throughout life. Their jobs and tasks still need to get done, and what I’ve found is those people around them who are competent, end up picking up the slack. This does two things: It enables the slacker to keep slacking, and it inhibits the competent from achieving their goals. It drags down the performance of everyone. It’s like being in a dragon boat or a canoe. If everyone pulled their own weight, and were pulling towards the same goal, you’ll get there faster. But the reality is the slack gets picked up by the competent, and that results in a mediocre result. So don’t settle, find a team of people who are pulling as hard as you do, and you’ll be much farther ahead.