I think this will help you enjoy the journey again

There’s a line from Robert Greene’s Mastery:

“The future belongs to those who learn more skills and combine them in creative ways.”

Most people in our space are not doing that.

They’re worried about the same monetary milestone everyone else is fishing for, in the same way, with the same playbook.

And then they wonder why everything feels miserable even when the numbers are going up.

I’ve lived this.

I’ve had months where revenue hit a new high and I felt nothing.

Just an empty Monday and a new bigger number to think about by Friday.

When I’m operating from that place, I make stupid decisions. I rush. I knock things off a task list to feel productive.

I stop building and start performing.

But when I switch my focus to mastery,

> Problems stop feeling like obstacles between me and the goal.

> They start feeling like the work itself.

> A messy onboarding flow becomes a puzzle I get to solve.

> A churned client becomes a clue.

> A system that broke is just the next thing to rebuild better than anyone else in my space has built it.

The Stoics had a phrase for this. The obstacle is the way.

Marcus Aurelius wrote it nearly two thousand years ago and it still hits because it’s true.

The thing in your path is the path.

When you’re locked into mastery, you’re not stressed when something breaks.

You’re curious.

You’re the kid who got the puzzle for Christmas, not the executive who got handed another problem.

Jeremy Haynes talks about this too.

Hitting bigger numbers is mostly a mindset thing.

We put figures on a pedestal so high that it stops feeling reachable.

But when you stop staring at the number and just commit to building something better than anyone else is building, the number takes care of itself.

So here’s what I’m going to do this week.

I’m going to stop checking the scoreboard so much.

I’m going to put my head down and obsess over the parts of the business only I can make great.

Hope your Sunday and this email gives you the same kind of clarity.

— Wiz