The Success Trap - Waiting to be happy and experience Joy

Mason Church

4d • General discussion

The universe has a funny way of putting exactly the right person in front of you at exactly the right time.

I knew it when we met at this random hotel in Panama.

And it became even more clear during our second coaching call.

I thought he came to me to learn about Notion, AI, and habits, but truly that was just the symptom.

The real problem? He's making $100k/month in Colombia. Living the dream on paper.

But he can't sleep. He's wired on caffeine all day. Snapping at his maid. Doom scrolling at 2 AM. Can't take a day off without drowning in guilt.

I recognized it immediately because I used to be him. Different income. Different city. Same cage.

He wasn't building freedom. He was building a fancier prison.

He kept saying "once I hit $150k/month, THEN I'll have freedom."

So I asked him: "When you hit $100k, did you feel any different? Did anything actually change?"

Silence.

"What about the goal before that? When you hit $50k?"

More silence.

Then: "No. Nothing changed. I just moved the goalpost."

So I pushed: "Okay, forget the number. What does freedom actually mean to you?"

"Hitting $150k."

"No. Really. What does FREEDOM mean?"

Long pause.

"I... I want time with my community. Time with God. To actually be able to relax without my nervous system being on fire all the time. To take a Tuesday off without feeling like a piece of shit for slowing down."

There it is.

Freedom wasn't $150k/month. Freedom was time in community. Time with God. Getting out of fight-or-flight mode. Actually being able to rest without shame.

It's our systems, habits, routines and ways of being that dictate whether we have freedom in the present moment.

So you can either chase the dopamine high and fall into that dreaded cycle. Or learn to live a life aligned to your values and build systems that set you up to win and make it incredibly difficult to lose.

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