Brian Gubernick argues that small goals are fear-driven attempts to avoid failure that keep people stuck in linear, time-for-money thinking. Big, leverage-focused goals force asymmetric bets and systems that can 10x assets, while small goals offer only the illusion of control through certainty and checklist satisfaction.
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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. I've been on a Dr. Benjamin Hardy kick as of late. Uh, he has written my favorite book of the year, The Science of Scaling, and I had an opportunity to interview him the other day. And as I was preparing to interview him, I was of course listening to other interviews and podcasts that he had done. There's something he said— well, there's lots of things he said, but one specific thing that he said that really resonated with me and has had me thinking for the past few days. He made the statement that setting small goals is just trying to avoid failure. Setting small goals is just trying to avoid failure. I want you to think about that. Most people do not set small goals because they lack ambition. I think they set them because they're afraid. I think I've set some small goals because I've had a degree of fear. Afraid maybe to fail, afraid maybe to look foolish. Afraid to lose what, what you already have. That mindset, that, that fear-driven goal-setting mindset, it quietly kills lots of different areas of your life. Today I want to focus a little bit more on wealth with respect to this statement because I think that it really shines in wealth building. Because real wealth doesn't reward people who, who play not to lose. I think real wealth rewards people who play to win. Now, the core idea here is that, again, small goals equal safe lives. When you set small goals, what you're really doing is choosing predictability over prosperity. You're saying that I'd rather stay in control than experience true growth. In business, that means protecting what you've, what you've already created, what's already working, instead of creating something new. In health, it might mean maintaining instead of improving. In your relationships, it might mean coasting instead of deeper connection. And in wealth, well, in wealth, it's actually, it can actually be fatal. Because small goals keep you stuck in linear thinking. In other words, small goals build small accounts. Big goals build new identities. And when it comes to wealth building, I think new identities is what— or what many of us need. Now, how does this all play out? I think most people build wealth like they're walking a tightrope over a canyon. They do it inch by inch, terrified to, to fail. In other words, they aim for financial security, not necessarily financial freedom. Those things are different. They save instead of invest. They diversify instead of focus. They optimize for safety, not, not for scale. Yes, there is a point in life you optimize for safety, but for most of us, today is not that day. I think that's what Dr. Hardy meant, that small goals are a strategy to, to really just avoid failure. But in wealth, avoidance is the enemy of acceleration. It's the enemy of compounding. If your goal is to never fall, you'll never climb. So people who build real wealth, I think they— I know they think differently. They ask questions like, what would it take to 10x my assets in 5 years? Or, you know, what leverage or system could get me to that wealth goal? I think that question alone changes the game. It moves you from, from working harder to maybe thinking bigger. Now, there's psychology behind why we set these small goals. Small goals give us certainty. They feel attainable. You can track them. You could check them off. You can feel smart about them. But that's an illusion, right? That's just an illusion of control. And it's what keeps you boxed in. The truth is that most people aren't afraid of failure. They're afraid of what failure says about them. So they keep goals small enough, enough to always win, and in doing so, they guarantee that they're probably going to be stagnant or not grow to the, to the true extent they desire. In wealth building, I, I think this looks like sitting on cash because you're afraid to deploy it. I think it looks like avoiding debt because you don't understand how leverage works. I think it's taking tiny, safe investments that never move the, the needle, or it's staying at one comfortable income level because it feels good, it feels secure. But wealth, at least in my experience, wealth is built through asymmetric bets— limited downside, unlimited upside. You can't access that upside if you're obsessed with never losing. It just, it just doesn't work. Here's why I think these— when I— when we're talking around wealth, I think here's why big goals matter mathematically. If your goal is to earn $100,000, right, like if that became your goal, you'd find a job, right? Like if your goal is to earn $100K, you'd find a job. If your goal is to earn a million dollars you'd probably start a business. Not a lot of jobs out there paying $1 million, but you'd have a crack at $1 million if you start a business. If your goal though is to earn $10 million, well then you have to build systems and partnerships or investments that work while you're, while you're sleeping. See, the size of your goal determines the vehicle you choose. Small goals keep you in, in what Dr. Hardy describes as linear effort, which is really just about trading time for money as it pertains to wealth. But big goals, they force you into, into leverage where, where money or, or other people or systems work for you. And I think that's the great irony of it all, right? The people chasing big goals don't always hit them, but they end up a lot further are further down, down the road than those who only aim for comfort. So, I think we have to make a shift, a shift from avoiding failure to creating freedom. I think when you, when we talk around wealth, to build real wealth, you have to rewire the question in your mind. Instead of asking, how do I not fail? Start asking, how big could this get if I went all in? Wealth has a tendency to favor speed and courage and iteration. You learn, you adapt, you let it compound. Every time you take a bigger swing, you are stretching your capacity. And that capacity, you know, your ability to handle bigger numbers or bigger deals or bigger risk, that's what wealth's all about. That capacity is wealth. You can't become wealthy with a poor tolerance for uncertainty. So how do you go about applying this, right? What's the, what's the call to action here? I think here's how you would use Dr. Hardy's idea in your own financial life. I think first you got to audit your goals, take a step back and ask yourself about the goals. If they make you feel safe, they're probably too small. Number 2, 10x your thinking. I want you to ask yourself, if my wealth target were 10 times higher, what would I have to change? I think that one question forces you to think in ownership and not in terms of wages. Number 3, detach from the outcome. Detach from the outcome. You don't need to hit the number. What you need to do is become the kind of person who could. And that might be the greatest takeaway of them all. Failure isn't the opposite of wealth. It's, it's the tuition. Failure is the tuition to wealth. So in closing, I think that setting small goals might keep you from failing, but it also keeps you from freedom. Big goals stretch you, they expose you, they humble you, but they also you know, very much transform you. And in the pursuit of something impossible, you have to build systems and confidence and capacity that make that impossible thing attainable and routine. Wealth does not come from safety. It comes from scaling your courage. So stop setting small goals, stop trying to avoid failure, and start designing a life so big that it forces you to grow into, into someone into someone new. That's all I have for you today in 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.
