Smart. Successful. Miserable. Here’s the Pattern I Keep Seeing.

Each morning, my mate Nick and I run a simple ritual - a check-in call.

Not a strategy meeting. Just two humans asking:

👉 'How did yesterday go?’

👉 'What are you doing today?'

We cover the usual: business performance, plans, progress. But we also talk personal., emotional. Existential, sometimes.

And one day I noticed something.

Nick was killing it by the numbers. But he was wrecked. His itinerary sounded impressive - Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth. But his brain and body was screaming: 'I just want this to be over.'

Then something strange would happen.

Weeks later, in the middle of another exhausting project, Nick would say, ’Actually, that last one - it was a great time. I loved that project.'

But he hadn’t. Not at the time. He hated it.

This wasn’t nostalgia. It was re-imagining. His brain was rewriting the past to make the pain more palatable. And it was a pattern.

We call it putting on rose-coloured glasses.

But here’s the problem: do it often enough - project after project, month after month, year after year - and you end up hating your life while living it.

It’s not resilience. It’s ignorance.

Ignorance of what we’re actually doing to ourselves. Ignorance of how we’ve allowed performance to replace presence.

So Nick and I changed one thing. We still ask, 'Did we hit the numbers?’ But we follow it top with, 'How did we feel while doing it?'

And that one shift has been a revelation.

I’ve noticed when I stop fighting the moment and meet it with awareness, I don’t just perform better - I live better. Clearer thinking. Deeper sleep. More peace.

At work, and at home.

The outcomes still matter. But not at the cost of burning out our bodies or betraying our presence.

Because it’s not about grinding. It’s about not fighting yourself while you work.

This isn’t soft.

It’s just rare. But necessary.

It’s clarity.

It’s choice.

It’s life, lived now - not in hindsight.

Will you go home with peace today?

If not, let me know. Let’s talk.

As always, I’d love your thoughts.

- Darren