This holiday season, I find myself swinging between two extremes…
On one hand, I’m motivated and ambitious.
I want to grow my business to $10m+ quickly.
On the other hand, the ambition is exhausting.
When something goes wrong (which is often), I get a sharp pain in my chest and think:
“What if I never get there? What if I’m not good enough? Should I want less?”
So I picked up a book recently called Sacred Pace.
It’s the story of a CEO (Terry) who nearly burned down his life with ambition. He missed his kids’ childhood, ignored his marriage, and centered everything around money.
On the outside, I’m not like Terry.
I have good systems.
I don’t work more than 40 hours a week.
But emotionally, I relate to him more than I’d like to admit.
My wife tells me all the time:
“Emotionally, you run hot. It puts everyone around you on edge.”
And she’s right. When you feel like you’re failing to reach your deepest desires (money, growth, a big vision), discontent grows fast.
It reminds me of Naval’s line:
“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.”
In the book, Terry steps away from his ambition for three years. When he finally starts something new, he adopts two principles:
I shared this with my wife and said:
“Maybe I should do that too. No goals. Just 40 hours a week. Whatever happens, happens.”
She didn’t hesitate:
“Well, that sounds dumb. If that’s how you plan to run a business, just go get a job. Casting vision and building with ambition is part of who God made you to be.”
She was right.
Maybe Terry needed to not set goals, but that’s not me.
But maybe I do need different goals - ones that aren’t purely financial.
When I think about my goal of selling the company for $25M in five years, I’m mostly imagining my own comfort:
None of that is wrong. But “buying stuff” is a small and shallow ambition.
Financial metrics matter — good businesses should make good money — but they’re a terrible motivator.
So as I round out 2025 and look toward a new year, I’m asking a different question:
“What deeper ambitions does a financially successful business unlock?”
In other words:
If the business does well, what greater purpose does that enable?
What mission? What calling? What impact?
I’m not entirely sure yet, but I’m thinking about:
Somewhere in all of this, I can feel a different kind of vision emerging - a vision that isn’t about proving myself, but about becoming the man I’m meant to be and building something that serves others.
It’s a vision big enough to be worth my ambition, yet grounded enough not to destroy me when things go wrong. It allows me to set goals from a place of abundance, not fear.
And while this vision still depends on my success, it no longer asks me to hitch my worth to the outcome.
This is the tension I’m sitting with:
Ambition without anxiety. Drive without fear. Growth without self-destruction.
I’m not there yet. But this feels like the first step.