Why Your Generation Is Obsessed With Freedom

0:00This might be the most valuable piece of the podcast for young people. So, let me just make this point. Right now, I would say the youth of at least the Western world is obsessed with the idea of independence, freedom, and optionality. They want to do it their way and have all options open. They never want to get tied down. They don't want to commit to a career. They don't want to commit to anything. It's because like I don't I don't know if something's going to change.

0:26But, the optionality that we earn, it's like just making a ton of money, but never spending it. If you die at the end of your life with a big pile of money never having spent it, you wasted your life. It's like the ant that saves for winter and saves its entire life, but never actually eats this big breadcrumb and then they're gone. And so, options are like money, which is that the only time that they have value is when they are spent, when they are used. And so, in the short term, you'll have those options, but you need to like the part of growing up is making commitments, which is eliminating alternatives, which means you make you walk through one-way doors knowing that you can't walk back.

1:05And like I see that as a big sign of maturity. As you've taken these steps because you've decided. And decidere, right? The Latin is to cut off. You cut off options because you say this is more meaningful to me. And it's because people are unwilling to make trades. Like all deci- like there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs. So, like you will sacrifice novelty for loyalty when you get married. That's a trade. And at some point it will be worth it more for you to have loyalty than novelty in your life.

1:36Right? Um And so, there are many trades like this that we have to make. But, the ultimate trade is the one that we don't make when you basically get neither thing that you want. Because you sit on the sideline with your big stack of money, your big stack of options never having used them. Because some doors also do close because at a certain point you do lose options by not committing. >> Right. >> If you were a girl and you want to wait for your options, if you're 60 the likely that you're going to be able to have kids is very low.

2:06If you didn't have kids by the time you're 60, I'm using that as an extreme example here cuz I don't feel like dealing with it. Um then you're probably not going to have kids. And it's because that option is now gone for you. And so some options have an expiration date on them. And so sometimes we just have to decide and realize that we will not get everything in life. And I think that is that is probably one of the biggest things that I would say like what has changed about me from a maturity perspective is realizing that you cannot have it all. And like very viscerally.

2:33Like if you want a house that has a mountain view and is on the beach and is also secluded but walking distance from grocery stores and shops and shopping you can't. Because you can't be in the mountains and then also have the the the the shopping malls and all the stuff. And you can't be on the beach but also have the mountain view. It doesn't like these things these things sit separately. And if you want to also have the beach but also have skiing like there there is no place that has those things. And so we want everything and are unwilling to sacrifice anything and as a result get nothing.

3:12I'll say that's probably the biggest thing that has changed since I've gotten older is that I'm willing to make trades. Beautiful. If you like this video and you're business owner who wants to break through your current revenue ceiling, I distilled every lesson from scaling 10 businesses past 10 million and three businesses past 100 million into a completely free scaling road map that I've used to go from zero to one, zero to 10, and zero to 100 plus. And so you can click here and you can check it out.

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