You are not failing at life; yes, I said so, and I will tell you why and how. You are only losing a game that you never agreed to play in the first place. See, most people think society is just how things are and also how they are meant to be. I’m talking about school, work, money, success, relationships. But here’s the truth no one ever explains to you: society is a game with rules, and the rules are designed for compliance, not fulfillment for most.
I didn’t understand this. Not many years ago, despite all my hard work, I had two homes in foreclosure, and today, I built a viable business, host a podcast with millions of listeners a month, and have helped 10s of thousands of people break out of the same invisible game. And in this episode, I’m going to teach you the principles that allowed me to outsmart society without fighting the system, burning you out or having to sacrifice who you are. Because once you see how this game actually works, you’ll never look at success, effort or money the same way again.
Let’s get into it.
Principle number one: society isn’t truth; it’s an agreement you were born into.
See, society isn’t something you choose; it’s something you woke up inside of, and this is what’s challenging for so many people: we’ve been inside this box called society since the day we were born. It’s like a fish in all of its life; it probably doesn’t know that it’s in water, and most people assume society is reality. But it’s not. It’s just a shared agreement that’s been repeated long enough to feel really solid.
Please think about this. Money only works because we agree it does. I mean, the paper itself is worthless, of course; you know, some people don’t even use the paper anymore. Otherwise, it’s just zeros, and the ones you have in a bank account may not even actually be there because the bank has loaned out your money to other people.
But everybody agrees money has value, and so you can walk into a dealership and trade your fundamentally worthless zeros and ones. For a brand-new BMW, think about status for a minute. We put people on pedestals. Athletes, musicians, rich people, successful people. Why? Because that’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always done. And you look around, and everyone else is doing it too.
But why would you put someone on a pedestal? Because they run fast, or because they put a ball in a hoop? In a hoop, as opposed to elevating someone because they’re just a good person.
Well, because that’s what we’ve always done. It’s really distorted. It is a distorted model. When you think about it, none of this actually exists in nature. I love looking at nature and using it to get a fundamental understanding of how our reality should work. Animals, trees, rivers, mountains- they don’t apply for approval. Nothing in nature waits to be validated, but because of the rules that we were born into, we live in a prison of permission and are afraid to step outside of the lines and do something different.
And this is where people get trapped because they mistake repetition for reality. They mistake agreement for truth, because once something is reinforced long enough, it just stops being questioned and questioning it starts to feel dangerous. Even when questioning is really logical, emotionally, it feels terrifying to step outside the system, so much so that people will actually defend systems that drain them.
You’re going to start a pretty risky business. Shouldn’t do that; keep your job, says a person miserable with their job. But you should live with such excesses. You know there are other people out there going without. Says a broke person.
So, here’s the thing. You don’t actually feel trapped because the rules are powerful. You feel trapped because they’re invisible. So, the moment you see that society is in agreement, not a mandatory set of rules. You can step out of the matrix and start creating within it. I mean, think about this. What an advantage it is when you stop buying into all the structures and rules that everybody else is buying into, and you create psychological and emotional freedom, knowing that you can follow your own path, your own gut, your own instinct. In fact, that’s actually the secret of the top point.
They stopped playing by the rules, and they stepped outside the structure and started creating their own game that we all now live in. And so, when you realize this, you stop assuming this is how life works and you start thinking outside the box. This was a huge shift for me.
I was 22 years old when I graduated from college. I got an internship working for a big newspaper house, and I hated my job. All I was doing was writing news reports. I saw everyone else really not enjoying their job, spending eight to 10 hours a day in cubicles. And so, I decided to start my own business. And people said, ” Hey, this is risky. And it’s like, well, looking back on it, I was 22 years old. Like, what did I have to lose? Your 20s are when you’re supposed to take risks. But are they really risks when you understand what they are?
You know, I started my own business. I learned a lot. I leveraged that to get an amazing opportunity to move to other parts of the country. So when you see that these are just agreements, and then you don’t have to agree, it’s something very powerful. Back online, which is a choice, and you get your freedom.
This is not because you had to resist the system or the rules themselves, but because you saw them for what they were in that awareness and in that awareness it opened up a new world of possibility.
Principle number 2: School, work and success were not designed for you
They were. Designed for predictability, so most people think the system failed them, and it actually didn’t. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. Modern education and work systems are intentionally built to create an efficient, predictable, and scalable workforce. It was never designed for financial prosperity or fulfillment. It’s a school in many ways; it effectively trains obedience to external authority before it ever trains self-trust.
You’re rewarded for staying in the structure, and work is the same thing. Work rewards reliability rather than originality or creativity. Success is defined really narrowly, so it can be measured, it can be ranked, it can be controlled, and within that system you’re just looking to advance in the ranks. But the ranks are controlled, and if you get out of line, then you risk being removed. And so people are shaped to fit into a role before they even understand who they are.
And over time, identity literally collapses into job titles, income levels, and a bunch of other useless labels. And so without realizing it, people stop asking What do I actually want? And you’ll notice that the more intuitive, creative, or independent someone is, the more friction they feel in the workplace.
The more out of place they are. And usually, these people either step back in line and end up feeling really suppressed and oppressed by it, or they end up doing what I did, leaving the system entirely and bettering themselves for it. But the shift happens when you separate who you are from what you do because the moment your identity isn’t sourced from a role, you no longer fear losing it. You start to align yourself with and attract opportunities that are in alignment with what you’re passionate about and who you truly are.
This is identity-first transformation. And the cool thing is? Adults follow who you’re being, not the other way around. And in that, your work or your job stops being a cage that you crawl into for 40 hours a week, and it starts being an expression of who you are. And from that money, most importantly, the joy has to follow. Feel free to continue with the part two here.
