In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick explores a Stoic maxim – “increase your sacrifices or reduce your desires” – as a universal decision‑making framework. He argues that every gap between what we want and what we have can be closed by either paying a higher price (more sacrifice) or lowering the goal (less desire). Gubernick applies the principle to four major life arenas: business, relationships, personal finance, and health. For each area he outlines the typical desires (growth, love, financial freedom, performance) and the concrete sacrifices required (time, accountability, attention, disciplined budgeting, training, sleep, etc.). He warns that most people live in tension because their desires outpace their sacrifices, leading to frustration and resentment. The episode concludes with a practical “honesty audit”: write down what you say you want and what price you’re actually paying, then consciously choose to either increase sacrifice or reduce desire, thereby eliminating friction and gaining clarity and momentum.
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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. There is a, a Stoic quote, a Stoic line that I've been thinking about as of late. The line is either increase your sacrifices or reduce your desires. Either increase your sacrifices or reduce your desires. It sounds pretty simple. I mean, it is a pretty simple statement, but when you really dig into it, it's, it's pretty brutal as well from a, from a clarification standpoint. It is something that I think every goal, every frustration, every stalled area of life, it's something that every one of these things comes back to. In other words, it's a fork in the road. You want something, but you don't have it. The gap between wanting and, and having Well, there's only a couple ways to close that gap. You either pay the price, or you just simply decide the thing wasn't worth wanting in the first place. I think this Stoic quote, or just Stoicism in general, isn't telling you to, to go dream smaller. I think it's just telling you to, to be honest with yourself, to get honest. Your desires are either either too big for your current level of sacrifice, or your sacrifices are too small for the size of your desires. It is truly that simple. I think that this is a very powerful framework or powerful filter that you can run everything in your life through. So let's, let's attempt to do that today. Let's walk through how this plays out in business and in relationships and money and health. And then, you know, let's figure out what we could do about it starting today. So, in business, your results are going to be your scoreboard. So, you can want revenue growth, you could want bigger profit, bigger margins, you can want to attract better talent. You could want more clients. But the reality is the marketplace does not care about what it is you want. What the marketplace cares about are your inputs. If you want your business to grow 40% this year, that's a, that's a great desire to have. But the only way you get that sort of growth is by, in fact, sacrificing. Sacrificing time, sacrificing, you know, focus to some extent, sacrificing old systems for better systems, sacrificing current people for better people, increasing accountability, making more uncomfortable decisions and having more uncomfortable conversations, creating more thinking time. Again, the only way you get that sort of growth is by sacrificing. And I think that most entrepreneurs are stuck because they are living in this state of desire without matching sacrifice, right? Like, they don't have the same level of desire and sacrifice. The business is not failing. The math around desire and sacrifice is what's failing. And I think the moment that you honestly ask, hey, am I willing to sacrifice more? Or do I actually want less than I'm pretending? I think that, that will snap things into place because the reality is either answer you give is valid, but only one answer leads to the momentum or the growth that I'm talking about. Now, in relationships, we all say we want great relationships. We say we want great marriages. We want deeper friendships. We want to be more present for our kids. These are all great desires, but trust and intimacy, closeness, these things don't happen by accident. They require sacrifice. They require attention, listening, putting the phone down, doing things you don't feel like doing, choosing to be patient. When, you know, being frustrated is an easier thing to do. Giving love or kindness before you get it. See, in relationships, if you don't increase sacrifices, at least in my experiences, then desires start to quietly transform into resentment. You want the benefits of a great relationship without the cost of maintaining one. You, you want your partner, your spouse to give maybe what you aren't giving. You want your kids to open up when you maybe haven't created that, that space for them to open up. Well, the, the Stoic remedy here is simple. If you want more love, give more love. If you want more trust, then live more trustworthily. If you want more connection, sacrifice convenience. And if you're not willing to do those things, then you got to just simply reduce your desire. In other words, stop expecting a championship-level relationship that is on a kind of warm-up game or preseason-level effort. When we think about money, remember, we're running this through all things in life. We think about money. Money might actually be the most literal expression of this Stoic quote. Everyone desires financial freedom. At least I have yet to meet a person that doesn't desire some degree of financial freedom, but very few want to actually make the sacrifices. Sacrifices like spending less than they earn, investing early, delaying gratification, studying wealth, saying no to certain experiences, or saying no to impulse purchases. Running a disciplined budget. See, you either sacrifice today or you end up sacrificing tomorrow. You're either disciplined now or you're restricted later. The people who I think struggle financially, they're not usually short on desire, they're short on sacrifice. And the people who build wealth don't necessarily desire more than anyone else, they simply sacrifice more consistently. No matter, you know, what wealth guru you turn to, there's few that'll ever say anything other than, hey, at least at the start of your wealth journey, you've got to sacrifice, delay gratification, spend less than you earn, spend less than, than, than you earn such that you have savings, right? Like, there's just no way to go about doing it. And, and I think the quote here is a mirror. If you, if you won't reduce your lifestyle desires, then increase your financial discipline. If you won't increase discipline, then reduce the lifestyle dreams. I mean, that's, that's really it. That answer, the answer to that question, are those questions That answer is, I think, freeing. It frees you. How about in health? Health is pretty brutal when it comes to this. You say you want longevity or more energy or a body you're proud of or better blood pressure, lower body fat, whatever it is. These are all desires, but the body only responds to sacrifice. Sleep hygiene, strength work, eating clean, Following a training plan, not, not drinking alcohol, getting up early to work on you, staying consistent when it's inconvenient. This is the sacrifice it takes to reach these desires. There's no amount of desire that's going to change your physiology. Only sacrifice will. See, most people try to keep their comforts and their goals. Let me say that one more time. Most people try to keep their comforts and their goals. They want to feel and look elite, but they live more like an amateur. So, the Stoic truth here is if you want high performance, the price is high. If you don't want to pay it, that's actually okay. You got to reduce the desire. Don't lie to yourself. Don't lie to yourself. So the real purpose, I think, of this quote, it's to force you into alignment because most people live in tension because their desires and their sacrifices are mismatched. They want more than their effort deserves, or they sacrifice far more than their desires actually require. This quote asks one really simple question. Which one is out of alignment, your wants or your work? Which one of these is out of alignment, your wants or your work? And when you see this imbalance, you now get your power back. And again, I don't really care which direction you go. I just think the honesty audit here, like being honest with yourself and getting your power back, is the most important takeaway. So Today, pick an area of your life—business, relationships, money, health—and then ask yourself these two really honest questions. Number one, what do I say I want? So what do I say I want in business or in relationships and money and health? Number two, what price am I, am I actually paying? Then based on those answers, decide your move. You're either going to increase your sacrifices or you're going to reduce your desires. And be real with yourself. Make the decision consciously. Make it honestly. Either way, you eliminate friction, you eliminate the possibility of resentment, and you get clarity. You eliminate confusion. Because I think the moment your desires and your sacrifices line up, I mean, you got a lot more freedom and you become unstoppable, in my opinion. 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.
