Luke Murray imagines advice from his 90-year-old self about wanting health, wealth, and love all at once. The older self says pick one goal, work seven-hour days, and stop expecting it all fast. His real bottleneck: he doesn't know where to start his personal brand and hates talking about himself.
Okay, I'm gonna read my personal journal and how I applied a concept called the Solomon paradox in my own life. The Solomon paradox is the idea that we give better advice than we live. And so an ideal way to apply this is to just give advice to yourself. So you've gotta kind of separate yourself from yourself. And the way that I would do that and get the highest quality advice is to imagine that I was getting advice from my 90-year-old myself. And this person has all the context, all the wisdom, or a lot of the wisdom, and all the time in the world. So here's a conversation I had on March 31st, 2025. I feel overwhelmed, like I have too much to do, and whenever I pick something, a bunch of other things fall behind. So I try to keep the plates spinning, but then nothing ever gets off the ground, or whatever progress I make on the things that I start working on falls back to zero and I can't keep it up. I want to have it all in life— health, wealth, love, etc. And I want it as soon as possible with as little pain or sacrifice as possible. So how do I get it all without feeling overwhelmed or behind all the time? I'm honestly a little embarrassed that I'm saying all this out loud, but this is, this is what I'm asking 90-year-old me, and this is what he says. In other words, you want everything right now for free? Correct. Did you hear how unreasonable that sounds? Um, yes, but I still want it. Okay, I see the whole ask unreasonable questions and you'll get unreasonable answers, or shoot for the moon and you'll land among the stars concept, etc. But you do need to boil things down to first principles, Luke. Like the physics of success type of thing that that one guy talks about. I'm talking about Tom. Turns out that's Tom Bilyeu with Impact Theory. I now remember. Sure, but I want to be thinking like Peter Thiel. Like, if I had to accomplish my 10-year goals in 6 months, what would you do? It's a radical reframing of the question. And the answer, he says, is, yeah, you'd probably have to sacrifice a lot of stuff, go all in on one thing for a while. And I don't hear anyone anywhere being an exception to this. Well, I understand, but I still think I could apply it by getting the one thing done much faster than anyone else. True, that makes sense. That's a good question to ask, but you're going to have to ask one question at a time. To have one goal at a time and then try to pull that goal forward by 10x. Okay, well, I'd like to get a personal brand going. Okay. And what's your biggest constraint on that? Well, I don't know what to do or whether the best place to start is. Okay, cool. Do you have a clue? Yes, I do. This person that I know told me to make long-form content. Okay, great. Are you doing that? Yeah, I did it for an hour this morning. This 90-year-old me is very amused. Haha, for 1 hour. 1 hour? Okay, congratulations. This transformation you're talking about is going to take forever at that rate. I know. If you know, then let's put a plan together for you to do better. Okay, I'll get up at 6, then I'll work until 1. That's 7 hours of heads-down work. Okay, good. Just be asking yourself how to get more and more time in an open-hearted, space to create your long-form content that your friend said you need to do. Okay, I will. Thanks for that. Also, remember, I love you and I'm rooting for you, and nobody wants you to succeed more than I do. What's the second bottleneck? Uh, not knowing what to do other than what my friend said. Okay, well, what are you doing about that? I'm posting on X and LinkedIn just to see how it works, and then also finding people to teach me, and I'm interviewing a bunch of them. Great, that all sounds good, Luke. You're not doing the wrong things or on the wrong track. This is just taking longer than you'd like it to, and you're avoiding the uncomfortable feelings of expressing yourself. Welcome to the world of an artist of any kind. Again, I love you, and I'm rooting for you, and you can do this. Feel the feelings of fear and do it anyway. Get back to work. Okay. That is what it's like for me to interact with 90-year-old me. The Solomon paradox turned out to be less about getting perfect answers and more about asking sharper questions, one goal at a time, one constraint bit at a time, pull forward with focus. The biggest takeaway, of course: stop expecting everything instantly, embrace the uncomfortable work, and trust that the version of you who loves you the most already knows the path. If you want more of my journey applying the Solomon Paradox to business and life, growing companies, making money, and trying to stay human without forgetting that we're all going to die, then check out my other videos. It's all about building wisely, living fully, and just not taking yourself too seriously along the way.
