Don't Die Wondering: The Comfort Trap | On the Homefront with Jeff Dudan #93

Don't die wondering. I have a great friend who I respect a great deal. And when I asked him what's the most impactful thing that he could share with somebody, he said, don't die wondering. And I thought about, what did that mean? So people strive for comfort, people work for safety. People look to accumulate things. People look to surround themselves with a big house and a fancy car and all of the, you know, great furniture, maybe have a great vacation every year. That's fine, okay? And they reach this level of comfort and they are not willing then to move back and put themselves in a position of risk for something greater. A banker once shared with me that people's lifestyles are the last thing that they are willing to change when they get in financial trouble. If you have a country club membership, fancy cars, big house, lifestyle, everything that you have, people will bankrupt a business, okay? To maintain those creature comforts that they've put around themselves. Now, I also believe the comfort and safety have other roles in your life now. If you are too comfortable and you are constantly playing it safe and you are taking a scarcity mindset that I don't want to lose anything that I have, that's a creativity killer, that's a commitment killer, that's a risk taking killer. People are not willing to risk what they have. And look, I understand you've worked hard for this. You've got people that you're responsible for. But if you're just going to try to save your way to prosperity by not taking any risk and also over consuming the things that you have, then you are going to miss out on the opportunity for real satisfaction, to go through a real struggle where you're going to have a real outcome and get real fulfillment and look back at your life and have something that you can be absolutely proud of. I put myself out there. I went out on the tightrope. There was no net underneath me whatsoever. I had an idea. I had a small group of people I wanted to do this with. Or it's something that I've always known that I wanted to do and I've always admired other people doing. But you know what? I was too comfortable. I wanted to play it safe. I had things just the way I wanted it. Well, you know what? Entropy happens in every life. And you see it with a lot of retirees right now. A lot of people retired. They're on a fixed income. They thought that they had enough, they didn't have enough assets that were going to move with inflation. So now you see a lot of people living really, really long. And the money that they had and the recurring revenue that they have in, especially with inflation, it is no longer able to meet their needs. Look, so, but what they decided was at 60 or 62 or whatever it was that like, they were going to just shut it down, play it safe, stay comfortable inside of it, travel around, and you know what, probably earn that right. But you could never tell what's going to happen in the future. I think you always have to stay in the game. Okay? You always have to be playing. And what happens when we get comfortable and we've arrived is like, we, like, we love that as people, you know, we all have the right to be mediocre. We, we love to sit our butts in a big old comfortable couch. We love to be able to go out and have that great meal. But if all of that's true, where do people decide that their limit is, like, when is comfortable, comfortable enough, when is safe safe enough? People like to reach some preconceived notion about what I have, how much money I got in the bank. I've got the house that I always wanted, I got the car that they always wanted. Hey, maybe my kids are going to the school that I wanted them to go to, whatever that is. And. And then all of a sudden they're like, okay, I've arrived. That's when people get dissatisfied. You see people that make it, quote, end quote, they make it. They make a big whack of money. And within a year you find out that those are some of the most miserable people in the world. Because what's missing once you make a bunch of money and you reach your level of comfort, whatever you've decided that to be, the struggle is gone. Now what are you fighting for? What are the problems that you're solving every day? What are the things that are threatening you that now you've got to deal with and you've got to step to that problem and you got to reach and solve it. Are you building something great with people? Are you building something that's never been done before? I think one of the tells for comfort and safety is the Giving Pledge, where many of the world's billionaires have signed this pledge where they're going to give away over 90% of their wealth before they die? Look, they've built great businesses, they've made great investments, but what they realized is once they had it all, that it all didn't matter and that they needed to use that money. They didn't want to give it to their kids because that would ruin them. Because now, now your kids are comfortable. One thing I've always said to my children and about my children is I would never take away from my children their opportunity to succeed on their own. If you take somebody's opportunity to succeed on their own away from them, you've taken the biggest gift of life away from them. Because now they can't build something. They can't work without a net. They don't have, they don't have that real fear and that real risk of going broke or going bankrupt if they can't solve the problem. Get the customer, collect the money, pay the bills. That's the greatest satisfaction that I've had in my life. When I look back at it, the things that I think about is when we were in absolute dire straits and we had to pull together as a team, go halfway across the country, execute on a disaster, collect our money, do whatever it is we needed to do to survive, and then the satisfaction from that. So look, apply that to yourself. Are you playing hard enough? Have you gotten to a certain level of comfort and a certain level of satisfaction? And now in your life you're just, you're just, you're just existing there. You're in this. You're like in one of these float tanks where it's, you can't feel anything. And you know, your, your senses are deprived because you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space, you know. And oh, by the way, you don't know what's going to happen over the next 10, 20 or 30 years. Are you going to have enough? Is the stock market, is your 401k going to turn into a 201k? And the next thing you know, the money that you thought you had, by the way this happened, many people had retired on a 401k. They had to go back to work. I know because I hired those people in my businesses, right? Because they didn't have businesses. They just had a retirement fund and some recurring income. And guess what? Things changed. We see it right now. Look at the inflation in this country. Businesses are high class assets, but there's risk involved with them. And oh, by the way, you're responsible to do the things that happen. So if you want to play your life to acquire comfort and safety, that's actually more risk, in my opinion, than taking a little bit of risk to create a better, more secure, bigger future for yourself. Look at every single one of us at every level. We make our own choice. You decide wherever you are, your season of life like, are you too comfortable? Are you too safe? Or are you playing the game that's going to give you an opportunity to meet great people, to do great things, to partner with people, to go out and create a future for yourself that you could only dream and you could only imagine because you don't know what it's going to be when you leave your cocoon of safety and comfort and you go out there and do something. The pursuit of comfort. Look, I mean, my gosh, every invention that we make in this world is for the pursuit of comfort. I don't want to click three times, so I'm not going to use that app. I only want to click once. I need air conditioning. I need air conditioning in my house. I need it in my car. Look, we are a society that craves comfort. Every product, every service, everything is so that we don't have to do shit. Okay? And I'm going to tell you, like, that is a slippery slope, and it's a trap. Because when you look at the richest people in the world who decided to give all their money away because they've gotten real comfortable, like, they've understood, like, that's a horrible place to be to have everything that you want. And if the consequences of doing nothing is absolutely nothing, I still have everything that I need, roof over my head, all the food. I go everywhere I want to, and I didn't do anything, that's a very awkward place to be. How are you going to find your motivation? What are you going to do to push yourself out, to do the next thing? That's really the game. That's really what you've got to figure out, is, like, how do I motivate myself when I already am comfortable? I have everything that I ever dreamed of, plus more. And what is the change that I need to go out and make in the world that's going to actually make a difference? You can only consume so much people. You can only have so many Nespresso coffees. You. You can only sit your butt in your couch and have so much air conditioning. Like, at the end of the day, like, once you put yourself in this cocoon of comfort, that is the beginning of the end, my friend. You got to figure out a way to get back into the struggle and to go build something meaningful. Look, the choice is yours, and whatever choice you make, you're the one that has to live with it. But I'm going to tell you this. Don't die wandering. Don't wait till it's too late to have a little bit of risk in your life and to go out and do something that you know you've always wanted to do, but. But you've been too afraid to try because you didn't want to give up what you had. That's a trap. Stay out of it. Good luck.