The Goal He Almost Hit, and What Was Waiting on the Other Side
Richer Soul Podcast • Episode 510• Mike Brcic
The Modern Problem
Ambitious people are told that the finish line will feel like relief. Hit the number, land the deal, reach the milestone, and the tightness in the chest is supposed to loosen. For a lot of successful people, it doesn’t. They arrive and find the same restlessness waiting for them, just wearing a nicer outfit.
The Hidden Pattern
Mike Brcic spent six months closing in on a goal that should have taken years: operating his adventure company in a hundred and fifty countries. One morning, close enough to see it landing, he pictured the whole scene, the number, the magazine cover, champagne with his team, and felt the emptiness before any of it actually happened. That sequencing matters. The feeling wasn’t a letdown after arrival. It arrived first, which is what made it impossible to ignore.
The Assumption We Carry
Most people assume the goal itself is the problem to be solved, so the instinct is to set a bigger one, or a different one, and try again. Mike’s story suggests the goal was never broken. The goal was doing exactly what it was built to do: generate outside validation for a part of him that had felt like an outsider since childhood. The goal worked. It just wasn’t answering the actual question.
The Clearer Lens
Mike calls these old strategies “loyal soldiers,” borrowing a framework built on a true story: Japanese soldiers scattered across the Pacific after World War Two who kept fighting for decades because nobody told them the war was over. The last one was found in 1975. The metaphor for an inner life is direct. A coping strategy built in childhood to keep you safe, don’t speak up, keep achieving, stay small, doesn’t retire on its own. It keeps serving, uninvited, long after the war it was fighting has ended.
The Implication For Life
The fix Mike describes isn’t force. It’s recognition, followed by gratitude, followed by a new choice. Thank the strategy for its service. Confirm that you’re an adult now, that you’ve got this, that it can lay down its arms. Then ask, in the specific moment it shows up, what an adult choice actually looks like. That’s slower and less satisfying than a resolution. It’s also the only version that seems to hold.
One question to sit with: Which of your loyal soldiers deserves a promotion instead of a fight?
About Mike Brcic
A serial entrepreneur and global adventurer, Mike helps entrepreneurs live more connected and fulfilling lives through community and adventures in some of the wildest places on the planet, via his company Wayfinders.
Links
Website: https://www.mikebrcic.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikebrcic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikebrcic/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mikebrcic/
Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@richersoul
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