In this episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick introduces the concept of "destination addiction"—the habit of tying happiness and fulfillment to future milestones or achievements. He explains how this mindset, often linked to money goals and ever‑moving target income levels, leads people to chase speed (constant achievement) rather than direction (aligned daily actions). Using Warren Buffett’s long‑term investing philosophy and a personal story of a parent who missed his children’s childhood while pursuing business success, Brian illustrates the pitfalls of prioritizing speed. He then offers a practical framework called "intentional progress" to break free from destination addiction: redefining success beyond outcomes, celebrating small wins, finding joy in the process, detaching self‑worth from achievements, and asking better, direction‑focused questions. The episode ends with a call to listeners to assess whether they are chasing speed or moving in the right direction, emphasizing that the goal is not to slow down but to ensure the journey leads to a worthwhile destination.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So many of us, myself included from time to time, believe that happiness is always just one milestone or one achievement away. We think that when we get to XYZ, we're going to be happy. What if I told you though that that mindset is actually robbing you of fulfillment? That mindset is what I'm starting to call destination addiction. Destination addiction. And what is that? It's the tendency to believe that success, fulfillment, happiness, joy, it's always going to be attached to that next goal, achievement of that next goal. I've met so many entrepreneurs who have built multi-billion— or multi-million dollar businesses, athletes who have completed amazing, amazing things and accomplishments, high achievers that that have done just astounding things in their industry. Yet so many of them feel like they're still not there yet. Why is this? Why is this? I think it's because they're addicted to the destination. They're chasing speed, they're chasing goals. They're not really thinking about direction, nor are they enjoying the trip to reaching that goal or that destination. I think people fall into this "I'll be happy when" mindset all too often. Why do we fall into this "I'll be happy when" mindset? I think a lot of it frankly has to do with money. A lot of people I know that attach their happiness to some sort of destination or goal, usually in my world, that goal has something to do with money. When my business is at this level, I'll be able to do XYZ and I'll be happy. Or when I sell this many widgets, I'll be able to fund this or buy that. I think it's really easy to fall into that trap, usually because in business, the primary metric is dollars, is profit. So, sometimes we fall into this I'll be happy when trap because of money. I think people also fall into this, I'll be happy when, because they think that whatever they have going right now is not fulfilling. So, when things are different, when I'm with that different person, or when I have this one experience, or when I drive this car, I'll be happy when. It's like, hey, I'll put up with what I have to put up with right now because one day, when I achieve this, this thing, I'll be happy. I think this is the trap we get into. But what I found is the problem isn't setting goals. The problem is actually postponing happiness until you reach those goals. I'll give you an example. Let's take a, you know, many of the, many of our people here are salespeople. Let's take a salesperson obsessed with hitting a certain income goal, that, that, that income goal, but the bar is constantly being moved. First, it's I want to make $100,000 in selling these services, and then I want to make $250,000, then I want to make $500,000. No, no matter what though, it always feels like not enough. Instead of enjoying the wins, we get stuck in this endless loop of what's next, what's more. And when your happiness is tied to a finish line that keeps moving, you're never ever going to feel like you've arrived. When the goalpost keeps moving, you'll never feel like you'll arrive or you've arrived. I can tell you for me personally, as I was thinking through this, this subject, and I don't know, for some reason, you know, it's, it's funny, like the Raz gets going, right? And so I started thinking around this subject. And of course, uh, I then run into it in an article I'm reading or a book I'm reading about happiness. And then I, I hear a podcast and naturally start talking about this subject. And so it's all over, all over my world right now. When I think around this subject, I think that for me, what I found is that life and business, it's more about direction than it is speed. Life is about direction and not speed. We're taught to move fast. We're taught to grow our businesses fast, make money fast, get results fast. But what if speed isn't the real key to success? See, when I think about speed, I'm thinking about chasing constant achievement. Always rushing, pushing, never feeling satisfied. Frankly, it's what so many people who haven't listened to our podcast, you know, the number one joke of course I get is, oh, so no days off. And you know, once I explain, it's not about working nonstop, it's about getting better at something every single day, whether it be a minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. But usually when someone makes a joke about this no days off concept, they're thinking that it's about chasing constant achievement. It's about always rushing. It's about never taking a break. It's never feeling satisfied. That's not what it's about. Out. That would be about speed. But when I think about direction, when I think direction, I think making sure your daily actions align with the life you truly want. Again, let me say it one more time. Speed versus direction. Speed is about chasing constant achievement and never feeling satisfied, but direction is making sure your daily actions align with the life you truly want. Life is about direction. It is not about speed. Warren Buffett, who we talk about nonstop here, and we're going to be talking about him here later this week because the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter just came out. Warren Buffett, when he started investing, he wasn't trying to get rich quick. He was not trying to get rich quick. As a matter of fact, he's now been investing for 84 years. All Warren really did was focus on the right direction, and, and the vast majority of moves that he made were long-term. They were built for sustainable growth, and decades later, as a result, he's one of the wealthiest people in history. Meanwhile, so many others in his, in his world are chasing quick riches, and many of them failed. If they had some success, some of them burned out. Or they, they started to make bad decisions or they started to feel empty even when they succeeded. I remember years back, uh, I, someone told me a story about an individual who, who was launching a business and he had little kids and he would work nonstop. And unfortunately, you know, wasn't seeing those kids all that much. And he, and he told this individual, well, I'm doing this right now. I'm going to make these sacrifices. I'm going to do all of these things and make this money and achieve this greatness so as to live this certain life a handful of years down the road. I'm going to go attain these things so I could give my family everything they've ever dreamed of. And years and years later, this individual that was telling me the story met with the gentleman that was sharing this with him, and he said, hey, so, so I haven't seen you in like a decade or so. How, how things gone? And he goes, guess what? I achieved everything I set out to achieve a decade or so years ago. I made the money, I built the businesses, I, I've invested, I've, I've bought the house, you know, I, I bought the second house, I did all these things. To which my friend said, well, that's, that's amazing, that's great, congratulations. He said, thanks, but the challenge is Here we are now, 11, 12 years later. My kids are now 16 and 14, and I missed the vast majority of their, their, their childhood. I would go back and do it all over again, just in a different way if I could. But I've now missed, I now have missed my entire, my kids' entire childhood as I stayed focused on the goal and knowing I was going to go achieve these things for my family and make these sacrifices I wish I could go back in time and do it differently. How many stories do we have to hear like that before we start taking different action as a result? So the key takeaway here, it's not about how fast you get there, as demonstrated by Warren and the story I just told. It's not about how fast you get there, it's about making sure you're going in the right direction. What difference does the time make in the grand scheme of things? I think we've got to break free of this destination addiction. So how do we do that? How do we break free of, of the destination addiction? I think we have to go from destination addiction to what I'm going to call intentional progress. I think we've got to number 1, redefine success beyond just outcomes. Instead of asking what's next, next, I think we could be asking, am I aligned with what matters? Number 2, I think we could celebrate small wins instead of just celebrating hitting this big goal. Celebrate the progress along the way. Let's chunk this all the way down so we're getting wins every day. Again, directionally getting those wins as opposed to focusing solely on speed. I think number 3, we hear this, you know, a lot and we probably should dedicate a whole episode, finding joy in the process or in the journey. If you're miserable in the pursuit of a goal, it's a sign you're chasing speed. Let me say that again. If you're miserable in pursuit of a goal, it's a sign that you're likely chasing speed. Instead of focusing on direction. Number 4, I think you got to detach self, self-worth from achievements. You are not your revenue. You are not your, your race times in, in the marathons you run. You're not your title. Who you are matters more than what you achieve. And I think we've all got to do some work on detaching our self-worth from achievements. And then lastly, when I think about how to break free from destination addiction, I think we've got to ask better questions. Instead of asking questions like, how fast can I get there? Or what do I have to do to make this happen tomorrow? I think the question might be, am I moving toward the life I actually want? So, just some action items there. So, today, I want you to take a moment to ask yourself, am I chasing speed? Or am I moving in the right direction? Directionally, am I going the right direction, right? Am I moving in the right direction or am I chasing speed? If success only feels good for a moment before you're on to the next thing, you might be caught in this destination addiction concept that I'm talking about. The goal here isn't to slow down necessarily. It's to make sure you're just headed somewhere worth going. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
