Joy of Goals

[00:00:00] Hello, my name's Brandon Stover and I'm the founder of Plato university and the host of this podcast.

[00:00:20] For our returning listeners. Thank you for coming back. And if you're new to the show, the way it works is I'm going to narrate one of the essays that I've written about on a topic on life.

[00:00:30] After giving one full length, read through, I'll start to dissect the essay, weaving in details about my life what's going on broader in society and other issues regarding the topic I wrote about.

[00:00:42] All of the essays, including this one can be found@brandonstover.com.

[00:00:46] You can also find all the show notes and the resources that I mentioned during this episode@brandonstover.com.

[00:00:53] And if you enjoy the show and wanna get the essays in your inbox, you can subscribe to the newsletter at Brandon Stover dot. Or follow the links inside the description.

[00:01:02] Let's dive into the essay.

[00:01:04]

[00:01:16] On goals.

[00:01:18] We all have a choice for what we aim at embedded in the games we wish to play. Every game comes with its own set of rules and goals to win the game.

[00:01:27] All smaller finite games are embedded in one larger, more infinite game where our goal is to continue to have the ability to play all games.

[00:01:36] In this infinite game, let's call it life. There is no winner or loser. We all die in the end. The only goal is that you keep playing not just the you in this lifetime, but every you and every lifetime. whether your beliefs regard that as reincarnation legacy children, a collective oneness or source consider this what happens when we reach a goal, we set another and when we reach that goal, we set another.

[00:02:06] And when we reach that goal, we set another.

[00:02:09] Then, what we want is not the content of the goal, but the goal itself, all the joy of having a goal is found in the pursuit of that goal. So why do we worry we are not reaching our goals fast enough?

[00:02:22] The man that accomplishes 15 goals before death is no more happy than the man who spent his whole life pursuing one. And once you're dead, the joy of the goal can no longer be felt anyways, nor does the goal matter. You're dead. You can no longer play the game. The.

[00:02:38] The objective of the infinite game of life is not to reach a goal and stop, but to continue playing. There will always be another goal after this one. So why not enjoy the process of fulfilling the goal you have now? You already have what you really want a goal. So cherish it. Be grateful for it. It means you're still playing the game.

[00:02:59] So if you only need one goal to play the game, and that goal is your choice, then what shall you choose? Well, if you're going to put work in towards a goal for yourself, should it not be towards the best possible version of yourself that you can conceive to become the most valuable player in the infinite game?

[00:03:19] To the point where others see your goal as naive, unfathomable, too ambitious.

[00:03:25] And why would some disregard this ambition either? They don't believe you will attain that goal because you have never shown evidence of your capability for reaching lofty. Or they fear their own ambition. Ambition requires you to examine yourself and say, I'm not my fullest potential. I could be more, it's a declaration of what you're choosing to become by making that choice.

[00:03:48] You also close the doors to other possibilities. But if you don't choose, you stay young, full of pure potential immature and undeveloped.

[00:03:58] Why do you fear sharing your ambition? Well, I might be ostracized from my peers, but is that not the point to develop beyond them? Yes, but I don't wish to alienate them.

[00:04:10] Then share your ambition as you become that in which you envision bring them along with you, show them the potential of what they could become to

[00:04:20] in the end. The ultimate goal seems to be the continuation of humans to continue to play the infinite game. Nature would agree. The most valuable player will be one who plays finite games in such a way that they are in alignment with the infinite game of life. Easier said than done the rules of the infinite game are always changing.

[00:04:40] The uncertainty can be too much to bear. Let us not forget the goal though. Remember what you're aiming for and you will have all the certainty you.

[00:04:50] Now this essay was inspired by one of my friends, a good friend Jesse, he also known as meta dude. I definitely recommend checking out some of his content if you enjoy philosophy and diving into society and the current pop culture of today and how that. Intersects with different philosophical topics.

[00:05:09] He's a great guy to check out. But he was reflecting on some of the goals that he was aiming towards and feeling like he wasn't at getting there fast enough and that he needed to start taking different options or doing something else to, in order to reach those goals faster. And this is often something that I reflect on as a startup founder.

[00:05:28] I have this big vision for Plato university something that's going to take a long time to. And I often feel like I'm not doing enough for not moving fast enough towards reaching those goals.

[00:05:38] And so when I sat down to reflect on this, I started to realize that goals are actually what we are seeking. That's, where we actually get all the joy of having a goal. In fact, our brain is actually wired that way. Dopamine is not a reward for reaching a goal. It's actually released in your brain more in pursuit of a goal when you're moving towards something, not when you actually achieve it.

[00:06:03] So from a neurochemical perspective, we're more happy in the pursuit of a goal than when we actually reached the. And this is why we keep setting goals. It's the way we're hardwired. So let's go ahead and read through the essay again and I'll break it down line by line or certain portions of it anyways.

[00:06:20] All right. Beginning of the essay, we all have a choice for what we aim at embedded in the games we wish to play. So this is referring to that. We all get to choose the goals we want to have and the games that we wanna play in life, just because we're fed a standard template by society of go to school, get good grades, get a job, you know, do that forever.

[00:06:40] And then finally retire. So on and so forth. That was the standard template. You know, maybe a couple decades ago, we get to choose whatever games we play. I'm choosing to play the startup entrepreneur game. I also choose to play a bunch of different games in my life and because I'm choosing those games, they each have their own rules and strategies and things to accomplish and supposedly win at that game.

[00:07:03] That leads us to the next lines. Every game comes with its own set of rules and goals to win the. All smaller finite games are embedded in one larger, more infinite game where our goal is to continue to have the ability to play all games.

[00:07:18] So this idea of finite games and infinite games comes from a couple different books. I read most recently the one by Simon Sinek, but there's a much older book. I can't remember the author's name, but I'll include the link inside the show notes, but basically finite games have a certain set of rules in a way that you would win.

[00:07:36] There's a clear winner and loser. An infinite game is where the rules keep changing. And the objective of the game is not to win it's to continue playing the game you keep going on forever. Hence, the reason it's called infinite. Now, if we apply this to life, life would be our infinite game. We're doing all of these different things throughout our life, and it adds up to the entirety of our life.

[00:07:59] Now, eventually we die and unfortunately we don't get to keep playing, but if we continue to set up our life in a way that leaves a legacy, or you have a child or something like that, theoretically, you still get to play the infinite game.

[00:08:12] And that leads into the next few lines. So let's continue in this infinite game. Let's call it life. There's no winner or loser. We all die in the end. The only goal is that you keep playing, not just you in this lifetime, but you in every lifetime. Whether your beliefs regard that as reincarnation legacy children, a collective oneness or source,

[00:08:36] If you look at many religious texts or certain beliefs, There's this belief that there's a core part of you. That's in every single other person. Some believe this is reincarnation where you die and you, that source part of you is reincarnated as another person or some other form of life.

[00:08:54] There's also this idea of a collective oneness. The towel often believe this. Where there's some source of you, a divinity that's in every single person, every single being that has consciousness.

[00:09:06] Of course you can leave a piece of you in your legacy, maybe in the things that you write, the movements, the organizations, or the businesses that you build. The. Or the way that you leave an impact on society.

[00:09:19] If you have children, there's also a piece of you that's in that child and that gets to continue to play the game of life.

[00:09:26] Now, this is really important because that means the decisions that you make in playing the finite games are going to have consequences on the way that you play the infinite game. And you'll see you later on that. What we want to do is align the way that we're playing finite games, the way we're focusing on short term goals that does the most possible good in the long run.

[00:09:47] And I think in today's society, we disconnect those two. We get so focused on the short term on the goal that we're focused now that we forget that we're playing in the long term game of life.

[00:09:58] And if we remembered that we were playing an infinite game, well, then we're gonna wanna do what has ever best that allows us to keep playing. That means sometimes short term, you're gonna have to make some different decisions that probably aren't as best or going to help you win that certain game.

[00:10:13] Let's continue on with the essay, consider this what happens when we reach a goal, we set another, and when we reach that goal, we set another. And when we reached that goal, we set another.

[00:10:26] And what we want is not the content of the goal, but the goal itself, all of the joy of having a goal is found in the pursuit of that goal. So why do we worry? We are not reaching our goals fast enough.

[00:10:39] I talked about this in the beginning. When I in the breakdown.

[00:10:42] But this is something that we all do. We all set a goal and we feel like we're not reaching it fast enough. We just want to get to the end of this goal rather than actually cherishing it for what it is for the happiness and joy that it's bringing us as we develop ourself in pursuit of that goal.

[00:10:58] All the benefits of having the goal is in the pursuit. You get the happiness of having the goal. When you're pursuing it. We talked about dopamine and how that works, but think about how much you have to develop and change and become a better person as you pursue a goal. Like if we take the goal of losing weight in the gym, You might spend six months on this goal. And in six months, maybe you lose 20 pounds and you're going to the gym and you have this routine now of working out. But all the transformation happened in those six months, not at the end. And during those six months you've built a routine you've dealt, developed, healthy habits.

[00:11:34] You developed resiliency and the ability to show yourself that you can change and that you can do something hard. And all of those benefits are going to continue to benefit you for the rest of your life. So all the good juicy stuff was in the six months. It wasn't in actually reaching the goal.

[00:11:52] Yes, you lost 20. But the best stuff was in the goal. And now that you've lost 20 pounds, you're probably gonna set another goal to keep yourself motivated in order to continue their routine.

[00:12:02] We see this all the time with serial entrepreneurs, they have this big grand vision of building this company. They put in all so much time and effort. And they grow as an entrepreneur learning so many different lessons and finally they grow something big and it gets acquired. And immediately after it gets acquired, you can listen to so many entrepreneurs that go into depression because they no longer have this thing that they're working on.

[00:12:27] And so what do they do? They go find another problem and they build another company because all the joy of pursuing the goal of building this great. Was actually in the building, it wasn't actually in achieving it and having it sold off. And so they just continued to keep doing this over and over and over again.

[00:12:45] Now this is particularly important to me because the startup that I wish to build Plato university is focused on revolution, the higher education system. And I specifically chose this goal for several reasons, but one of 'em because it's a long term goal to take on the higher education system. Been around four centuries now

[00:13:04] is going to take a long time. I would rather have one big lofty goal that I'm working on instead of having to reinvent a goal or be a serial entrepreneur and build multiple companies in order to have the joy of a goal. And so I believe it's better to go after something big and lofty, cuz that's gonna be a sustainable goal that you keep working.

[00:13:24] And you're gonna get all the benefits of having the goal as you work towards it.

[00:13:27] And that leads me into the next lines. The man that accomplishes 15 goals before death is no more happy than the man who spent his whole life pursuing one. And once you're dead, the joy of the goal can no longer be felt anyways, nor does the goal matter. You're dead. You can no longer play the game.

[00:13:46] Look, it doesn't matter what you do in this life. Everything that you achieve, you can't take it with you once you're done.

[00:13:52] Yes. You can leave the legacy and do many great things. But even in 2, 3, 4, 500 years, many of the people are going to forget you. And so you won't matter anyways.

[00:14:03] Now that might be extremely depressing, but it is the reality.

[00:14:07] So that takes us back to the purpose of having a goal. Is actually in pursuing it in building something in the journey rather than achieving it in a legacy that will be live beyond you. Everything greats about having a goal is in the process of that goal.

[00:14:22] Let's continue. The objective of the infinite game of life is not to reach a goal and stop, but to continue playing. There will always be another goal after this one. So why not enjoy the process of fulfilling the goal you have now? You already have what you really want a goal. So cherish it. Be grateful for it.

[00:14:41] It means you're still playing the game. Now this one is a little bit of a play on life and death. Look, if you were still pursuing a goal, that means you're alive and that's something to be extremely grateful for. Yes. Life may be chaos and may be crap right now. But you still have the ability to get up and pursue that goal.

[00:14:59] Whatever that goal may be small or large, you can say there's something that you want to achieve in life and go after it.

[00:15:06] Yes. There may be a ton of circumstances that are keeping you from pursuing that goal. It doesn't matter because you're still pursuing it. You're going to get the joy from that. And in fact, the more challenges that you. In pursuing that goal, the richer, the goal is because you're over overcoming those challenges and you're becoming a better person as you do it.

[00:15:25] Let's continue. So if you only need one goal to play the game, and that goal is your choice, then what shall you choose? Well, if you are going to put work in towards a goal for yourself, should it not be towards the best possible version of yourself that you can conceive to become the most valuable player in the infinite game?

[00:15:45] This goes back to my point. If you're going to set a. Then you might as well set it really high, cuz again, everything good about a goal is in the process of it. So if you set a goal really high, you're going to have to become a very valuable person and change yourself immensely in order to reach that goal.

[00:16:03] There's a difference between going to the gym and say, I'm going to lift five pounds and saying, I'm going to lift 105 pounds. The amount of work that I have to do in order to get to the strength level of lifting 105 pounds is immense. But if I continue purchase to pursue that goal and get to that point, look at how much I built my body in order to do that, this applies to any goal you're going to have to build yourself, build your character in order to reach that goal.

[00:16:31] So set your sites high, Become the best possible version of yourself that you can conceive of. Let's continue to the point where others see your goal as naive, unfathomable, too ambitious. why would some disregard this ambition either? They don't believe you will attain that goal because you have never shown evidence of your capability for reaching lofty.

[00:16:51] or they fear their own ambition.

[00:16:54] Look, when you start setting lofty goals, there's gonna be plenty of people that tell you that's too ambitious. And actually this is a problem that I often have where I don't wanna share my goals with other people because they are so large. And I don't wanna put them down for having such lofty goals and them not setting them theirselves.

[00:17:11] And I also don't want people to tell me you shouldn't go after. Like I'm gonna go after them anyways. So please don't tell me that, but why do people do this? Well, if you haven't reached any big goals in the past, they have no evidence that you can do it and you have no evidence of it yourself. So then why should they believe that you could actually do this big loft?

[00:17:29] Do you think they're looking for evidence in the world to confirm their belief? So they're gonna believe that you can't do it cuz that's all the evidence they've ever shown. So what you're going to have to do in order to change that evidence is actually go out and accomplish something big. And even then there's still gonna be people that tell you that you're too ambitious.

[00:17:46] Look at Elon Musk.

[00:17:48] But the other reason that people tell you you're too ambitious is because they don't want to go after the goals that are ambitious for them. They're too scared of them. As they should be. You're going to have to do a lot of change. Change is scary, but to become the person that can reach those goals, you almost have to become fundamentally a different person.

[00:18:07] And that almost feels like death. So yes, ambitious goals are scary. Let's continue with the essay. Ambition requires you to examine yourself and say, I'm not my fullest potential. I could be more. It's a declaration of what you are choosing to become by making that choice. You also close the doors to other opportunities.

[00:18:27] So when you're chasing ambitious goals, you're doing a lot of self-reflection cuz you're looking at where you're weak, the skills that you still need to develop in order to reach that goal.

[00:18:37] And when you set a lofty goal, you're also choosing what you want to become. You're gonna have to cut away all the other stuff in your life. That's not in pursuit of that goal. You're gonna have to find ways to interweave the different parts of your life that go towards that goal. This is why I often teach about one central purpose.

[00:18:54] It acts as a guard rail for everything that you're doing in life, an alignment to reach that purpose.

[00:18:59] If that sounds confusing to you, I actually have a free course called how to find your purpose. It's through Plato university. I'll leave a link in the description below.

[00:19:08] But the important part here is that you're also making a choice to close doors, to other opportunities in life. There's gonna be a million different things that you could do a ton of different strategies that you could use to reach your goals. You also get the choice of what goal to go after. And so in that world of possibilities, you're going to have to choose one.

[00:19:27] Because if you don't choose, and if we move into the next line, you stay young, full of pure potential immature and undeveloped.

[00:19:36] This is what the story of Peter pan is about. He's the leader of the lost boys. He has so much potential, but he never wants to grow up. He never wants to become an adult and choose something to put his energy towards.

[00:19:48] And so he stays the leader of those lost boys, immature and undeveloped

[00:19:52] to develop something. You actually have to cut away some of that potential, but as you do that, you master particular things in your life, but that only comes with dedication and attention towards those things.

[00:20:04] Let's continue on with the rest of the essay.

[00:20:06] Why do you fear sharing your ambition? Now this next part of the essay, I'm writing it in a way that I'm actually asking these questions of myself. I mentioned earlier that I often hold back from sharing the goals that I'm working towards. And especially the ambitious and lofty ones.

[00:20:22] So let's look at this next part of the essay and then I'll explain why, why do you fear sharing your ambition? Well, I might be ostracized from my peers, but is that not the point to develop beyond them? Yes, but I don't wish to alienate them.

[00:20:38] Then share your ambition as you become that in which you envision bring them along with you, show them the potential of what they could become to

[00:20:47] in the previous paragraph, we talked about ambition and you having to choose a path that you're going down, you're cutting away the other possibilities. Now, when you do that, You're also cutting away the things that connect you to other people, because those are often goals that they're chasing or ways that they're developing themselves.

[00:21:04] See when you're immature and undeveloped in a child, you make friends with everybody you can be like anybody. But as you decide, what's important in your life as you set goals and you move towards them, you're starting to chisel yourself down and you're no longer like other people.

[00:21:20] And as a consequence, you're going to lose connection to those people. You're going to set yourself apart from them. And the more ambitious your goal, the more lofty it is, the more chiseling that's necessary. And so as you whittle away, those. Pieces of potential in you that could connect you to others.

[00:21:36] It's going to be a little more lonely.

[00:21:38] And so that often deters me from wanting to share my ambitious goals, because oftentimes when I'm moving towards these goals, I'm doing 'em with a specific strategy. that aligns with the circumstances of my life and my own personalities. And a lot of times what I've found is that's not how everyone else does it.

[00:21:57] For example, in building Plato university, as a startup, first of all, I'm building an education organization, a university that would most of the time in the traditional way be done as a nonprofit or something through the government, not going that way, going as a for-profit.

[00:22:13] Okay. So now I'm in the for-profit world. Well, in the world of startups, oftentimes you go and get venture back funding and you try and build this crazy thing in three to five years and then flip it. I'm also not trying to do that. I'm trying to build a business that, you know, lasts a hundred years while I'm still alive and hopefully lasts beyond me.

[00:22:33] I also don't wanna take back venture back funding

[00:22:36] because they're going to then have say in control of how this education is being built. And although they may have great ideas, their incentives are going to be making. Not to be giving the best education possible. So I don't want to do that either,

[00:22:50] but I also don't want this to be just a lifestyle business. I want to reach the scale of a high growth startup so that I can impact as many people as possible with this education. like I'm in a real paradox, but it just means that I need to find the strategies that work the best for. Now in making all those decisions, I start to ostracize myself from different groups of people, people that may be focused solely on traditional education.

[00:23:13] People that may be in these high growth startups. Of course, I still make friends with them, but we don't completely connect the way it would be if we were doing the exact same thing.

[00:23:22] However, this is also the point you're trying to separate yourself from everybody else. You're trying to become the one perfect you that you could become. And in order to do that, you're going to have to chisel away. You're also trying to reach an ambitious goal. And as we just discussed, that's going to take some more chiseling as well.

[00:23:40] And some people don't even wanna chase that high of a goal. We talked about that earlier, in which case you're going to develop past them. And that's kind of the point, but of course you don't want to alienate them. You don't wanna make 'em feel bad for that. And that's when I get to the last line of this.

[00:23:56] Which is where you still share your ambition and show them through the results through the work that you're doing, of how this ambition can change their life. You don't shove it in their face, but you bring them along with you. So that maybe two, one day they go after their own ambition and chisel will away at themselves becoming the best possible version of themselves that they could be.

[00:24:17] This is oftentimes what helps me in order to share what I'm working on because where I started was pretty low. And so I like to share that if I can do it, then you can do it as well. You show them the potential of human being, no matter what the circumstances are that can build and reach something amazing.

[00:24:37] And because they're a human, because we all have that same collective source of humanity in us. They have that potential inside of them too. And so by you showing them that a human can reach these levels and maybe they could too,

[00:24:51] let's finish the essay in the end. The ultimate goal seems to be the continuation of humans to continue to play the infinite game. Nature would agree.

[00:25:00] Now I say this line because it seems like nature optimizes for us to continue our species, every one of the species to continue the ecosystem of living.

[00:25:09] A lot of the things that drive us as humans is to continue living and surviving or reproducing so that our species continues to live. So nature seems to be agreeance with these rules of the infinite game.

[00:25:21] Let's keep going. The most valuable player will be one who plays finite games in such a way. That they are in alignment with the infinite game of life. If there was a best possible player in the infinite game, it would be the one who keeps the infinite game going. And so you would have to play all your little small games, all the little small goals that you're going after in a way that keeps the bigger game going.

[00:25:43] So what's an example of this. Well, let's say that you have a business and you start embezzling money because that in the short term, that's the quickest way for you to get rich. So you can start embezzling this money, but then you go to jail because somebody actually cracks down on you and your business falls and no longer gets to keep playing.

[00:26:04] It's no longer in the infinite game. So, although you won in the short term, you lost in the long term. Now a business that was in alignment with the infinite game is one that's going to work well with its partners. Do the most, it can for its customers and continue to make revenue in the long term.

[00:26:21] Working towards a much loftier vision. A good example of this is Jeff Bezos and Amazon I'll leave a link in the description to the letter, to his shareholders that talks about his vision and how it's long term. And he's telling his shareholders that we're gonna play in such a way.

[00:26:38] That we're optimizing for the long term.

[00:26:40] And because he's done that, he's winning in all the little finite games as well. Amazon is a behemoth of a business. Now

[00:26:48] let's continue on with the rest of the essay. The most valuable player will be one who plays finite games in such a way that they are alignment with the infinite game of life. Easier said than done. The rules of the infinite game are always changing. The uncertainty can be too much to bear. Let us not forget the goal though.

[00:27:07] Remember what you're aiming for, and you will have all the certainty you need.

[00:27:11] Look the longer, the time horizon that you put out on a goal, the more crazy things that are gonna happen in life that change that. And there is no way that we're able to predict all of those changes. It's just too complex. Life is too complex. And for our brains in order to do that, maybe as we develop AI, we can get a little better.

[00:27:32] That's probably a long ways off.

[00:27:34] And so that's why it's so much easier to play short term, to aim for these small goals.

[00:27:39] Cuz it's easy for us to see, I do this thing and I get this consequence and if I just keep doing this thing, I'll get this consequence and that's lovely for our little brains. We enjoy that. However, if we're gonna play the infinite game. We're gonna guess we do this thing and hope it gets this consequence way down the road, but there's gonna be all these things that change it.

[00:27:57] So we're gonna have to change our strategies and be flexible. And that's really hard for our brains to comprehend.

[00:28:03] And we really don't like uncertainty.

[00:28:06] And so how do you remain certain? How do you remain confident in going. This road towards a lofty ambitious goal and still playing that infinite game. Well, you have to remember what you're aiming at. What was the goal that you chose to set for yourself? Use that as a north star. Again, I teach about this as purpose.

[00:28:26] What is my purpose in life? Mine personally has to help others find purpose and aim that towards solving global challenges. And so I try and run everything that I'm doing in a filter towards that. And you might be like, well, I thought you just said that you were building a university.

[00:28:41] I am, because it helps to teach people skills to solve those global challenges and help them reach their purpose. See, when you're pursuing a goal, you're going to need skills in order to fill, fill that goal. And I believe education is the best way to do that. I also believe education is the underlying structure.

[00:28:58] We need all other problems that we need to solve.

[00:29:01] So I feel like that's the best possible thing I can be doing with my time is working.

[00:29:05] And as I pursue that, I see areas of my life that I need to get better, the skills that I need to develop. And that helps me bring certainty about what I should be doing with my time about the choices I should be making,

[00:29:17] about how to be navigating through the complexities of life. And so if I keep that goal in mind with everything that's going on in my life, I can have more certainty and confidence about what I'm moving towards.

[00:29:28] And because I have that goal. I get to relish in all the benefits of having a goal and the happiness that it brings. So I get certainty and happiness, a couple things that it seems like everybody is chasing after, but they forget that they probably already have it. And with that, I thank you for listening.

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