“Why am I trying to do something more than this?”
This line on WhatsApp this morning sums up a struggle that most of us know too well. Things aren’t good enough as they are. Just one more business to be built. Just one more exit. A home with one more room.
Satisfied people don’t change the world. Elon Musk is not a happy person.
As entrepreneurs, after decades of working in this pattern of ‘not good enough.’ we forget that things are great the way they are: Twenty years ago, a good friend told me, “You will be afraid of sleeping under a bridge even if you own it.” I think he captured my feelings at that time.
So where does this feeling of “not enough” come from?
Some hints from my experience working with fellow entrepreneurs:
- We think we do not HAVE enough. Life would be even easier with more money. Or a bigger house. Rationally, we understand that life is not about having more.
- Underneath there is another layer: We feel WE are not enough. We don’t fulfill our expectations. Or the expectations of others. One of the key sentences of the wisdom of Charlie Munger is: “The secret to a happy life is having low expectations.” A statement from a man who did excel at most things he touched.
- Our feelings of “not enough” often come from an upbringing where things were not enough. Or we didn’t get the sense that we were good enough.
Once we can let go of that layer, a process, we can finally reach an amazing feeling:
We are enough.
And all of a sudden, things are good enough as they are.
We then can go back and do what we enjoy.
