Cherrypicking A Good Life Doesn't Work

When I ask, “do you want Elon’s money?” 99% of you would say yes.

Elon Musk’s money doesn’t come without being Elon.

Do you also want his mind? His daily schedule? His responsibilities? The troubling childhood? The chip on his shoulder? All of his detractors? The death threats?

Your answer probably changes.

Every mannerism, opportunity, factor, skill or relationship you have contributes to your life, leading to a different result for everyone.

People often refer to life as the human experiment. Every one of the experiments is n=1. No two experiments are the same. Elon doesn’t become Elon if one small thing in his life is different.

I love to think about this image from Tim Urban from time to time, one small decision or personality trait can completely change your life trajectory.

At this point you’re saying of course, but Elon is an outlier, surely I could pick someone more realistic and choose parts from their life that are better than mine?

Probably not.

Paying attention to the things you envy or desire about your role models might be a good starting point but you still need to find the way to those things on your own.

It is also useful — if you can’t find role models — to identify anti role models.

“I know I don’t want to end up like my friends who live in their mom’s basement, smoke weed and play video games all day.”

Even if you have more realistic expectations of the people you compare yourself to, you only see a small fraction of their life.

Your high school friends on Instagram: Tyler has been on 3 vacations in the last 6 months and gets bottle service every weekend. You don’t see that he’s working 70 hours a week has $12,000 in credit card debt and only has friends that like him because he buys the bottles at the club.

Your favourite YouTuber: They have 2 million subscribers creating lifestyle and how-to content. You don’t see that they manage a team of 12 people and spend more time doing administrative work than filming videos. They also NEVER stop thinking about work and growing their channel, their mind is never quiet.

The dude at your local gym who is absolutely yoked: You don’t see that he spends an hour a day tracking his macros. He eats chicken breast and brown rice 6 meals a week. He hasn’t eaten a slice of pizza in 3 years. Oh, and maybe he’s taking a couple of anabolic steroids that affect his relationships so he’s chronically single.

Remember in high school when you got docked marks for not showing your work in math class?

You have to do the same thing in real life.

Copying someone else’s answer doesn’t work to get credit. You have to think through the problem and put in your own work to arrive at that answer. But, I promise there are more sacrifices in that work than you anticipate.

Enough that maybe you don’t want to answer question 7 correctly — how to get famous on TikTok. Instead you want to be the person who is really good at answering question 12 instead — how to maximize time with your grandkids.