Curator of The 3x5 Interviews | Meet the people creating what’s next at midlife. Then create yours. | 57,000+ readers | 2 exits | Army Infantry before all that.
St. Petersburg, FL
Joined May 2008
- Tweets7.8K
- Following26
- Followers12.7K
- Likes3K
This “Rule of Thirds” advice has been particularly helping in raising a son who is an athlete.
It’s also a good perspective setter when surrounded by:
- hustle culture
- social media highlight reels
- anything else that distorts the reality of life
If you find it as helpful as I have, please consider sharing it.
(thx @richroll )
facebook.com/watch/?v=105273…
Startups optimize for one thing: scale.
You?
Optimize for one thing: sustainability.
Your joy is not a luxury. It’s your moat.
There’s a name for the feeling you have right now: identity discrepancy.
It’s when the role you play no longer fits the person you’ve become.
It’s not confusion. It’s evolution.
Honor it.
The real trap isn’t failure.
It’s building a “successful” business that leaves you empty.
That’s the quietest kind of failure.
And the hardest to walk away from.
When you’re surrounded by venture-backed narratives, your brain absorbs them.
But they’re not made for you.
They’re designed for 24-year-olds betting on billion-dollar exits.
You’re betting the next decade.
Build accordingly.
The identity you built in your career may not be yours anymore.
When your title no longer excites you.
When your resume starts to feel like a costume.
That’s not a crisis.
That’s a signal.
Conformity doesn’t just affect decisions.
It rewires perception.
fMRI studies show group pressure changes how we see, not just how we act.
Think about that next time you're seduced by startup hype.
“I should raise capital” is often code for “I want to feel legitimate.”
But what if legitimacy comes from clarity, not funding?
What if you stopped outsourcing your confidence?
Most first time creators don’t fail because of lack of skill.
They fail because they build the wrong thing.
For the wrong audience.
By the wrong rules.
Check your operating system before you start building.
Building what you want is easier than building what you don’t.
It sounds obvious, but most don’t do it.
They build for prestige, legacy, or someone else’s approval.
Start with what you want.
Everything gets easier from there.
The cost of building something misaligned isn’t just burnout.
It’s regret.
Long-term.
Lingering.
Regret for not choosing yourself when it mattered most.
“Lifestyle business” isn’t an insult. It’s a strategy.
Startups fail 90% of the time.
Lifestyle businesses prioritize profitability, autonomy, and alignment and are more sustainable.
Build what supports your life, not what inflates your ego.
A quick note on “Priorities”
We toss around the word priorities as if the plural always existed.
It didn’t.
Priority, in its original form, points to a sharper way of living.
You can only have one true priority.
Everything else is a preference, a project, or a distraction.
fMRI research reveals something unsettling about social conformity:
It doesn't just influence your decisions. It literally changes how your brain processes information.
33% of people conform to obviously incorrect judgments in groups, even with money at stake.
That percentage climbs as the majority increases.
Translation: Others' expectations don't just pressure you into compliance. They alter your perception of what's possible.