Ryan Daniel Moran argues that true success requires struggle and pain to overcome; without challenge there is no legitimate achievement. He illustrates this with examples (financial motivation to escape poverty, relationship standards set against failure) and cites Felix Dennis (founder of Maxim) to emphasize betting on motivated, disadvantaged people. Moran questions whether removing struggle (e.g., universal comfort) would eliminate the drive that produces success, and advises people to identify the pain they want to move away from when clarifying life goals.
Questions this video answers
Felix Dennis
December 22, 2017
Chapters
Success is this illusory idea that we throw around a lot. And if you look at any blog or any viral piece of content that talks about success, we're often trying to hack it or trying to find the easy way to have success in different areas of our life. But what's interesting about the idea of success is that there is no glory. There is no achievement in success if it's easy. There's no glory in success if there is no struggle. In fact, the idea of success assumes that there is something to overcome in the first place. There is some sort of challenge that we have to face. There is at least some sort of pain that has to be overcome in order to be successful. In order to be successful financially, we have to desire moving away from the pain of poverty. To be successful in a relationship, we have to have something to compare it to of what failure is in a relationship. It is this idea that there can only be light if there is dark. So what's interesting about success is that we talk about it like we want it to be easy. But there is no success if there is not struggle in the first place. Felix Dennis was the founder of Maxim magazine, and Felix Dennis said, I bet on the kid who has no idea, who has only motivation, has no money, has no prospects for success. I bet on that kid. I don't bet on the person who has a career or who is in motion because the person who has nothing.
They'Re the person that has the comparison to say, this is where I started and anything up from here is success to me. But if you take someone who has been given everything or is at the very least comfortable.
That person has a much lower chance of success. Sometimes I fear that if we take away the struggle, if we take away the pain, if we just give everyone a cushy, cozy lifestyle, do we lose that same drive that creates success in the first place? Do we lose the very thing that is the source of our drive? I know a lot of successful people who grew up with nothing, and they said, I will never go back to that. I will do whatever it takes to move away from the pain that I experience so that I can create something different. Success requires that. It requires some challenge to overcome, some pain to move away from. It's why, when you're getting clear on what you're going to do with your life, the easiest way for us to look is to look at the pain in your life and say, what pain do you want to move away from.
And what challenge do you want to overcome? Because if you do that that to you is success. And if we took away the pain in the first place, would we even have the challenge to overcome? Would our lives have any meaning? Ryan Holiday wrote a book called the Obstacle Is the Way. The idea that the challenge that we resist, the challenge that we wish would go away is actually the portal to our own development. It's the portal that we need to follow in to achieve our greatest selves. So what is it in your life that feels like a challenge? What is the thing that you want to overcome rather than wish it were taken away so that you could have the relief of the pain? It is that challenge, it is that pain that you overcome that is the greatest peek into your greatest potential. It is the best illuminated determination into the success that you desire most. And three years from now when you have overcome that, you may just realize that you would have never had success if you had never had this struggle.
