Matthew Hussey describes how his relentless pursuit of career goals created a meaningless cycle, even as he succeeded. He learned from his father that some activities should be fun or silly, not efficient. Perpetual growth and comparison trap you in an endless race that erodes your actual life.
Matthew Hussey here with Love Life. I wanna make two observations from lessons that I've learned in the last couple of years personally. And I'm still actually having to learn on a weekly basis. These are things that I haven't, I've not mastered these yet, but I wanna pass them on to you. And you know what, this, what I'm about to tell you probably isn't relevant to everybody out there. In fact, there's an enormous number of people that this won't be relevant to. I'm really pitching this at the type A overachiever types out there who are obsessively driven and almost to a fault because I know that I've kind of been a victim to that in the past and I still from time to time am a victim to that, but I'm much better than I was. And anyone who knows me will tell you that I am far more bearable these days than I used to be when I, you know, maybe three, four years ago, even as recently as two years ago, I'm much more bearable and fun to be around now. And here's the reason. And the reason is two of these lessons that I've learned. The first one is life isn't always about what's useful. I used to have this very utilitarian approach where Everything I did had to be useful to my overall purpose in life. So for example, if I said, I wanna be, I wanna help more people than anyone else in the world, I wanna be a coach that reaches more people than anyone else in my field, or I wanna be the greatest public speaker on earth, everything became about that one vision. And I would always assess every single tiny action, no matter what it was, I would always assess it and say, is this useful? to my overall vision. If I was reading a book, I'd say, or if I was looking at a book, I'd say, is this book useful to my overall vision? If it's not, I wouldn't read it. Even if I thought I might have fun reading it, I would say, no, this isn't useful to my overall goal. If it was embarking on a certain project, I'd always weigh it in terms of, is this useful to my overall goal? Every single little thing, even my leisure time, I would be weighing up in that way. And what it did is it became, over time, it made me a very one-dimensional person. Now, I know you don't have to be in my profession to be able to relate to this. You might be a doctor, for example, and you have to make everything relate to medicine somehow. You have to make everything relate to, is this furthering my career? Is this furthering that ultimate mission, that ultimate goal that I'm trying to achieve? But the problem is, As I started to get a little bit of success in my own life, what that did is it gave me some money and it gave me some time. And all of a sudden, having some money and some time bought me some freedom. But what I would then do is say, well, with that freedom now, I'm going to invest more time and money in those goals so that I can get even further. And then what would happen? I'd get more time. and more money. And with more money and more time, you say, right, now with that, I'm going to keep investing in this goal and create again. You get into this cycle that becomes almost useless on its own. It seems redundant. It's a bit like saying, you know, the meaning of life is to reproduce. But then if the meaning of life is to reproduce, what's the point? Because you just reproduce and then that thing's job is to reproduce and so on. There's no end in sight. There's no point to it all. And I remember some of you recently will have seen the 50 Shades of Grey commercial trailer that we did, where it was 50 Shades of Earl Grey, I should say. And I remember speaking to my dad about this. And I was almost embarrassed at one point that, you know, I said to him, he said, what you up to? I said, well, we're filming this thing. And I was almost slightly embarrassed because I felt like we'd spent a bit too much money on it and a bit too much time given that there were so many other important projects going on. and I remember he said to me something really interesting. He said, you know what? Not everything has to be the smartest investment choice. Not everything has to be about being the thing that gets the most results. You've, you've created this world, this, this success that allows you to be more involved in just some projects that you just enjoy, that you just care about on some other level. Not, it could be just about fun. It could be just about ego. It could be just about Just about being silly. It doesn't have to be. Not everything has to be about some big choice that's in line with where you're going. And if you don't treat life like that, then all you'll do is end up hating your path because you'll create this time and this freedom and you'll never actually use it for anything that you really want to do. Not everything has to be seen through the lens. of what's the most important thing for me to be doing with this five minutes in relation to my overall goal? Life isn't always about what's useful. That's the first thing. The second thing is that quality of life doesn't come from just perpetually growing and being obsessively driven because all that does is put you in comparison mode the whole time. where I'm always looking and saying, where am I in relation to that person? Have I overtaken this person yet? And of course, as soon as you overtake that person, you look up again and you say, oh, now there's a new person to overtake. So it never ends. Now, of course, I'm not saying don't grow. I'm not saying don't keep achieving on a high level. I'm not saying don't set your standards high. But I am saying that at some point it has to become about the quality of your life. and not how far you are in relation to everyone else. Work hard, focus on achieving for its own sake just because it's enjoyable and because you like working hard and you like setting yourself challenges. But at the same time, enjoy what it is you're creating and step out of comparison mode and remember that the richest guy in the room is the guy with the best quality of life. not the guy who has the most of everything. So quality of life is the key. Thank you. I look forward to speaking to you soon. And if you want to call in and ask any questions, you can also do that. We're on 844-204-62-88 that's 844-204-MATT with two T's. You can ask us anything you want about any aspect of your life. I welcome all all questions, no matter what your background, your culture, your religion, your age, you name it, I want to hear from you. I'm excited to hear from you. I'll speak to you soon.
