What is Enough?

Read time: 4 minutes

Welcome to The Ascend Archives Tuesday Tale, a weekly newsletter where I share a story about a transformation, revelation, or change in thinking that has helped improve an aspect of my life.

It’s 5 hours from La Fortuna to Tamarindo. What podcast should I put on to pass the time?

My First Million? Nah, there aren’t any new episodes.

How I Write? Nah, none of the episodes look interesting.

Billion Dollar Creator? Nah, I won’t be able to take notes.

Music? Nah, I’ll turn on music once I get bored of a podcast.

Ali Abdaal interviewing Andrew Wilkinson about his book Never Enough? Sure, let’s get philosophical on this drive.

What is Enough?

It’s a question that Andrew Wilkinson, a former billionaire on paper, attempts to answer for himself in his book. As his businesses grew, he started hanging out with billionaires who were constantly chasing the next thing. He would be in conversations with guys who owned million dollar yachts but were jealous of the people with bigger yachts.

Wasn’t having a net worth of a billion dollars already enough?

I can see how highly ambitious people are tempted to chase that next goal. Once they build one successful business, they want to build a bigger one. Or if they are #3 in their industry, they want to keep working until they get to #1.

It got me thinking about this question of enough for myself. I feel like there’s an amount of money that if I made it, it would be enough. Enough to provide the lifestyle I want for me and my family.

I don’t need to have a billion dollars. I don’t need to be #1. So I straight up asked myself the question: Do I think I have enough right now?

My answer was no.

Ok then, so what would it take for me to feel like I have enough?

I decided to make a list. What are the all of “things” that if I had them today I would be content and feel like I had enough? Here’s what I came up with:

• The Basics

  • 10 pairs of Bombas socks

  • Electric toothbrush

  • 3 Vuori shorts

  • 5 Vuori shirts

  • New boxer briefs

  • Off white shoes

  • Fix my car

  • Yeti water bottle

• Gadgets

  • Garmin watch

  • New AirPods

  • Golf clubs

  • Range finder

  • Running sunglasses

• Health & Wellness

  • Massage package

  • Unlimited organic groceries

  • Blood sample tests

  • Nice gym membership with sauna, cold plunge, basketball, pool

  • Triathlon / Marathon entry fees

• Experiences / Fun

  • First class trip to Asia

  • $500 / month to go to nice restaurants

  • Annual epic golf trip

  • American Airlines club membership

  • Amazon gift card for books

  • Bottle of Blantons

  • Writing course

  • Lots of notebooks and pens

• Experts

  • Running and strength coach

  • Top tier business coach

  • Nutritionist

  • Therapist

I tried to think about things that I genuinely enjoy and would make my life better. Some of these things are very basic and some are pretty boujie. I’m sure I missed a few things but I really don’t know what more I would want right now.

I estimate the cost of all that stuff is somewhere between $25,000-$30,000. This would be in addition to my normal living expenses.

So the next question was, why don’t I just buy all those things? I could deplete my savings, sell some stocks, and buy all those things.

This led me to 2 more questions:

1. Would having all those things actually make my life better and bring me happiness? Or would my bar of “enough” just move and I’d find a new list of things that I want?

2. Let’s say those things did make my life better. I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m eating healthy food. I have the best tools to improve my writing and my business. I have experts helping me be on the top of my game professionally, emotionally, and physically. Wouldn’t that make it easier for me to make back that $30K and more?

I ran this by my business coach Patrick. He posed the question, “I’m not advising you go drop $30k, but what if you just experimented with it?” It was Amazon Prime Day so he suggested I snag some of those things and just see how it made me feel.

For context, I have been wearing socks with holes in them for 6 months. I have owned the same Apple Watch for 6 years that dies by 5 PM everyday on a full charge. The sole of my white shoes are a few threads away from falling off.

So I took Patrick’s advice. I bought the Vuori clothes so I don’t have to do laundry every 4 days. I bought the massage package to help me recover after my marathon training. I bought the Garmin watch that has a 2 week battery life.

It cost me ~$1,000 but it was worth every penny. I felt like a new guy walking out of my massage. The features on my new watch have been super helpful as I get more serious about my running workouts. And my new wrinkle-free shirts save me the minor stress of throwing on a wrinkled shirt before a date.

I didn’t need the $1,000 watch. The $500 one that was $150 off for Prime Day has done the job. Maybe there is a threshold of enough for me?

Final Thoughts

I’m glad I chose that podcast on my drive.

It got me thinking about what all of this work is for. It was another spin on one of my favorite questions: what am I optimizing for? I don’t have clear answers to all these questions but that’s not the point. The point is to just think about them in the first place.

It’s about awareness.

This will be an ongoing experiment for me. I’ll continue to buy things from my list over time. Then I’ll reflect: do they bring me joy? Do they make my life easier or better?

If the answer is no to both then I won’t buy them again.

But if the answer is yes, then no matter how boujie the American Airlines Club Membership is, it might be worth the investment.

Thank you for reading! As always please reply and let me know what resonated, what didn’t, or what you question. I love chatting about this stuff!

Cheers,

Andrew