You Built the Life You Wanted. Why Doesn’t It Feel Good?

We're going to be talking about why success never feels like enough. Why so many of us men feel unfulfilled despite achieving everything that we set out for. Or most things, you know, we get bumped around a little bit. And how you can break free from this cycle to experience real joy, real success, real freedom. If you've ever thought someday when, when I make X amount of money, or when I get the woman of my dreams, or someday when, when my kids actually listen to me, or someday when, you know, I, I have time, then I'll get fit, only to still feel unsatisfied. This episode. You gentlemen, welcome to the Inside man podcast. I'm Gary kd. Or as you can call me, I'm gk. And let's raise the roof today. Let's make some noise. I just got out of my DJ session on learning how to dj. It's pretty cool. DJ Zero Proof is what I'm going by, right? That's my handle. But I am jacked up today. I'm bringing the energy, I'm bringing the soul. And what this show is all about. High achieving men breaking free from burnout, finding fulfillment and achieving lasting success. In this episode, we're going to be talking, talking about why success never feels like enough. Why so many of us men feel unfulfilled despite achieving everything that we set out for, or most things, you know, we get bumped around a little bit. And how you can break free from this cycle to experience real joy, real success, real freedom. If you've ever thought, man, someday when, when I make X amount of money, or someday when, when I get the woman of my dreams, or someday when, when my kids actually listen to me, or someday when, you know, I, I have time, then I'll get fit, only to still feel unsatisfied. This episode is for you. So the point here and the core message and why this matters is high achievers are conditioned to believe that more is the answer. More money, more success, more accolades. The problem is, no matter how much you achieve, it feels like it's never enough. And we often set new goals, right? And we do that even before achieving the ones that we've had. So I'm, look, I'm an alcoholic, 17 years sober, so my whole mantra is more is better. And you know, the other one is I don't belong here. So more is better. We'll do I don't belong here another time. But let's do the more is better because this, I call it the black hole. You know, I couldn't just have one drink. It would be like, my first drink got me to my fifth drink, and my fifth drink got me to my 10 drink until I was blotto, because I didn't want to deal with life, right? So that was my alcoholism. I'm using that as a. As an example. But, like being an entrepreneur, we inherently have to have this drive for more is better. Like, you can see it in the employees. They're, like, kind of satisfied. There's nothing wrong, but it just needs to balance out. And we need to move 18 inches. I'm going to show you the 18 inches we need to move on in a few. But I want you to really know that if you don't refine success, you're going to stay stuck. I'm going to say that again. If you don't refine how you relate to success, you're going to stay stuck. I spent a lot of years grinding it out. Grinding it out. More is better. More is better. And every time somebody gave me an opportunity, yes, I could do that. One year I was on the road for. I think it was 42 weeks out of the year. Now it was like, I would go out Thursday morning, come back Friday night, if I can get back on Friday night, if they didn't cancel the flights. But it was just week after week grinding it out. And if your definition is, like, success keeps you on this hamster wheel, if you're finding that you're on the hamster wheel, you're cranking it out, it's time to rewire how you think about it. See, we're never going to retire, but I like using the word rewire. Rewire how we're going to work. And where that comes from is shifting your relationship to things. Shifting our relationship to things. That's what happened for me. And it worked. So I'm here to give you what worked. And the key question is, what if the real reason why you're feeling empty isn't that you achieved enough, but it's really how you're measuring success along the way and where from which you're looking at success. Right? Because I always say, like, you know, I need more tits, bigger tits. I need more money. I need. I need. I need longer driveways. I need. I need higher floors. You know, when we get here, it's like, go to here and I'll tell you know, at work, my team, I used to drive them insane. Imagine, Imagine having your team that you just won the game for the month, and you're like, you don't even acknowledge them. And so I didn't, I'm going to say you. When I say you, I mean me. I didn't acknowledge the great work and the efforts because there's things that I know they did and there's things that I don't know that they did. And what I found was like, I'm going to give you some solutions like creating space, creating, stopping and moving, slowing down. Slowing down seems like death to us, right? So you have to be careful here. But it's just getting some things in balance. I want to share a time that I was burnt out and realizing that I was chasing the wrong thing. You know, there was a time in my life I was so obsessed with growing my business that I missed critical moments with my family. You know, like there were times that I missed little league games and there were times that I missed things. And I was speaking to my friend Simon Bowen, who you're going to meet. He's one of my co mentors here. He created the models method and he interviewed billion dollar CEOs. We were talking about it just last week and he was telling me the one question he asked them that stopped everybody in their tracks. When did you decide to sacrifice the most important things in your life to become a CEO and do what you do and everyone. And I can. When he said it, I was like, yep, that's me. I never made the choice. I was really good at something called coaching people and developing and producing results and implementing change. And I started out in my trunk and then it evolved and more people wanted it and I had to scale and grow and scale and grow and I don't regret any of it. But I didn't scale and grow properly. I didn't have the right structure, I didn't have the right people. I didn't have to write a lot of things, but I just kept grinding it out. And it was because my head told me I'm not enough. I suck. You need to do more. My wife said don't drink too much when I was right on the cusp when she was going to throw me out. And I'm just going to drink just enough. But just enough for me is never enough. So I told you I was on the road for 42 out of 50 some weeks. I don't even know how many weeks there are in a year. But I was basically on the road. I'm a million miler on Delta, by the way. Thanks for that. It's pretty cool. It's paying off now. But I could not shut the machinery off of like when the Night, my wife sat me down and said, are you done? And let me give you the moment that she asked me if I was done because I was laid on my back. You're going to hear a few near death experiences. I've knocked at the pearly gates and they sent me back for more. I'm telling you, it's nuts. So, yeah, I look like I'm put together, but I'm going to give you all the good stuff that most people don't talk about because I believe this is what men need to hear. And what happened was I'm riding to work. I lived on the Upper west side of Manhattan. I'm cruising down Broadway. I get around Columbus Circle, I make the turn and I'm in front of Nordstrom's at 57th and Broadway. And by the way, I'm multitasking. I'm on a meeting in Manhattan, no helmet on, On a city bike, you know, pedal assist, of course, because I need to get there fast. Cause I. My office is in Rockefeller Center. So I'm like, fine, we're fine. I'm in a meeting, I'm cranking it out. There was like some contention at the meeting. I get, you know, do my controlling shit that I do and tell everybody what to do, go alpha on them. And then all of a sudden I was lifted in the air and I saw the sky and I saw the ground and I saw the sky and I saw the ground. And I come down and slam down on my feet and in the air. I'm saying to myself, what the f just happened? Oh, I just got hit by a car. Realize that midair. And these are milliseconds, right? If you've ever had near death experience, like there's milliseconds that happen that like. And then. But everything's in slow motion. So here I am midair. I'm going, oh, my God, I just got hit by a car. I hope the guy stops because when I land, if I go into the car, I'm dead. So you hear. And I can hear all this right as it's going on. I land on my feet and take two seconds. I hear the guy jump out of the car. But then there's some guy in New York going, yo, you mf. I saw the whole thing. If you sue that guy, I'm going to be in the effing court and your ass is going to lose that case. And I'm in shock. And normally if a guy gets in my face like that, I'm going to take the guy out. I'M like scrappy like that. And I couldn't move and I didn't say. I looked at the guy and then the guy said, I'm so sorry. I said it was my fault. It was literally my fault. And it was the first time I took responsibility for the unmanageability, the chaos, the shit that was piling up. Because in my head I'm making decisions on, I got to do more and I couldn't do more. So I'm multitasking on a bike without a helmet in the middle of Manhattan, cruising like I own the road. At some point we get our ass kicked. And I don't. I'm by the way, one of the motivations to do this podcast is so you don't have to get your ass kicked. You could just get the solutions to the problems. That's what happened. You know, when I saw my company, I was like, I'm going to take a bunch of time off. I did. It was awesome. I'm gardening, I'm DJing, I'm taking Italian lessons, I'm getting my Italian citizenship, I'm taking photography classes, I'm doing really cool stuff. And I needed to be in the business game. And so that's why I dove in and created this podcast and create a coaching program so I can help men jam the curve. Not have to figure it all out on your own like I did for years and then figured out my wife. We walked the dog in Central park, we went to Bethesda Fountain and we're sitting there with the dog and she sits me down and she goes, are you done? And I literally. It's called the iOS. I call it the iOS, the internal operating system of a high achieving man. You know, we have one in our phones, right? But it's like we actually have one going on and the mechanics are not for us. So one of the things I want to give you today is like, what can you do to start shifting from feeling like never enough to start feeling like success that you have. You're gonna learn more from me about this idea of space. You're gonna create space for yourself. Space for yourself. It's weird cause we haven't related to it, you know. But I'm gonna unpack this thing called space. And the fastest way to stop chasing more and start appreciating what you already have is right now, tonight. All right? And I want you to have a journal. You gotta have yourself get yourself a little thing and I know journal, I don't even wanna call it a journal. Cause it's like a bad thing. I'm like, I don't wanna do that, Gary. I'm too busy for that shit. Just do it. I asked you. Just small habits. Try new things one at a time, right? Because here's your choice. Try one of these small habits one at a time. Or, and I don't wish this on you, but you're going to get your ass kicked somewhere along the way. And the gift is the universe is ass kicking us to wake us up. That's all. Pain is the touchstone for transformation. So suffering is optional, by the way. You know, I'm a chronic joy. Zero suffering. I used to have chronic suffering and zero joy. So the way to undo this, the way to start creating space is get yourself a little thing that you could have by your bedside. And before you go to bed, just write down three wins that have nothing to do with your career or money. This starts rewiring your brain for fulfillment. Now there's a truth bomb here. Acceptance is the key to all your problems. You're going to learn from me. Awareness, acceptance, action. I call it the three A's. Awareness, acceptance, action. First you become aware, then you accept what's so. Then you get into action to change it. So I'll give you an example of this. Awareness is, I knew I was an alcoholic. I knew I drank too much, but I was in denial about. I needed to deal with it until my wife goes, dude, you don't have to stop drinking, but you can't stay. Here I go, okay, So I went and got help and raised my hand and asked for help. And in the meeting, it was like, I said to, I'm gk. I am an alcoholic. You know what happened? My shoulders came down. I finally told the freaking truth about what the condition was. So I want you to get it. This is true for weight. Like, I'm a little heavy. Ah, look at that guy. He's my age. See? And I would. I would compare myself rather than saying, hey, I want to create the life that I want to create, not the one in comparison that I'm better to do than doing the guy down the street who has a pot belly, you know, and that kind of shit. Don't do that. You can create your own life. I never knew I could weigh 178. I was 230. I had no idea. So I applied it in that area like I was, I have a little muffin top. A little muffin. No, I'm fat and I'm drunk and I'm angry. Acceptance is the key to creating space. Then you can get into action. The other reason why acceptance is so important is because you're not taking care of the. The. The action in what I call tfid. What type of action do I need to take? What frequency of action do I need to take? What intensity of action do I need to take? And what's the duration of activity? Now I'm gonna give you hacks everywhere. I'm gonna show you hacks that you can save time, save money, and systematize this thing so it runs on automate automaticity, right? But it starts with interrupting what's so. It starts with getting out of denial. It starts with accepting what's so if you don't have gratitude, this is the truth bomb here. If you're not grateful for what you have now, you'll never be satisfied to get to the next thing, and you'll never be able to shut off the machinery. We need to interrupt the machinery. I call it the inner unevictable, inner roommate. If you don't shut off and start knowing how to get separation from the voice that's talking to you, there's no possible way to break free from this and think about it. Can you sustain what it takes to run what you got going on right now? Probably not. If you're on this podcast, you're not sitting there going, oh, yeah, I could do this forever. You know, that's what entrepreneurs tell me that they get from the work we do together. They're going, shit, if I knew this, I wouldn't want to exit my company. I would want to do this forever. It happens all the time. So begin to start defining your own success by not letting society dictate what winning looks like. Go inside. This is called the inside man. We want to start going inside, right? Go inside. So I want to really. I'm going to pull out the telestrator. I love, you know, I love the Madden telestrator. So we're going to bring that into our little jam today. I'm going to share my screen. One thing I want to do is start defining inside man and outside man. So the outside man. When I was the outside man, I was focused in on net worth. Net worth was my jam. I had a dashboard. I still have my dashboard, but I don't check it every day, right? So my net worth was like how I was defined, right? Zeros and commas. So zeros and commas is like the pixels on a screen. Like, how many zeros do I have? How many commas now different than net worth? Because I was like, stocks and real estate and all that good stuff. But zeros and commas, like, how much did I do today? How much did I do this month? Like, hyper focused. And it's important. We're entrepreneurs. You have to have accountabilities in that area. But zeros and commas, the big thing was outside acknowledgments. My love language is like, please tell me I'm doing well because. And we're going to do another pot. We're going to do an episode on. This is the validation that most men have need to come from the father. And the father doesn't always give that. Like, my dad wasn't available because he had two jobs just to survive, keep us surviving. And ultimately what happened was I was like, my dad doesn't love me. And I spent my entire life until I came face to face with my dad and had the conversation that he did the best he could. And I didn't realize that I was looking at like, he's an ass. He never showed up from my all star baseball games and things like that. So then I perpetuated into. I needed acknowledgment from my wife. She never gave me all this stuff outside acknowledgement. These are all outside man's type stuff. And then the big thing is toys, right? So you got toys. So let's go over the inside man. The inside man over here is self worth. Now, how often are you going to work on self worth? That's what this podcast is key in doing. We are going to get into self worth, like big time. Because worthiness of self unlocks it is the root cause of why things keep repeating in your life. Those same patterns over and over and over and over and over and over. Getting divorced, if that's on your plate or having money and not having money. This self worth thing, the worthiness of self is key in the whole game of that. And then so we're moving from net worth to self worth. We're moving from zeros and commas to what that actually provides. And we want to move to experiences like I took my son to. We both Yankee fans, as you know, on the last episode. And man, we went. I got him an insider experience with. He's going to be a journalist. So we met with the yes network and the reporters there. We met with Ron Guidry, a former Yankee, and Oswaldo Cabrera, Kurt Yankee. And it was like then we watched the game and we were out, watched batting practice and we went behind the scenes and he felt so special. Those experiences are that's what's going to matter on your deathbed. Not, you know, how many, how many frigging miles I crank to go speaking events and such. The other thing is we're going to work on is positive self talk. Here's what I've learned. I lived for this. This is the red zone, brothers. This is the red zone. And the green zone over here. Green zone. Green zone is positive self talk. And we're going to be talking about the inner roommate here and developing because you have ants. Ants are automatic negative thoughts, and they're automatic and they're negative. And then we believe them. I believe them. And then I acted out from that. That's where I was getting my motivation. It's the critical conversation that's in my head that motivated the crap out of me. I would tell myself I was a piece of crap in my rehab. Therefore, I got in the gym and I did rehab and I was. But you see, it's like, it's dysfunctional. It was effective for a certain point, but then it starts, you know, robbing you. And then we move from toys to joys. And I use the word joys instead of happiness. There's something that happiness is like an outside thing. I'm happy because this happened or that happened. I'm talking about pure joy. Like, you just wake up and you're singing songs like that never happened. I'd be singing, you know, are we having any fun? You know that, that Volkswagen commercial. Are we having any fun? Da, da, da, da. You've seen that. So, and the key thing here is 18 inches. 18 inches from the head to the heart. And when you move down and you spend 50, 50 instead of 100 0, all of a sudden your experiences are going to be different and you're going to start being connected. You're going to start having connected relationships in a way that you never thought were possible. You're going to have bulletproof money. You're going to have simplified health. All these things start showing up because you traveled 18 inches. So I want you to take the achievement versus fulfillment test here and ensuring your goals are actually going to lead to happiness before setting a goal for yourself. Because I know we're all goals oriented, and I was like, we don't move goalposts here. It's like, we find a way or die. That's the way I live. And not everybody can live in that, especially team members. Employees don't always live that way. So will this goal bring me deep fulfillment? I was never. I kept myself so damn busy no space. That I wanted to be a DJ forever. I wanted to get my time citizenship forever. I wanted to take photography lessons forever. And it's not until you create enough space. If you're a 44 year old guy with three kids, a wife who's disconnected, she's pissed off because she's a professional and she's at home, every time you bring something to her, she's saying, you're defensive. It happens all the freaking time to all of us. But you can transform that whole thing and that's what I'm going to help you do. So I want you to really look every time you take something new on. I went to this thing, this network, and it looks so enticing and it's speaking to the inner roommate, going, you're not enough. You need to be more. You need to understand AI. You need to clone yourself. You need to do all this shit. And then is it helping me move toward fulfillment or is that just giving me more things to do on top of the maxed out schedule that I already have? So take a look. And you want to start learning how to pause and then ask this question, will this bring me deep fulfillment? You know, I think there's, there's somebody that does deals with clutter and she says, look at everything like, like in your closet. I forget her name. She's an Asian gal. She's awesome. Does that spark joy? Does that, does that shirt that you've been holding onto, you know, that you can't fit into anymore, does that spark joy? I know, it's like the first date, the shirt you wore on the first date with your wife, does it spark joy? No. And are you going to ever wear it again? You might if you hang out here. So. And I always say that if you haven't used it in a year, get rid of it. Because you know you end up with 1-800-JUNK when people die. I just went through three people dying. My mother, my grandmother, my father, we had tractor trailers of shit being pulled out of these houses. 1-800-JUNK. So is this goal truly mine, the me, the inside me, or is this like, to fulfill on, like, I'm going to prove to you, dad, that this, that you suck. And you didn't pay attention to me. I was down in Montage in Cabo and I was speaking to a guy from the ypo. YPO group was down there same time I was. And I loved chatting with him. We had so much fun. And they were like, he's like, my dad didn't even call Me, because we had a hip replacement. He was walking with a cane. I go, I just got injured. So I, you know, we were sharing, sharing stories, and he's like, my dad didn't even, you know, say, check on me, how I was. And so like, he still. He got to see he's still in the proving to his dad. And he just wants his dad's attention. And sometimes he can't get it. You know, if your dad's not alive, you can write a letter to them. There's things like you could do called, you know, dad, what I wanted that I didn't get, and dad, what I got that I didn't want. And that's another bonus if you want to take that to your journal. So these are some things that you can start looking at. You know, write the three things down that are not on your radar for business or career, because that's really where we consume ourselves. And then this one here, really, every time you make a decision, pause and look, is this going to be fulfilling for me? Is this really something that's aligned to who I am and where I'm going? There's a difference between growing for the sake of growth and growing with intention. And I work with entrepreneurs to really get the alignment first. Ask them what's most important to you. And by the way, nine out of 10 entrepreneurs can't answer that question. I was one of them. That's why I asked that question. And when we get to really, what's truth, because I'll keep pulling away the onion, pulling away the onion, pulling away the onion. And it really is being connected and having fun and enjoying life. But going back to Simon's question, to all these CEOs, we never chose this life. Most of us, it was chosen from the unevictable inner roommate telling us we're not enough. And that's really what to look at. So success without fulfillment is failure. I want you to get that success without fulfillment is failure. And if you don't refine or rewire how you relate to success, it's always going to feel like it's out of reach. So what I want you to do is don't forget, write three things down in your journal at night that are not connected. The three wins. Start retraining your eye. I just took up photography. I can see different because I'm looking for different things. And when you start looking for different things, they start looking for you and you start getting connected in a way that wasn't possible before. I want to also say that. Send this episode to a friend I love freely giving away information. And my ask of you if you're getting value here is to hear it and share it. And please subscribe so you never miss an episode of the Inside Man. This is Gary, Katie, reminding you that real success isn't about more, it's about meaning. And I'll see you in the next episode.