Why You Still Feel Stuck... Even If You're Successful

Do you ever notice how the more successful [music] you get, somehow the busier you become? Like the whole point of making money was to have more freedom so [music] you could spend time with your family and do the stuff you like, like actually enjoy all the stuff that you've worked for. But instead, you get successful and then your calendar's packed and your phone never stops [music] and then you feel like you're just working to keep up with this life that you built. And I've been there, right? You hit the goals, you check the boxes, and somehow [music] it just feels like you never have enough time to do what you want. [music] So why do we do this? It turns out that there is a very real biological reason for this. And once I understood it, [music] I completely changed how I live. And I think it can do the [music] same for you. So here's what's actually happening. [music] Our lives and our brains run on dopamine. This is the chemical that tells us what [music] to chase, right? It's the it's the pleasure response loop. But it turns out that dopamine doesn't come from actually having things. [music] It comes from pursuing them. And so actually it comes in anticipation [music] of things. This is why like for example a vacation is not about the going, it's about the thinking about going. you get a you get a huge percentage [music] of the value of a vacation just in the anticipation of it. So this is why when you finally you get the [music] goal or you the raise like the house, you hit the business milestone, right? [music] You get this quick hit of feeling like, you know, of elation, but then it all drops back to zero and then you feel stuck. Like [music] you get the fancy house and it doesn't feel much different than it did before. And the feelings of anxiety that you thought would go away don't. And the feelings of happiness that you thought you would have don't seem to last. [music] And this is simply your dopamine system. And this whole thing is reinforced by society, right? [music] We see social media and marketing and so forth. What it promises us is arrival. But what it actually is just doing is [music] spiking our dopamine. So we build lives around this. And even stress and overwork trigger dopamine. So this is why we tend to overwork even when we don't have to because our brains confuse busyiness with progress and this creates this incredibly damaging [music] cycle in our lives. This is why for many of us what we define as [music] ambition like you can if you know successful people you can see successful people you can see this the ambition can become addiction right because you're just constantly in pursuit of this thing [music] that you never seem to get and the irony of this whole thing for me that I [music] found is the harder you chase the less freedom that you feel and what I have learned is that creating more space in your life is not about more productivity hacks It's not about some way to optimize every 15 minutes [music] of activity. It's not about there's no special system to get your way out of this. [music] It's recognizing that your brain is dragging you back into what I have labeled for myself anxiety activities. And this is just the belief that the harder you push, you're finally going to feel safe. [music] And so this is why so many people talk about entrepreneurship. I was working 80our weeks to make [music] this whole thing work. What I found is the opposite. I actually the less that I've done the more successful I've become and it's because I [music] have learned I've had to learn that only a few things really matter. Most people are doing everything that they've got in their mind to be successful because they think there is some proxy between hard work and the outcome when in fact it's not true. You can look at a [music] someone you know furiously cleaning floors and know that harder work is not the case. I'm not vilifying hard work. I'm not saying it's not necessary in doses. I'm saying [music] we need to audit the, you know, the way that we're thinking and how we're pursuing the things we want in our life. [music] So, what do you actually do about this? I'm going to share with you what's worked for me. So, the first thing is you got to redesign your life around purpose. The first path to step or [music] the first step to stepping off the treadmill for me is very simple but also incredibly powerful and it's this [music] question. If you were going to live a life that was truly aligned with your purpose, what would your actual day look [music] like? And I'm not talking about some fantasy land, you know, sit on the beach fantasy of arrival, right? [music] Because this is not actually what is satisfying. Most people, this is why so many people who build a big business end up going back to well, [music] it's partially the dopamine loop. But the truth is, I've never met anyone who's doing absolutely nothing who feels fulfilled. [music] We're wired for contribution. like our our our desire to contribute to the tribe. This is another thing, right? Is we optimize our life around external metrics rather than what really matters to us. And this is because we have [music] this weird need to fit in with the tribe. And so if such and such has a car, then you got to keep up with them [music] and so forth. However, I digress. What I'm trying to talk about here is in real life with the responsibilities that you [music] have, kids, work, and family, what would your perfect day look like? So, here's what mine actually looks like. [music] I want to wake up at the sun. I want to read and I want to meditate early in the morning. I want to make breakfast with my kids. [music] I want, and this is a critically uh a critically important point for me, I want to do 4 hours of focused, [music] meaningful work a day. I want I want work. I don't want it to own my life. And I want to blow off work when [music] the snow is good or the climbing's good or the biking's good or whatever. I want flexibility. I want control over my time. Every day I want at least a couple hours outside every day that I reasonably can given my slowly aging body and [music] inability to recover at the speed that I once could. I want to have dinner with my [music] family. And I want calm evenings. I want calm and I want peace. [music] and I don't want to have to sacrifice living a good life for I don't want to like have to earn peanuts to live like this. This is what freedom looks like for me. The [snorts] question then becomes, what is this for you? And I think so many of us have never taken a moment to step back and say, what would my life actually look like if it [music] were perfect? The life I'm actually living, not some fantasy life that doesn't exist. There's the old maxim, right, that if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. For many of the folks watching a video [music] like this, your perfect life is much closer than you think. Perfect, [music] right? But you have to be able to picture it. If you can't picture it, you can't build it. All right. The second thing is you have to start thinking in terms of [music] leverage. Whatever you want in your life, whatever that looks like, you are going to have to get control over [music] your time. This is another reason that the higher we climb, the less we feel fulfilled. Because [music] especially if you have a job, and a lot of times for people with businesses, what we do is we think [music] that the higher up we go, the more freedom we'll get, right? Because we'll get income. But what actually happens is we especially in a job you get incremental increases in in income [music] and exponential increases in responsibility. And so the higher you go the less freedom you have. [music] And so you the next thing to do is and [clears throat] I had to learn this the hard way is you have to start thinking through the lens of leverage. [music] So what do I mean when I say leverage? Most people hear leverage and what they think I mean is money [music] or getting enough money in a retirement account so you can live off the 4% rule or whatever. This is not what I mean. That's all [music] great. If you got enough money to live on 4%, great. However, leverage is a way of thinking. Leverage is a law of physics. [music] And I relate it in this way because it is such a foundational piece of our universe that [music] once you start thinking this way, you will be unable to stop seeing it. Leverage says a small force applied well moves big things. [music] Right? But what our culture teaches us is that more activity is the thing that is going to create the outcomes in our life. So [music] we stop thinking through the lens of leverage and we start thinking through the lens of hard work because the hard work gives us dopamine, the leverage, the the taking the step back to say what if I wanted to earn four times much in the same amount of time. What would that [music] system look like? There's no immediate dopamine in that. That feels scary because you have to sit and think about that thing, right? [music] And so you have to step back and you have to start thinking through the lens of leverage. But what most people re don't [music] realize is leverage exists all around them. If you are have any level of success right [music] now, your skills are leverage. They can be leveraged in a better way than a job. What is a job? A job is a [music] consulting business with one client where you've exchanged security, which is false. [music] We can Meta just laid off how many of their AI team? If you thought any company job would be safe, you'd think [music] AI plus Meadow, right? They've laid off all these folks. Jobs are not safe. [music] You could think of terms of skills. You could think of terms of systems. I'll make another video about the five kinds of [music] leverage that I think about in my life. If you want to see that, you can uh subscribe, hit the bell, whatever those things. You can also there's a link for my newsletter which is free. I'll email it out there. [music] But you have to start thinking through the lens of leverage. So most people sell their best skills [music] to a single buyer, right? And this is one of my core messages that I want to get out there on this channel is that [music] a job is a consultancy with a single client. But we've been taught to see a job as the default [music] way to make money. It isn't. If you take those same skills and you build [music] systems around there, use automation and processes, a oneperson business model, you create frameworks, [music] you can make 10 times more in a fraction of the time. I went from $75 an hour as a copywriter to $75,000 a project as a messaging strategist. [music] I was applying the same thing. I changed the way I packaged it and I changed the way that I earned. [music] And there I'll link to in another video here either here or in the description [music] that from Fletch. They did the same thing. They were product marketers. They created a consultancy. There's another video uh on my channel. I'll link this one also about five people who built million-dollar consultancy. [music] I don't know if it's million or 500,000. By the way, if these numbers sound crazy to you, they're not. I'm telling you, they're not. There's a I was just talking to someone in our community yesterday named Sarah. She's only been in her business less than a year. She's [music] making about 250 a year on uh 25 hours a week. She comes out of the agriculture industry. It's not just [music] tech. It's like it's actually meat products. Anyhow, we are trained and told [music] by the internet, right, that hard work is success. And we can look and say that hardest [music] working people are not the most successful. The the person with three jobs is not the most successful. The smartest working people are. And again, I'm not vilifying hard work. I'm not pretending you never have to work hard, but hard work is only ever going to get you so [music] far if you don't step outside of the system and build leverage for yourself. You will never get the freedom that you wanted from the money in the in [music] the first place. This single idea, what you work on and who you work on it with [music] matters far more than how hard you work, changed my perspective about how I was going to show up and earn in the world. Oh yeah, I was going to do a little reminder in the video here that I'm putting together um a stepbystep framework around this idea. If this is something that's interesting to you about how to start thinking about taking skills you already have [music] and turning them into a business, it'll be free. I will link it uh I will link below where you can sign up to get it in the future [music] if that is something that's interesting to you. In the interim, moving on to step three [music] here or idea three and this is learning to turn it off. What I have learned is that our brains live in this constant illusion delusion that we're going to arrive somewhere. [music] You're going to get a certain amount of money or a perfect system or a relationship and then you are going to finally feel how you thought you wanted to feel. [music] And I can tell you every number you hit, everything you get, that feeling doesn't come until you decide [music] to start feeling that way. So the time to feel [music] how you want to feel is now. And I want you to, if you're willing, do this simple little thought [music] exercise with me. You don't for one second in your life stop to think about appreciating having heat in your house [music] or clean water or food whenever you want or a car that can drive you anywhere in the world or that for a relatively [music] inexpensive price you can buy a seat on a plane that will bring you across the entire globe in less than a day. [music] Every single thing that I just described is an unimaginable luxury for the richest people on the planet [music] even a few generations ago. But we cannot find gratitude in these things. [music] If we cannot find gratitude in these simple things, do we think that we will [music] find it at $10 million or on a private plane or with another promotion or whatever? [music] It is impossible that that will be the case. The feeling doesn't come later. It only wins happens when you start to just live it now. Which is why I'm such a proponent [music] of understanding what do you actually want your days to look like? Because I bet you for a huge percentage of the people that will [music] watch this video, whether you have kids, I have two kids, like you can make this happen much easier than you think. It's 12 months of work for a lifetime of the back [music] end. Now, for me, this is not something that you fix once. I easily can slip back into this chase all of the time and I'll either find myself, you know, filling every hour or saying yes to things I shouldn't or [music] setting arbitrary number goals that I know aren't going to get mewhere anywhere or [music] trying to prove something that nobody cares uh you know if I prove. So what I've built for myself is this philosophy [music] that I call time wealth. And it's just a set of principles and habits [music] and systems that help me stay focused on what matters to me so that I own my time. I'm doing meaningful work [music] and I'm living on my terms. I will share if this is interesting, let me know in the comments. I'm going to share more about this on the channel. I'm also going to put together additional there'll be free resources about the things that I do. [music] Um, you can sign up in the newsletter. I'll do them there. You can find them on this channel. [music] Uh, I'll put them in all these places. But I would love to hear from you if any of this resonates in [music] your life. If it's something you found to be true for you and where you've seen it and if you've done things for [music] yourself that have helped you to recognize that this, you know, pursuit is not going to get you where you wanted and what you've done instead. [music] So, with that, um, check out the videos here which expand on these ideas. I'm going to leave the [music] ones I discussed in the description, and I'll see you in the next video.

You worked hard. You hit the goals. So why does it still feel like you’re stuck? This video breaks down the hidden reason success often leads to less freedom — and what to do about it. We’ll talk dopamine, ambition, burnout, and how to rebuild a life around Time Wealth — not just income. ________________ MORE WAYS TO UPLEVEL YOUR LIFE 🔔 Subscribe to my newsletter: brendandell.com 👉 Download the free G.A.M.E. Framework Worksheet here: https://www.brendandell.com/thegame 🧠 How 1,400+ have built $300K - $800K businesses: https://www.brendandell.com/freelance-formula-3 ________________ OTHER VIDEOS YOU MIGHT ENJOY 5 Solo Entrepreneurs Making up to $1.2M/Year: https://youtu.be/hd6BwIQ3FaQ The Only 2 Skills that Matter in the Age of AI: https://youtu.be/noa0KutMcQo Everyone is Lying About AI, Here's Proof: https://youtu.be/QtHuXwxBcFA America's Wealth Split: The CEO Warning You Can't Ignore: https://youtu.be/DEaSZhgHh9E