The Unwanted Necessary Sacrifice

Dear friends,

How much am I willing to sacrifice?

As humans, we are inherently bad at sacrifice. It is our natural inclination to want it all.

The fundamental principle of economics is scarcity: we have unlimited desires but limited resources.

In life, we are never able to obtain something without sacrificing something else. Everything has a price.

In my case, the three week trip I am coming back from right now cost 3 weeks of time with family and grinding out work I want to get done. I sacrificed 3 weeks worth of progress for 3 weeks of enjoyment. Ideally, I could have them both simultaneously. However, this is impossible. Sacrifice must be made, something must be given up.

This, I believe, is the fundamental problem of most achievers: when can one justifiably enjoy the fruits of their labor?

This question is one that keeps the people that you and I look up to as successful chasing the thing that so few people have, many of whom live simple lives: fulfillment.

I was just listening to Alex Hormozi, one of the most successful men in the world, talk about this exact thing on Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom podcast. He said that he used to look down upon the people that stopped the hustle once they reached their subjective “enough”. He thought they were narrow minded, holding themselves back from their potential. He later realized that they weren’t being soft, they had just crossed the same finish line Alex is racing toward a little earlier. The finish line is satisfaction, some people just take a longer road to it.

Now, yes, the road that Alex took had much more glory involved. He’s made more money, had more impact, and come closer to “realizing his potential,” but his road also contained bigger beasts, taller mountains, more haters, more doubters, more pain.

He is trying to get to the same point as someone who is satisfied with their 35k/ year job. He is chasing what they have achieved inside.

Alex said that he regrets nothing, and I’m sure I would feel the same way in his position. I feel that Alex and I are very similar, my mind seems to mirror his, albeit 20 years less experienced.

Alex, as I do, seems to struggle to take a break from the work he is progressing on to enjoy the accumulation of his previous progress. When I graduated high school, I wanted to immediately grind on my podcast.  I wanted to keep progressing, keep moving the needle. Instead, I took a road trip with my friend out west into nature with no social media. I have had innumerable moments of silence, nothing in my hand, to reflect on everything I’ve done and built. Oftentimes “complacency” is the first thought that enters my mind.

I have realized that this is the sacrifice that the hard workers make. No matter their primary goals, I know that many of them still want some time, at some point, to enjoy what they’ve created. What they’ve done through their hard work, however, is make even that enjoyment seem like not enough.

“We sacrifice everything to get what we want, then when we get it, we want everything we sacrificed to get there” - Alex Hormozi

This is where gratitude has played a huge role in my life. I have been trying to sit with the idea that I will never fulfill all my desires, especially with the amount I have now.

I have found that the more I consciously focus on what I do have that could be lost, the less I subconsciously focus on what I don’t have that could, maybe, be found.

I don’t know if you’ll ever fully be able to embrace and accept the sacrifices you make, I haven’t yet, but you can make them hurt less.

You can’t have everything, and the sooner you stop chasing everything and embrace your sacrifices, the sooner you’ll have the thing that even the people you look up to are chasing.


The Grateful Podcast:

I have a podcast where I interview people much smarter and more qualified than me talking about how you can live a more purposeful life full of gratitude and ambition. 
I release episodes every Monday where I go over a lesson I’ve recently learned.

Every Wednesday and Saturday I release an episode with a very cool guest. 

You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or find the video version on YouTube.

Coaching:

If you’re ready to take action and need guidance, I’d love to help.

I have limited space available so if you’re interested, book a free 15-minute call with me to discuss your dreams and how to start making them happen. 

You can shoot me an email at [email protected] where we can get scheduled.

Make this week rock. Thank you so much for reading this; I’ll see you next week.

With love,

Jack Wagoner