Hey everyone, from now on I will post all Daily Dose of Integrity newsletters into this one thread, to avoid clogging up the newsfeed every day. See the latest comments for the most recent Daily Doses. Enjoy!

There’s a question I want you to sit with for a moment: What if the thing that’s quietly wrecking your performance isn’t laziness, lack of discipline, or motivation… but doing too much? In this week’s video, I unpack something I’ve been noticing for years working with high achievers: people who are intelligent, capable, and outwardly successful often make decisions that actively work against them. Not because they don’t know better. But because they confuse activity with intelligence. From the outside, it looks like productivity. Ambition. Drive.From the inside, it often feels like burnout, frustration, and a constant sense that no matter how much you do, it’s never enough. The video explores the difference between intelligent decision-making and what I call compulsive achievement. One is about long-term quality of life. The other is about short-term relief, validation, and staying busy enough to avoid asking harder questions. A big part of the problem is that many high achievers tie their self-worth to outcomes. Results. Praise. Being seen as competent or impressive. When that happens, decisions stop being guided by values and start being driven by urgency, habit, and discomfort avoidance. You end up solving one problem while creating two more. You stay busy instead of effective. You push harder instead of stepping back. And you keep doing “the next thing” without ever stopping to ask whether it’s actually taking you where you want to go. In the video, I share some concrete examples of how this plays out in real life — in careers, leadership, relationships, health, and even parenting. I also talk about why many people are successful in spite of the way they make decisions, not because of it — and why that success often comes at a much higher cost than necessary. If you’ve ever felt like you’re ticking all the right boxes but still feeling off…If you’re achieving more and enjoying it less…Or if you’ve got a sense that you’re busy, but not aligned… This video will help you see why that’s happening — and why slowing down might actually be the most intelligent move you can make.

If you’ve ever looked at your life from the outside and thought, “I should feel good about this… so why don’t I?” this video is for you. One of the strangest patterns I’ve seen after years of coaching high achievers is this: the more successful someone becomes, the more they feel like they’re failing. Promotions increase, income goes up, responsibilities grow—and somehow the sense of satisfaction shrinks. In this video, I break down what I call the perfectionism trap. It’s the reason nothing ever quite feels good enough, no matter how much you achieve. I share a story about a client who won a spelling bee as a kid with 99%. He was proud of it. He went home excited. His dad looked at the paper and asked, “Where’s the other 1%?” You end up chasing an invisible finish line. Every win immediately turns into, “Yeah, but it could have been better.” This is maladaptive perfectionism: setting unrealistic standards, then beating yourself up afterward for not meeting them. I talk about how perfectionists tend to measure the wrong things. You don’t measure what you did—you measure what didn’t happen. Wins get rewritten as losses by imagination alone. Over time, this creates a brutal inner environment. You’re living with a voice in your head that is never satisfied, never impressed, never encouraging. That’s why so many high achievers are exhausted, anxious, burned out, and quietly miserable despite doing “better” than most people around them. They’re running hard on a treadmill that never stops. In the video, I also explain why perfectionism doesn’t actually help performance. Creativity, leadership, risk-taking, and real growth all require being willing to get things wrong. Masters don’t have undefeated records. If you’ve ever wondered why pressure seems to fuel your success while slowly destroying your enjoyment of life, this video will help you see what’s really happening—and why perfectionism isn’t your strength, it’s your leash. 👉 Go watch the full video if you want to understand why nothing ever feels like enough—and what that voice in your head is actually costing you.

Here’s the thing nobody really warns you about when you start doing well: the better you get, the worse it can feel. This video digs into a pattern I’ve seen over and over again since I started coaching high achievers back in 2013. Whether someone is earning six figures, running a company, smashing it creatively, or climbing some professional ladder, the story is weirdly consistent. As the numbers go up, so does the anxiety. Satisfaction goes down. And competition starts to feel less like a game and more like a constant threat. What’s driving that isn’t laziness, lack of gratitude, or “imposter syndrome.” It’s the comparison spiral. In the video, I talk about how success often breeds misery because we only ever measure ourselves against people who are doing better than us. There is no level where comparison suddenly stops. The video breaks down why this happens, how we’re trained into it from childhood (school rankings, sports teams, test scores, promotions), and why it creates a toxic achievement cycle. Most people only looked up. They didn’t measure globally. They didn’t look at overall life satisfaction—yours or anyone else’s. They just assumed that more money, status, or recognition equals a better life, without any real evidence. The cost of this way of living is high. You lose joy. You lose perspective. Eventually, you can lose your sense of who you even are outside of “winning.” And worst of all, you can end up burning your life down chasing a race you were never meant to win. If you’ve ever thought, “I’m doing objectively well, so why do I still feel like I’m losing?” this video is for you. 👉Watch the full video to understand why comparison is wrecking your enjoyment, why achievement addiction isn’t the same as success, and what it actually looks like to build a system where winning improves your life instead of hollowing it out.

Are You Being Ruled by Threats That Don’t Exist? One of the strangest patterns I’ve noticed after years of coaching high achievers is this: the more successful someone becomes, the more frightened they are. Not of real danger, but of things that mostly exist in their imagination. I’ve come to think of it as being afraid of ghosts. Invisible threats, invented catastrophes, worst-case scenarios that feel urgent and real, even though there’s no evidence they’re actually going to happen. What makes this especially confusing is that these are smart, capable, highly rational people. They solve complex problems for a living. They manage risk. They make good decisions. And yet, inside their own heads, they’re oddly superstitious, reactive, and constantly on edge. Their nervous systems are stuck in fight or flight, even though their lives are objectively safe. I talk about this in the video using an example from my own life. Years ago, I worked in Corrections, managing high-risk offenders where real danger was part of the job. Constant vigilance made sense there. But when I left that environment, my brain didn’t get the memo. I kept reacting to everyday life as if a crisis was about to erupt. This isn’t unique to me. High achievers are especially vulnerable to this because imagination is one of their greatest strengths. The ability to mentally simulate the future, spot patterns, and anticipate outcomes is what makes people successful in the first place. But that same ability can turn against you. In the video, I break down the difference between real fear and anxiety. I also talk about why high achievers are more likely to trust their thoughts than they should. When your mind has been involved in years of success, it’s easy to assume it must be accurate. But that’s a dangerous assumption. The real cost of this isn’t just stress. It’s relationships sacrificed, joy postponed, rest treated like a threat, and a constant sense that you can’t slow down without everything collapsing. And ironically, the very thing you’re trying to prevent often shows up anyway, because chronic stress makes you less clear, less present, and worse at judgment.