The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success

Seth Godin said: “The rule is simple: the person who fails the most will win. If I fail more than you do, I will win. Because in order to keep failing, you’ve got to be good enough to keep playing.”12,13

If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack.

The way to measure your progress is backward against where you started, not against your ideal.” —Dan Sullivan

Happiness is not something you pursue. Happiness is not somewhere in the future. Decades of scientific research is clear on this point: happiness is where you start, not where you finish.

Sometimes the greatest scientific breakthroughs happen because someone ignores the prevailing pessimism.” –Nessa Carey, British biologist1

Everything in life happens FOR you, not TO you.

Being in the GAIN means you measure yourself backward, against where you were before. You measure your own progress. You don’t compare yourself to something external. You don’t measure yourself against your ideals.

Harmonious passion is related to having high levels of grit, whereas obsessive passion is not.23 If you’re obsessively passionate, you’re thinking short-term. You’re trying to force things to go your way. But you don’t truly want whatever it is you’re seeking. You just think you need it because you’re unresolved internally. Whether you get what you want or not, sooner or later you’ll shift that unhealthy need onto something else—the hedonic treadmill will continue. Similar to harmonious passion, intrinsic motivation is also related to having high levels of grit, whereas extrinsic motivation is not.

What preoccupies us is the way we define success.” —Arianna Huffington

Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.” —Desmond Tutu

The future isn’t a reality—it’s a projection. And because it’s not reality, it can’t be part of any real measurement of your progress. The only way to measure goals is backward, against the past. Use the reality of where you currently are and measure backward from there to the reality of where you started.

Your future growth and progress are now based in your understanding about the difference between the two ways in which you can measure yourself: against an ideal, which puts you in what I call ‘the GAP,’ and against your starting point, which puts you in ‘the GAIN,’ appreciating all that you’ve accomplished.” —Dan Sullivan

yourself: against an ideal, which puts you in what I call ‘the GAP,’ and against your starting point, which puts you in ‘the GAIN,’ appreciating all that you’ve accomplished.” —Dan Sullivan

When your happiness is tied to something in the future, then your present is diminished. You don’t feel happy, confident, or successful. But maybe in the future you will be, or so the logic goes.

When you’re in the GAIN, you live your life based on intrinsic motivation and harmonious passion, which creates flow and high performance.

The way you mentally filter experiences shapes your emotional and physical response to those experiences. There’s an entire field now based on this premise: epigenetics, which shows that our perception of events and situations shapes how those events affect us.

Each time you experience the GAP, it is the equivalent of a microtrauma to your system. Over time, those microtraumas add up, and can eventually break you down. The reverse of this is also true—being in the GAIN is restorative, healing, and empowering.

Vagueness generates vagueness, so you must be specific when describing your desired results.

Use this rule if you’re often over-committed or too scattered. If you’re not saying ‘HELL YEAH!’ about something, say ‘no.’ When deciding whether to do something, if you feel anything less than ‘Wow! That would be amazing! Absolutely! Hell yeah!’—then say ‘no.’” —Derek Sivers19

The philosopher Seneca called it euthymia, which means “That you’re on the right path and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost.

Is this transactional or transformational? In other words, is this a stand-alone opportunity or a gateway opportunity? If I say “Yes” to this opportunity, what then must I say “No” to?

How will this opportunity, etc., benefit mankind? Is there a bigger cause or purpose that will benefit society?

Will this opportunity, etc., take advantage of my unique ability and make me even stronger? Will it lengthen my stride?

list of six questions he uses as a filtering process for making high-quality decisions. Here are Lee’s six filtering questions, which also act as his personal success criteria:

Is this opportunity, person, expense, adventure, experience, relationship, commitment, etc., aligned with my values? (If the answer to this first question is “No,” then Lee doesn’t proceed to ask himself the remaining five questions. If, however, the answer to this first question is “Yes,” then he continues his filtering process.)

When you’re in the GAP, you have an unhealthy attachment to something external. You feel you need something outside of yourself in order to be whole and happy. You need to have a million dollars. You need that person’s approval. You need that position or promotion. You need to be a particular size or shape or to look a certain way. When you’re driven by need, rather than want, you have an urgency and desperation to fulfill that need. The problem is that “needs” are unresolved internal pain, not something you can solve externally.

I can disappear for several months with no effect on my income. There are no whiny people in my life. I wear my watch for curiosity only. I have no time obligations or deadlines. I wear whatever I want all the time. I can quit anytime.

can wake up every day and ask, “What would I like to do today?” My passive revenue exceeds my lifestyle needs. I can live anywhere in the world I choose. I’m working on projects that excite me and allow me to do my best work.