The Power of Now: Why Waiting for Success to Enjoy Life is a Mistake

As founders, we often postpone our happiness, telling ourselves that we'll enjoy life once we've achieved our goals.

But what if this approach is fundamentally flawed?

A few years ago, I held onto this belief that there were certain things I could not let myself enjoy until I achieved "success" with my company Elevar.

I was creating artificial boundaries around what I chose to allow myself to enjoy, and the scarcity mindset was making me miserable.

There were the obvious things like:

• Can’t take a big vacation

• Can’t unplug over holidays

• etc

But I discovered there were deeper wants.

Wants that I was telling myself that I could not enjoy until/unless that success happened.

Mind you — I could not even articulate what that “success” really meant.

But I decided to change this mindset.

I still remember the day I was driving to Restore here in Charleston mid-afternoon and my partner Nate called me to chat.

I told him I was heading to Restore to do cryotherapy and stretch.

And I think his response was something like “dayyummm big dog!!”.

I went on to explain my internal battle I was telling myself — I can’t enjoy certain pleasures until I “succeed” — and that it was time to stop.

In the days prior I wrote down these “wants” that I was holding myself back from and decided to build them into my life.

Not next week.

Now.

And one of them was of course — Cryotherapy and stretching.

At the time I was battling a nagging calf injury from basketball that wouldn’t fully heal (because I wouldn’t fully rest 😀) for almost a year.

And I wanted to get rid of it for good by doing daily cryo and stretching.

So I signed up for an unlimited $169/month membership and put 5 appointments into my calendar/week.

I went on to do that for almost a year.

Most of my wants at the time were very heavy on time vs material unlocks:

1. Cryo & stretching

2. More dedicated time to training (exercise)

3. Spending more time doing new things with my boys

4. Taking vacations with family

5. Removing myself from certain roles/functions in the business that were really stressing me out while balancing everything else on my plate

6. Buying healthier food even if it meant another $100+/week in groceries

7. etc

These may seem like small changes, but it really invigorated me and helped me continue to lean into enjoying the PROCESS of building a company vs focusing on an OUTCOME.

If this sounds familiar to you here’s what I recommend:

1. Go for a long walk without your phone. Do it a few times if needed. But take as much time you need to let your mind wander. Delve into your core to understand what you truly want today that you are not allowing yourself to enjoy.

2. Write these down in a notepod or Apple notes.

3. Repeat steps 1-2 as many times as you need. You may not have as many of these wants on the tip of your tongue that I had. The important part is to give yourself space.

4. Prioritize what you want the most and JFDI (just f’ing do it). Build it into your schedule. If it costs money and you need to budget or cut expenses then I promise you that you’ll find this.

Start enjoying these pleasures.

Chances are it will help unlock another big growth curve for you.