The second pattern is managing reality instead of enjoying it. Joe describes a Stanford-educated CEO-turned-venture-capitalist with a $30 million house and a miserable marriage who asked what went wrong. The answer was fuel: he’d been running on the dirty fuel of “I’m not enough” instead of the clean fuel of enjoyment.
“The fuel that you’ve been using has been dirty fuel. It’s been a fuel of ‘I’m not enough,’ rather than a clean fuel of enjoyment.”
Joe uses an efficiency frame: end the day exhausted and miserable and you burned a lot of energy; end it with more energy for tomorrow and you didn’t—because you enjoyed yourself. Management also repels people. A friend who’s trying to manipulate you produces an “ugh”; a friend who’s plainly enjoying you draws you in. So enjoyment is both more attractive and more effective than getting your way.
Enjoyment has two meanings: doing things you enjoy, and learning to enjoy the thing you’re already doing. Right now you can choose to enjoy yourself 10% more—and that gives you energy, perspective, presence, and alignment, so what you achieve actually fits who you are.
Related Concepts
- Finding enjoyment in work is more efficient than pushing through
- Making enjoyment the only metric paradoxically increases productivity
- Prioritizing perfection over connection holds people back
- Not trying gets more done than trying
- Energy management matters more than time management
- Making enjoyment the priority dissolves procrastination
- Enjoyment is the true measure of efficiency