It’s ok to leave money on the table

There is a camp for kids who aspire to be YouTubers.

It’s to be expected. After all, Internet Clout is one of the highest forms of social status these days.

(Fun fact, 50% of teenagers between the ages of 13-18 want to be social media influencers.)

But there’s a plot twist.

The most prolific YouTubers are leaving the game. Retiring right when they’re peaking.

Might this be yet another example of becoming a prisoner of your own success?

The Post-Achievement YouTuber

Building a career online involves a tremendous amount of grit and persistence.

There are endless channels to promote your work. The algorithm becomes your new boss – always demanding more. More content. Better content. Prettier content.

For Exhibit A, meet my friend Danny Miranda. He self-produces The Danny Miranda Show and has been relentlessly putting out 3 episodes a week for years.

Through passion and hard work, Danny single-handedly willed his podcast into existence – with the ambitious goals of 1,000,000 downloads a month.

He’s had remarkable guests like Seth Godin, Mike Posner and Alex Hormozi (and yours truly).

The podcast (and related clips) have racked up millions of views.

But something inside Danny recently changed – achievement stopped being his “North Star of Success.”

My North Star for success used to be achievement. I have an entire notebook from 2022 that says “The Danny Miranda Podcast gets over 1,000,000 plays/month.” I wrote it thousands of times. But now my north star is unconditional love & joy. Success is found in loving myself, every moment, and the people around me without conditions.

Danny’s begun his journey as a Post-Achievement professional – he’s now focused on “expanding love and freedom.”

Sometimes the juice ain’t worth the squeeze

A demanding career requires you to constantly reevaluate if the juice is worth the squeeze.

You see this across all industries, like finance.

According to this Reddit thread, becoming a Managing Director in Investment Banking requires adding two decades to your age:

The bankers who are still there after 20 years and are in their early 40s, look like they’re in their 60s.

And for all the teenagers striving to become YouTubers, the current crop of stars are realizing that squeeze just ain’t worth it.

Some of their reasons to quit:

• Scaling a team created more stress, expenses and obligations
• It’s hard to produce high-quality videos twice a month
• The inability to be genuinely creative

What’s it all for?

The pursuit of Internet Fame is yet another chase of a False Idol. And Ali Abdaal, YouTuber and (recently anointed) NY Times Bestseller has also been flirting with life as a Post-Achievement Professional.

In a recent Hanging up the Cleats video titled “Everything’s Changing,” he realized the diminishing marginal returns of the next dollar:

Am I really going to continue living like, you know, I’ve made more than enough money to sustain my basic needs, I could probably still continue to make reasonable amounts of money if I just make videos when I felt like it and wrote books on my own terms, so why am I chasing more money?

Ali found that how he spent his time had gotten out of wack – he was doing things he didn’t love and was peppered by distractions.

And he found some wisdom from a community of exited founders:

These are all people who have sold companies for 8 and 9-figure exits and now they don’t need to work anymore. And one of his big realizations from speaking to other founders who have been through this is that basically that it’s okay to leave money on the table.

Would your life look any different if you were comfortable leaving money on the table?

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Should we work together?

Are you struggling to leave money on the table? Is the juice no longer worth the squeeze? Join an upcoming group coaching cohort of like-minded (and Post-Achievement) professionals.