Kay describes reaching the top of the Wall Street mountain and being hit with a wave of dissatisfaction—“that’s it?” The classic hedonic treadmill. He then shifted scorecards from money to likes and attention, but the same pattern repeats: achieve, feel empty, find a new mountain.
The deeper issue is that external scorecards can always be taken away. Markets crash. Followers disappear. Approval is fickle. Joe points this out directly: “The thing that’s interesting about the scorecards you choose—they can be taken away from you. They’re not completely within your control.”
“You followed the first map which was money—it didn’t get you where you wanted to go. You’re following the second map which is likes—which clearly isn’t getting you where you want to go or we wouldn’t be talking about it.”
Kay’s childhood reveals why: his parents’ approval was tied to performance (“do well in school and you can have all the Nintendos”), but the reward never fully landed—“there weren’t a lot of attaboys.” The goalposts always moved, training Kay to believe that worth requires external proof that’s perpetually just out of reach.
Related Concepts
- Self-trust is the only scorecard that can’t be taken away
- Goals as self-abuse versus creativity
- Approval seeking pushes people away