Stress-adjusted growth
Becoming better without irreversible sacrifices.
The world is bursting with wonder, and yet […] [we rarely consider] the possibility that the ultimate point of all our frenetic doing might be to experience more of that wonder.
Oliver Burkeman
There is a common story arc among high-performing and business influencers.
They spent decades grinding to become the top of their field, only to realize everything they were sacrificing to accomplish this was making them miserable and slowly killing them.
Eventually, they have a moment of clarity and dramatically quit what they’ve dedicated their entire lives to. Then they have a crisis of identity and need to reinvent themselves. Ultimately, they learn from their mistakes and share lessons from their personal enlightenment about pursuing what they love, embracing a slower pace of life, saying no more, and making up for lost time with everything they sacrificed earlier in their lives.
Their stories are undoubtedly inspiring, and their advice is undeniably valuable, but it’s a lot easier to take things slow and pursue passion projects after spending decades becoming massively wealthy and building a reputation that opens up doors only the 1% can access.
It’s harder to embrace a slower pace of life without life-changing wealth or exclusive opportunities, but taking a sustainable and diversified approach to our lives doesn’t require the irreversible sacrifices that growth-at-all-costs does.
Our goal shouldn’t be to maximize growth that we know we can’t sustain. Our goal should be to become better without doing irreparable damage to ourselves or those we care about.
Quiet progress
Neither extreme is purely right or wrong, but going all in on one pursuit is certainly riskier. There is guaranteed sacrifice, but no guaranteed reward.
When we bet our entire lives on one thing, we drastically increase not only our risk of failure but also the likelihood we burn out.
Pursuing excellence in this way is like investing in one stock that’s returned 50% every year for the last 10 years. It seems like a sure thing, but that can change at any time.
Pursuing a well-rounded and slower life is like investing in diversified index funds: it’s boring and simple, but if we get started early and remain consistent, the returns from the compound interest after decades of focused effort are mind-boggling.
We can create the life we want without sacrificing everything and working ourselves to the bone, but creating this life will be slower, more intentional, and a lot less glamorous.
The hard part is not grinding through endless hours of work, battling depression or addiction, losing touch with family or friends, or any other catastrophic outcome common with an all-in approach. The hard part is staying patient, staying on the path, and avoiding the temptation to go all-in or blow all our hard work on a big bet.
This approach is hard to stick with because there’s no external validation. Everyone lauds the risk taker who doubles down when they have nothing left and miraculously comes out on top, but no one praises the quiet pragmatist slowly creating a life they love.
Maximum sustainable growth
The ironic part is that pursuing the slower path is just as, if not more, extraordinary than sacrificing everything to chase success.
The discipline, focus, and intentionality required to relentlessly pursue becoming better without sacrificing other areas of our lives are incredibly rare.
Investors care about “risk-adjusted returns” above everything else when considering investment strategies. The higher the return and the lower the risk, the better the investment.
Pursuing excellence, without leaving everything else behind, has lower returns but less risk. Selling out and sacrificing everything for a chance to be the best has a chance for much higher returns, but also much more risk.
We all have an insatiable desire to grow and progress our lives forward, but growth at all costs creates a high risk for burnout and requires irreparable sacrifices.
A slower approach eliminates these risks while still providing healthy returns.
We should not be chasing maximum growth at all costs in the hope that we might be able to cash in and relax one day.
Instead, we should pursue maximum sustainable growth. We should be pushing ourselves as hard as we can while still enjoying our day-to-day lives and maintaining a reasonable sense of balance.
We won’t be on the front page of the newspaper, but we will be happy.
Prompts
What is the pursuit in life that you’re betting the most on?
How are you diversifying your identity? Will you be left with nothing if your main pursuit fails?
What are you unwilling to sacrifice in the pursuit of becoming better?
Deep Dive
The Case for Diversifying Your Identity
A quick read from Brad Stalberg on becoming more resilient.
Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.
Kevin