Ep 667 | The Tradeoff Equation

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. Over my, my business career and just my life in general, I think what one thing I've come to learn is that life and business and health and relationships, all the things we talk about here at No Days Off, It's all a series of trade-offs. Every yes carries some sort of hidden price tag, something somewhere that, that we're having to, to say no to, maybe quietly saying no to. We sup— we, we have a tendency to celebrate, uh, success stories, you know, the billionaires, the elite athletes. The visionary founders. But we, we rarely talk about the costs underneath those wins. Did you know that the, the top 10 wealthiest people on this planet, the top 10, between those top 10, they have 13, 13 divorces between them? Elon Musk, who we talk about quite a bit, the guy is building rockets and changing transportation and aiming to get to Mars. But he openly admits he barely sleeps, and that he oftentimes feels really lonely. And he battles a fair amount of chaos in his own head. Tom Brady, love him or hate him, one of the best athletes ever, spent 2 decades chasing football immortality. But, but at what cost? His marriage didn't make it. He has lots of other things in his world that I know he's not super proud of. Tiger Woods was the best golfer of his generation. And you've probably heard many of the stories about Tiger, you know, while being perfect on the golf course, the pressure of that perfection fractured his life off the course. Every level has some sort of price. And in my opinion, the question is not if you'll pay, it's what currency you'll actually use. There are many trade-offs I think that show up in business achievement. We idolize founders like Musk and Bezos and Jobs. And these are individuals who bend industries and reshape the world. But if you really look closer, you'll see an obsession. It has to exist. You have to see this obsession for individuals that operate at that kind of level. It's not much of a balance. These are not work-life balance individuals. They are just like work-life fusion type of people. That intensity obviously produces greatness, but it also consumes. It eats into sleep and relationships and health. You know, Jobs missed much of his daughter's childhood. Bezos admits that You know, his early years at Amazon were all-consuming. Elon, you know, is prideful about sleeping on the factory floor. The lesson here is that you can't disrupt industry in the way that these individuals have and also protect your calendar. The higher the aim, the higher the objective or the vision or the life-changing path that you're pursuing, the steeper The trade-off. There's trade-offs in, in athletics, specifically athletic greatness. You know, Kobe was at the gym at 4 AM. You've heard the stories. Michael Phelps trained 7 days a week for years without a single day off. Simone Biles talks about missing proms and vacations and just the normalcy that, you know, a teen would have. But they were also the best in the world. They had this, this singular level of focus that eliminated almost everything else. And so while we celebrate the medals and the trophies of these individuals, recognize that every podium finish probably sits on a pile of missed birthdays and shaken friendships and just ordinary life. Greatness in this sense required subtraction. You cannot live like everyone else and expect to perform above them. When you think about the trade, the trade-offs in wealth, we say we want financial freedom, but every wealth path requires some element of sacrifice of its own. The entrepreneur risks security for all the upside that might come with it. The investor sacrifices liquidity to be patient and allow for compounding. The executive trades time for income. Even when you win, you know, wealth can cost a degree of peace, right? And so if you look at those at the top, you know, those that maybe have multiple investments or homes or, you know, things of that nature, but if you have actual roots, so I mean, there's a, there's a difference. They, they may have you know, lots of jets and ways to travel, but they don't have a lot of stillness in their life. So money amplifies what's already there. If your trade-offs were unhealthy on the way up, they're probably louder once you arrive. There's trade-offs in all sorts of other areas. Relationships— every meaningful relationship demands presence. But presence competes with ambition. So, the grind that builds that business can also grind away the relationship. I think about health. I mean, you can't— it's pretty hard to cheat biology. I think too many leaders treat their bodies like these temporary vessels for permanent ambition. And it doesn't work like that. Even Elon said to himself, sleep is not optional. Yet most high achievers act like it is. And at some point, that invoice comes due, right? The stress, the burnout, the health scares. Health is the foundation that funds every other pursuit, but when it breaks, everything else collapses. You can rebuild wealth and businesses, you can't rebuild your body. These are the trade-offs though. These are the trade-offs that are made. So, I'm not wanting this to all sound negative. What I'm trying to do, like in so many things we talk about here at No Days Off, is bring awareness. For every yes, there's a no. I think there's a way that we can, we can think through our trade-offs before, before maybe they own us, right? I think there's a filter we could use, and we're just going to call it this, the, the trade-off equation. I think number one, if you're really going to analyze trade-offs, define what winning means to you. Like, what does it really mean? What's your purpose? What's your, what's your objective? Like, be very specific around this and don't let society define it for you. What does winning mean? Because absent an objective or a definition around this, it's pretty darn tough to analyze trade-offs. So number 1, define winning. Number 2, identify the hidden cost. You know, what's the no that's attached to your yes? Are you saying yes to pursue this dream and as a result you're saying no to time with your family? I just want— I want to bring some awareness to this as we're analyzing trade-offs. Are you saying no to your sanity? Maybe, maybe. So identify the hidden cost. Number 3, no surprise, ask if that gain outweighs the loss. Ask if that gain outweighs the loss. Sometimes it does. And sometimes it doesn't. I think few stop to actually do that analysis. Because number 4 is to decide consciously. In other words, don't drift into trade-offs. Make them with your eyes open. And then number 5, revisit often. In other words, what made sense at, say, the age of 30 might bankrupt you at 50, emotionally, financially, or physically. So to, to wrap today up, I think it's important to recognize that every person you admire has paid for their success in some way. The only difference is what they are, they are willing to trade. That's where they defer. So I want you to ask yourself today or this week or this month, what am I saying no to by saying yes to this? And then follow that up by asking yourself, is that trade still worth it? Remember, every single yes carries a receipt with it. The people who live this kind of no days off mentality aren't the ones who avoid trade-offs. They're the ones who actually understand them, manage them, and pay the price, but pay the price on purpose. 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.