In this motivational monologue, former physician‑turned‑entrepreneur Luke Murray explains why the painful decision to leave his family’s Memorial Day weekend early was not a mistake. He outlines his current hierarchy of priorities—turning around his most important business, maintaining his health, creating video content, and finding a partner—explicitly placing family lower on the list. Murray introduces the concept of decision‑making as “dicedere,” Latin for “to cut off,” and describes how every decision incurs a visible, immediate cost (the sacrifice that feels painful) and an invisible, delayed cost or benefit that only the decision‑maker perceives. He contrasts visible costs (family disappointment, personal discomfort) with invisible benefits (progress on his business, health, creative work) and argues that the pain of a choice does not prove it was wrong. Murray further explores the harder scenario of choosing between two good options, noting that as life improves across multiple domains, the trade‑offs become more painful because each option is already high‑quality. He shares an anecdote about declining a tempting collaboration with a friend to stay aligned with his priorities, reframing the resulting disappointment as evidence of a rich, opportunity‑filled life. The video concludes with a call to viewers to reflect on their own sacrifices, to grieve the paths not taken without letting that grief undermine the chosen path, and invites comments on how they handle such trade‑offs.
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If you're a founder and you're making sacrifices in your business or your family life or your health, and some of those sacrifices are starting to be painfully in your face and make you doubt yourself, well, this video is for you. I'm gonna talk about why I left my family's Memorial Day weekend early. And even though I love them, and even though I had a great time, and even though I probably made my mom think like something was wrong, I'm gonna talk about why I know that the pain of that decision, 'cause it wasn't comfortable, Was the right decision, or at least didn't make it the wrong one. 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 about $100 million in revenue. I currently have a portfolio that does about $3 million a year, and I make these videos because I would like to have ambition without the bullshit, and I'm guessing you would too. So it's currently 9:36 p.m. on a Sunday. And I was at home with my family, two parents, four siblings, seventeen nieces and nephews. I don't know, a bunch of dogs. And I left, not because I was having a bad time. I was having a great time. Those relationships are awesome. They're fun to be around. I love my siblings. They're so freaking cool, like eating candy, telling stories, making fun of each other, just doing normal family stuff. But given the season that I'm in. Staying there wasn't aligned with what I say matters most to me. I mean, I was there from Friday through Friday night through Sunday, and everyone else is staying through Tuesday, and I, I don't need another 2 days of that. And for those of you that heard family first growing up like I did, it sounds really shitty to say this out loud, but the truth is I've chosen a few things at this stage of my life that are the most important, and none of them are building my relationship with my family. I've chosen turning around my most important business as the top priority. I've chosen that taking care of my body is my second highest priority. I've chosen that making these videos is my third. I've chosen that finding a partner is fourth. Like, family's not on that list. These— and these are not like abstract things. Anyone can ask, or like, you could ask someone and say, What are your priorities? And they could list them like I just did. But this is an example of an opportunity to live in alignment with that decision. And decisions, the root word of decision is dicedere. It's Latin. It means to cut off. To cut off. Cutting shit off is painful. So decisions have costs, the cost of all the other things that you cut off. And one of the costs, again, for me was leaving a house full of people I loved that were eating licorice and telling stories and Just so full of love so that I can go home, work on my company. So we hit payroll this weekend, make this video, and get a good night's sleep. And the painful part of this was, or what made it, I think, extra painful was that the cost was visible and immediate and right in front of me. It was high. My mom could feel it. My siblings kind of made fun of me for it. And I can feel a little bit of that weirdness in my own body driving away, but the cost of staying would've been even more uncomfortable. The difference is it would've been invisible to everybody else except for me. Nobody would've said, hey Luke, just so you know, you're now one day further away from turning around your company and one day further from getting your body back into rhythm and one day further from that creative commitment that you said you wanted to make, one day further from finding a partner that you can build a life with. All that stuff is invisible and no one's going to remind me of it unless I remind me of it. Again, the costs were visible only to me and not to those that I loved, and the benefits were invisible to them. And honestly, they were even invisible to me, or at least at the, at the very least, they were extremely delayed. Another thing that makes this tough that is actually a blessing in disguise is that the reason that this is hard is because I wasn't choosing between a good option and a bad option. I wasn't choosing between spending time with a family that I don't like and working on a project that I love. That would've been easy. The hard part is choosing between good and good. And the inevitable consequence of fixing all these parts of your life is that They become awesome across the board. And what that does is it makes it more painful to turn away from a good part to work on, in this case, a not so good part. So if you have a good business and a good family and good relationships, like if all of those are 9 out of 10, you are by definition turning down a bunch of 9 out of 10 opportunities to pursue the one that's right in front of you. And if in my case, the thing I'm working on is the thing that's broken, one of my businesses, It can feel like a tough trade-off. There are some hard things I'm going to have to do, but that's the situation that everyone ends up with again if they keep leveling up all the areas of their life. On the way home, I was talking to a buddy of mine who's starting a business, and just another example, within a few hours of leaving, a few minutes of leaving, he was describing this business and it sounded awesome. And I was— I said to him, I was like, dude, if I move down there— he lives in Atlanta— and I moved into your garage and helped you build this thing, it would be an absolute blast. And I'm definitely not gonna do it. And that makes me sad. And to bump into another business opportunity, another opportunity to just realize I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna stay all weekend with my family. I'm not gonna go help my friend with his business. But again, the reframe here is that that's how awesome my life is, that building this business with my friend, which would be a great time, isn't the most important thing I could be doing with my time. I have even more compelling, exciting opportunities around me. And the thing I'm trying to get better at is to just feel the disappointment of those trade-offs, the cutting off of that other opportunity, that dicadere thing, and then being thankful that I have a life so full of compelling and energizing opportunities and wonderful, beautiful people and great family members that I have to let go of something really good to go after something that I've just decided is better. So that's how I'm trying to stop letting the pain of a hard decision that is aligned with my priorities cause me to doubt that that decision is wrong. What about you? Where in your life are you interpreting the pain of a sacrifice as evidence that you made the wrong decision? Or honestly, maybe you're farther along in this process and have figured out how to grieve all the lives you didn't get to live without letting that keep you from enjoying the one that you did choose? If you figured that out, please let me know in the comments. And as always, thanks for listening.
