Comfort is the New Poverty - The Silent Epidemic Destroying Potential!

Friends, we live in the most comfortable time in human history. Food at your doorstep. Entertainment in your pocket. Heat and air conditioning at the push of a button. We have access to every bit of knowledge that’s ever existed and we have it in an instant. And yet, people are most lost, anxious, broke, and purposeless than ever.

Why? There are more than a few reasons we could point to and I dont mean to be intentionally hyperbolic, but one of the main root causes is that you’re too comfortable and comfort has become a new form poverty.

Of course, I don’t mean any disrespect to those living in real poverty and struggling to put food on the table. This episode isn’t meant to be a dismissal of very real issues of true financial poverty, food insecurity, homelessness, and the very real struggles people all over the world face today. Those people likely aren’t listening to this podcast and running businesses, so I’m specifically speaking to those of you who are too comfortable today and have been too comfortable for so long that you’ve forgotten what be on a mission.

In this episode, well, it should be pretty obvious by now that we’re going to be talking about the decay and decline that often come with being comfortable. I’ve experience and grapple with it myself and, so, as always, the things we talk about on today’s show do not come from some sense of superiority as much as they come from a place of shared realization and my own struggles in this area.  

We used to fear being poor, which is why we do what we do now. We used to fear not being in control of our own destiny, which is why we started our own businesses. We used to fear not being able to provide, which is why we hustled and worked overtime to build something durable that would allow us to put that fear to rest. What’s the end result of all of that? If you did things right or were just really lucky, the end result is comfort; a place where you no longer fear being poor, out of control, or able to provide. You’ve got the house, the cars, maybe the second house, the toys, and you’ve unlocked a new fear that you may not even realize is there: the fear of being uncomfortable.

 And that’s exactly why most people stay broke, in money, in mindset, and in mission. You may have all the resources you want and need, but you’ve lost the drive that having and being on a real mission gave you. Now, you’re comfortable. To be clear, this episode isn’t about getting motivated or grinding and hustling harder. It’s about understanding that comfort is a trap, and that real wealth; financial, emotional, spiritual, only lives on the other side of controlled discomfort.

See, comfort tricks the mind. It gives you this temporary sense of safety, a little dopamine hit that says, “Yo! Everything’s okay. You’ve made it. Take a load off, this is what you’ve been working hard for”. But there’s an insidious hidden truth and its that comfort doesn’t care about your growth, it just wants you to stop moving, stop striving, and stay still.

If you think back over your life, every big breakthrough in your life, whether in business, health, or relationships, likely came after a season of discomfort. A ‘dark night of the soul’ season where darkness and depression, or intense effort and struggle seemed never ending. Every great transformation was born out of some kind of tension. But now, with a little bit of success, however you define that for yourself, we avoid friction like its failure. We scroll endless to avoid boredom. We eat to avoid emotion or maybe to create some kind of emotional pulse and dopamine hit. We chase busyness to avoid reflection and have to suffer from the sound of our own voice in our head. We confuse relief with some kind of reward.

Which is why so many people have built their entire lives around the illusion of progress, that they’ve somehow made it. Where have they made it to? To a level of comfort that didn’t exist just a year, five, or ten ago. And again, its one of the reasons we do work hard. I don’t mean to discount some of the very important reasons to work hard, stack receipts, make more money, acquire things of value, and go through struggle. One of the big reasons to do all those things is so that you can struggle less and less in the coming weeks, months, and years.

This is not meant to shame anyone for acquiring the natural creature comforts that come with having more resources, we all have them. It’s meant more as a question to ask yourself as you survey your life and business to identify where you may have become a tad too comfortable.

Let’s talk about your business for a second. One of the reasons we started our own businesses was to have more control, likely to make more money, and most definitely to have some more freedom. Here’s the universal paradox though. The more you build your business to make you comfortable, the faster it begins to decay.

Once you’ve settled into comfort with your business systems, your client mix, your workflow, and your daily and weekly schedule the systems stop getting updated, the drive to acquire new and better clients disappears, the goal of adding and increasing your non-lender business stays on the back burner, the voice that told you last year to ‘reach out to Blaine and get some coaching’ goes on vacation because there’s no need at this point. After all, you’re comfortable.

The clients get a little easier. The schedule is easily managed. You stop marketing because the pipeline feels full. It’s keeping you fed and you tell yourself, ‘It’s really all I need at this point’ because growth of any kind beyond this would be, well, it would take work and disrupt my comfort level. And before you know it, you’re managing the slow decline of something that used to make you come alive.

Friends, comfort creates complacency. Complacency creates decline. Decline creates desperation. And desperation never builds anything beautiful or meaningful. I see it all the time in coaching people. People don’t generally go to the doctor or the hospital when things are going well. And people don’t typically reach out to me because everything is going as planned. They come to me when either they realize that they’ve been running on ‘slow decline’ mode or because things have gone completely haywire and they need some help stopping the bleed.

By the way, one of those is better than the other. It’s much easier to work with someone who just got a little too comfortable and is now looking to get back into building mode than it is to have to do emergency triage because a bomb has gone off in someone’s business.

Comfort creates complacency, and complacency leads to certain death. It may be a slow death, but dead is dead. And I know this because I’ve been there myself several times. I’ve been there in business, I’ve been there with finances, I’ve been there in relationships, and I’ve been there with my health and wellness. One of the big lessons out of all that chaos was that it's better to identify where you’re comfortable and go on a ‘positive disruption’ campaign on your own than it is to have life and the market do it to you and for you.

If you’ve been following or listening to me for a bit now, you’ll know that I am apolitical don’t really get into labeling people or things, at least not from a political perspective. I strongly dislike the trend of trying to immediately place people in political boxes based on what they say and do. We’re living in one of the most decisive eras in our lifetimes and there’s no end in sight. The right blames the left and the left blames the right. Anyone who doesn’t think like you or agree with your political views is the enemy.

We’re also living in an era where the softest generation in history is convinced they’re strong because they can feel things deeply. Never before in history have there been things like ‘safe spaces’. Never before in history have we been compelled by law, or at least societal outrage, to acknowledge another person's pronouns. Each successive generation appears to have gotten weaker than the last in some way. Everything in the modern world is engineered for our convenience and our comfort, and that convenience breeds fragility.

DoorDash, Uber, AI, same-day shipping, on-demand validation 24-7. One doesn’t even really have to think anymore because the AI will do it for you. But here’s the catch that sages and prophets have known since the dawn of time: when you remove resistance, you eliminate resilience. And when you eliminate resilience, you remove real growth because growth of any kind requires resistance (think growing your muscles from ‘resistance’ training).

Friends, If you don’t build challenge into your life, life will deliver it for you, and it will be a lot harsher than a cold shower, a hard workout, or a tough conversation. Think of too much comfort as a form of poverty because it’s the lack struggle and resistance that creates comfort. The goal is not to have to struggle to pay your bills or struggle to find work, but part of the goal should always be to seek out opportunities to be uncomfortable in some way to inspire further growth in that area. To be rich in too much comfort is often to be impoverished in personal and professional growth.

Which leads us to another form of poverty as it relates to being too comfortable and it’s a poverty worse than financial, in my opinion; it’s the poverty of untapped potential. Theres a certain spiritual, emotional, and physical poverty that comes from knowing you could be more, but you chose comfort instead.

I firmly believe that you can be financially prosperous and spiritually bankrupt. You can own the business, the house, the toys, yet still be poor in meaning, purpose, and peace.

We’ve discussed in past episodes the multiple forms of wealth that all exist simultaneously. There’s financial wealth, health wealth, time wealth, relationship wealth, spiritual wealth, and having a wealth of experiences. If you’re not clear on what this all means, one simply needs to ask, what is the benefit of having financial wealth if one sacrificed his health to obtain it? What is the benefit of having lots of money in the bank if you’re working all the time and never enjoy it? What’s the purpose behind building a big bank account if you have to sacrifice deep relationships to do so? There are other forms of wealth that must be considered in the pursuit of comfort.

But there’s also a form of wealth almost never talked about and it’s the wealth of untapped potential within most people. It’s that deep well of possibility that most people never touch because their main goal was always more comfort. When you start to achieve that goal of more comfort, one of the things often sacrificed is curiosity.

Along with an increase in comfort comes the inherent need and desire to maintain that level of comfort. Now you’ve added an element of protection to your tasks since the comfort must be protected lest it be lost. You say you want transformation, just not the tension required to create it. You say you want mastery, just not the monotony that is required for it since mastery is often hidden in the boredom of routine. You say you want more power over your circumstances, just not the pressure required to become more powerful.

“So, what’s the antidote, Blaine? How do we fix this or fight this?” The antidote to comfort being the new poverty is simple, although not easy for most people. The answer to the poverty of too much comfort has two parts, the first of which is a mindset shift that must take place. The second part entails a variety of tactical and practical things one can do, depending on where you’ve gotten too comfortable.

What’s the mindset shift required? It’s first recognizing all of the areas and situations that you’ve gotten too comfortable in or with, and then all of the areas you’re still seeking comfort and then changing the definition you have of discomfort. For most people, discomfort is distraction and to be avoided at all costs. It’s the root of the disease, if you will. For many, discomfort feels like a punishment and, therefore, something to run from.

Until you can redefine ‘discomfort’ as practice instead of punishment, you’ll never escape the trap that comfort sucks many into. This is a very Zen and Stoic view of discomfort and one I strongly support since it has inspired throngs of people throughout history to, not only overcome their circumstances, but to rise to unimagined heights. When you start to recognize discomfort for what it truly is, just a stimulus for growth and a finger pointing to your areas of weakness, you can then start to add a form of practice we can simply call ‘deliberate discomfort’.

Deliberate discomfort comes in many forms and depends on what kind of growth one is seeking. Deliberate discomfort is forcing oneself to the gym to take care of their health and longevity. Deliberate discomfort is doing the things in your relationships that may make you feel uncomfortable because its just not your personality, but they build deep reservoirs of trust and connection. Deliberate discomfort is doing things before you feel your ready. It’s sitting in silence instead of scrolling. It’s starting that YouTube channel you’ve been talking about for years but have simply been too comfortable to take those steps. It’s having that difficult conversation because you’re afraid to ruffle feathers.

Friends, there is a cost to absolutely everything and the cost of not making deliberate discomfort a part of your daily journey is far greater than you can imagine, until its not. Human beings are notorious for making necessary changes only after disaster or tragedy. The doctor says you need to eat better and move more or else. Your business coach tells you to address some areas of your business or else. Your partner tells you you need to step up or else.

Regardless of the warnings, most people wait until they are forced into discomfort by life events they will then say were beyond their ability to foresee. This is not a call for increased chaos in your life, but it is a call for more challenge. It’s not an invitation for more drama, but simply a call for more discipline. Redefine what discomfort looks like and means for you in one area of your life only and then make a deliberate effort to add some discomfort to it.

If you’re anything like me, and I suspect you are, you’ll find that once you start to add one small act of discipline to one small area of your life it ends up spilling over into other areas of your life in a good way. One small act of deliberate discomfort applied with a little act of discipline wakes up a part of the brain that recognizes the innate power of growth that comes from making oneself uncomfortable.  

Anything you do that expands the borders and guardrails of your comfort zones builds increased capacity. Increased capacity is the power to do more with less expenditure of resources. A bigger engine means the ability to get more done with less required output overall. And, by ‘bigger engine’, I’m referring to you. You’re a machine whether you like to think of yourself as one or not. You’re perfectly built to do work and accomplish things. You’re perfectly built, wired, and programmed to create, to use leverage, to move heavy things, to produce, and to make things better, not just consume things.

By the way, this is not about chasing more pain in your life, it's about deliberately and intentionally forcing progress even when you would rather just plop on the couch for the next few years. Blades are sharpened through friction, and they get rusty when not used. You dull your senses, your body, your mind, and your life through ease and comfort.

So, here’s my simple challenge to you: For the next 90 days, do one thing every single day that makes you uncomfortable. It must be something that stretches your capacity mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and/or physically. Tiny steps and small actions, big shifts.

This isn’t some David Goggins, hustle culture meme to run a 100-mile marathon on broken feet and shin splints. It’s not me telling you you’re not doing enough, maybe you are. It’s simply me sharing some of the lessons I’ve learned myself the hard way, and also some of the lessons I learned from immersing myself in a culture of deliberate discomfort that have saved me in many ways as well.

Don’t run from friction, lean into it. Stop seeking balance instead of resistance. Strength, wealth, freedom, and peace are all built under tension. Most of the challenges that I help people with when I’m coaching them are not technical challenges, they’re discipline challenges. They say they want something, but they’re too scared to take the next step out of fear of loss. But the fear of loss isn’t necessarily the loss of money or time, at its core, it's the fear of losing some form of comfort. Comfort in the form of status, the comfort of not having to do some things they used to do before they reached the level they’re at now, or the comfort of their current routine.

Comfort might feel safe today, but safety has never built anything great.

If this episode hit home for you, share it with somebody who’s playing too small because they’re too comfortable. And if you’re ready to build a business that serves your life, not one that keeps you stuck in a comfortable cage, you know where to find me.

To be disciplined is to be dangerous in the best ways possible. You’re dangerous to all of the temptations and trials that seek to break you. You’re dangerous to all of the people and things that are hoping you get lazy, fat, and God forbid, comfortable. You’re dangerous to the aspects of life that tell you you’ve its ok to not push a little harder, to not do anything that gives you anxiety or make you uncomfortable, and to take as long as you need to finally do the things you say you want to do.

To not have that kind of discipline is to be impotent, to be a victim, and to succumb to the weight and pressure that life and the gravitational pull of the earth place on your body, mind, and soul. All it takes is one small shift in mindset and then one small act of defiance against the voice in your head that says, ‘we’re good, just stay where we are!’, to make massive changes in one’s trajectory.

If you truly want to be rich, be rich in discipline first. If you want to be comfortable, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. If comfort is the new poverty, then deliberate discomfort is the new rich.

Until next time, I’m out.