Sahil Bloom

But my impression is that when I go out and I have that at the front of my mind and I take actions in alignment with that mission statement, I end up achieving the greatest things and I feel most energetic about it along the way.

And when you talk about why people feel unfulfilled or miserable even when they achieve their goals, this sort of trap of success, so much of that surrounds the fact that all of our definitions of success are tied to some outcome.

I know you've written about this on several occasions.

I have certainly in the book as well.

The arrival fallacy, right?

Like you build up these things as being the destination.

You were going to wake up and feel like, oh, I got to the top of the mountain.

Ah, everything's better.

My whole life is great now.

And we know scientifically and anecdotally that it is not the case.

When we build up these destinations as being the thing, the turning point, we feel a massive letdown after achieving them.

I think that for the vast majority of people, your happiest life is found when you are engaged in struggle that you find meaningful for yourself and more importantly for others.

That idea of uncovering your meaningful struggle

is so central to how I think about living my own life.

I often talk about the value of doing hard things.

And doing hard things is not about just any hard thing that you can go out and do.

It would be hard for me to shoot a nail gun through my hand.

Yeah, it would hurt.

It would be hard.

There's no point in doing that.