Don’t focus too much on chasing the dollar

Yesterday, I was asked live on a Twitch stream to share my biggest career regret or mistake. Instinctively, I said: “Chasing money for too long.” Not because of the desire to be rich, but because in my early 20s, I had so much financial difficulty that I felt I needed to solve.

So, for 20 years, my career was based on dollars rather than happiness. And this, my friends, is my biggest career mistake. I still don’t regret it because the context got me to focus on my family rather than myself, but it caused severe damage to my psyche. I realized this two years ago, and only then did I start to consider myself in the equation. Now, two years later, it’s still a struggle because the habit is so deeply anchored. Lots of work is required to solve this.

Please be aware that I’m not advising that you not consider money and only focus on happiness throughout your career. You need a good balance of both, but frankly, I believe happiness should win out.

Yesterday, I explained that I believe people will have way more happiness in their work than any previous generation. Also, it’s becoming more common for people to have 4-5 careers throughout their lifetime, which offers its own advantages. For someone who’s not happy with their work today, it’s important to try lots of things until they find what drives them.

However, I’m afraid new generations will go to the other extreme. Just a few decades ago, people would work to feed their families, and happiness was the least of their priorities. And I’m afraid the other extreme is to want to be happy every day. Throughout our history, any extremity has never served people well. Now, there are 8 billion people on the planet. This means 8 billion different personalities. It’s normal to listen to your own needs with good judgment and honesty.