In this video, former physician‑turned‑entrepreneur Luke Murray shares a personal story about one of his CEOs who relocated his family from California to Kentucky to run a struggling company. After more than two years, the business is still on the brink of bankruptcy, and the CEO admits his hunger has faded, causing guilt about not being fully committed. Murray uses this anecdote to illustrate a three‑level framework for how people choose their lives: (1) unconscious drift, where people live a life they never intentionally selected; (2) consciously misaligned choices, where people realize a decision was wrong and can learn from it; and (3) consciously aligned choices, where people deliberately pursue a life that matches their values, yet may still feel FOMO or guilt about the costs. Murray reflects on his own journey through level‑2 decisions before recognizing that his current entrepreneurial life was already aligned, despite discomfort. He argues that guilt does not serve anyone and that the proper response is to acknowledge the cost of an aligned life, fully receive its benefits, and stop judging oneself for the sacrifices made. He ends by asking viewers to share their own experiences of aligning with values while feeling guilty about the trade‑offs.
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If you're building something ambitious and you keep feeling guilty about the costs of the life you chose, then this video is for you. I'm going to tell you about a conversation I had with one of my CEOs who moved across the country to run a company for me, and the question I now use to tell the difference between just the cost of aligned sacrifice and avoidance. If you don't know who I am, my name is Luke Murray. I'm a former physician. I've been an entrepreneur for about 20 years. During that time, I've done a little over $100 million in revenue. My current portfolio does about $3 million in revenue, and I make these videos because I'd like to have ambition without the bullshit, and I'm guessing you would too. So one of my CEOs moved from California to Kentucky with his wife, his 4-year-old son, his best friend, and we were going to make a go at turning this company around. And we thought it would take like a year, year and a half. And it would be just crushing. And as of today, it's been almost 2 and a half years. For probably the past year or so, it's felt like we were right on the edge of a major turnaround or the whole thing, like, going under. I mean, I'm looking at bankruptcy in the next 60 to 90 days. And while the business did take longer than we thought— welcome to being ambitious— his life didn't pause. So his son is now 6, he's got a new daughter, he's got a church community that he loves, like he— that wasn't even a thing in his life before. He's prepping for a bodybuilding show, and of course his wife is awesome, and that's an important relationship to him. So his life got full of a bunch of things that mattered to him as much as, or honestly in many cases more than winning at the highest levels of business. And in a conversation that I recently had with him, He said, dude, I love my life, but I can tell that I'm not as hungry as when I got here, and I feel guilty because I know how much pressure that puts on you and the rest of the team. And I didn't bullshit him. I told him I wish he was as hungry as I was. Actually, I wish he was hungrier than I was, but he's not exposed to the downside as much as I am, so he doesn't feel the pressure as much as I feel. If he's not willing to sacrifice the rest of his life to maximize his financial upside, then the company may move slower and he may make less money. And that's just a real trade-off. And it's also a fine trade-off with him. That's why he can feel himself taking his foot off the gas. Like, he's consciously seeing this. The problem is that he's choosing that life You know, paying the cost of that life, which is going slower, maybe not making as much money, and then spending time feeling guilty that he didn't choose a different one. I mean, his guilt doesn't serve me, it doesn't serve his company, it doesn't serve his wife or his kids, it certainly doesn't serve him. The way I see it, there's really like 3 levels of this choosing, and he was actually doing about as good as you could do without realizing it. So level 1, is the unconscious choice where you drift and then you just wake up paying for a life that you never actually picked on purpose. Level 2 is like the consciously misaligned life where you did choose something and you had a reason for it, but then you realized it was just wrong, not aligned for you at least. And in that process, you at least got the benefit of knowing how to pick incorrectly and then course correct. You've got information how to make a more consciously aligned choice next time. Level 3, which is what the CEO was doing, is the consciously aligned choice where you do choose something that matches your values. And that third one is the sneakiest because you've got the life you wanted, but if you have this expectation that you're not going to feel FOMO, then you could spend that time grieving the lives you didn't pick as if any other choice would have let you avoid a cost. I personally have had to make several kind of level 2 choices before finally getting to where I am, and they weren't cheap decisions. I chose the businesses I'm in because I was asked by my family and my friends, the people that I love the most. And doing business with people I love is like my favorite thing to do. I was also in a relationship that was better than anything I'd ever heard of or seen before, but I thought maybe I needed to go explore other things. So I went looking around for some other life that I could be living instead, just because the current one I had didn't feel 100% comfortable. Luckily, I could do all those things. I went to tropical beaches and mountain resorts and fancy parties on boats and expensive masterminds with all these influencers that I looked up to. And every damn time, I realized that my friends are just cooler than these people. And I just wish I was back at home building cool shit with those people, or honestly just shoveling shit with those people. I mean, I've literally sat on tropical beaches and been like, I wish I was back at the office. The people at those events, they were like super impressive and super hot, but they didn't love me and I didn't love them. And I'm not at this networking event to like build something. And so eventually I realized that I just was already living an aligned life. I was living an aligned life all along, and I didn't realize it because it still felt uncomfortable. And I thought, I guess it wasn't supposed to. I could still see all these experiences in my aligned life that I was like missing out on, and I wasn't sure if they were better or not than the ones I was having. And it turns out they weren't. And I don't need more cool people in my life. My friendship meter is maxed out, and I don't need new business opportunities. The problems that I have, like, right under my feet are challenging and big and interesting enough. So now, when I feel myself wanting to escape the difficulty of the life that I chose, I just ask myself, what else would I rather be doing, given the reality of my situation? And when I ask that, the answer is Nothing. Like, with the cards I'm holding in my hand right now, I'm playing my hand the exact way that I want to. I would rather be here solving these problems with these people in this season, even when it's uncomfortable, than doing anything else anywhere else with anyone else. And that's what I wanted my CEO to see. If he chose his family and faith and health and like some slower version of ambition, He should actually just be there for it. He should enjoy his kids, love his church, take care of his body, be present with his wife, and still do the best work he could with what was left over. And I need to do the same thing. If I chose business and made all these sacrifices to have the life that I have, then I need to stop making myself wrong for being deep in the business and the life that I have. The aligned life is not free, but no life is. And I Finally figured that out the hard way. So again, the question is, for what this is costing me, am I pursuing the life that I want the most? And if the answer is yes, then sure, feel the cost, but fully receive the benefit. What about you? Where in your life have you made a decision that actually did align with your values, but you judged it, or you're still judging yourself, for the cost of choosing it? Like, how are you coping with that discomfort? Share it with me in the comments below, because I obviously could use some help. Thanks again for watching.
