5harathFounding Growth Lead, Willow Voice

The Cost of Success - Undefeated Underdogs

16 Sept 2023 · 2 min

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1:38

In this brief dialogue, Speaker A argues that comparing oneself to others is futile, emphasizing personal contentment over jealousy. Speaker B expands on this by highlighting the often‑unseen sacrifices required for conventional measures of success, referencing Holly Whitaker’s piece on the "cost of success." They critique GDP as an incomplete metric because it ignores the externalities and personal toll—such as reduced family presence or burnout—that accompany high economic output. The exchange underscores a deeper question: how individuals choose to define success when the hidden costs are considered.

There is no point in being jealous with others. You live your own life. Would you trade what you have with the person you are comparing with? The answer is hell no, never.
Or maybe, but we often don't see the sacrifice and the cost that's required to go and achieve that life. Right. Exactly. And, you know, my, my good, my good, my good friend Holly Whitaker and her Substack's called Recovering. She wrote this piece on like, what's the cost of success? Right. And we, we only look at like GDP, you know, to measure like economic output or income. But it's like, what's, what's the cost to maximize that? Right. Like what's— It doesn't— GDP doesn't take into account like what is actually required to produce that output. Like what are the externalities? Just like we don't look at what's required to generate each dollar of income and what's the cost. And for some people, it's not having a presence in their kids' life, right? Or it's, you know, working themselves so much that they burn out and their nervous system's deregulated. And so it's just my way of saying, like, you know, to just piggyback off what you're saying is Yeah, there, you know, potentially there is a cost to this. And it's how do you want to— how do you ultimately want to be? Right?
All right.