Comfort Is the Enemy

There’s something to be said about putting yourself into crisis mode; about pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. When it happens, failure doesn’t really become an option. With a family of five, kids, a mortgage, and so on, I felt like I had to find success. It just wasn’t a choice for me— I had to grind.

I think there’s something powerful in that. Sink or swim is a hell of a thing, and I believe people can swim great lengths to get somewhere if they’re dropped in the middle of the ocean. If I told someone to swim from shore, they’d probably just hit the end of the pier and circle back. A quick, aimless swim. But launching yourself into the ocean? That’ll get you to a new island.

I think if you look at a lot of successful people, they did the very same thing, whether it was by choice or not. In some cases, you can trace their success back to childhood trauma they were forced into.

Maybe it was adoption, the loss of a loved one, or even a persistent parent who hammered them in a certain area.

Something—or someone—ignites that fight-or-flight instinct in you, and once you push through, the world suddenly feels within reach.

Comfort is the enemy of progress. It’s easy to get complacent when things are going well, but that’s exactly when you need to push yourself harder. For me, real estate wasn’t just about building wealth; it was about staying hungry. I needed to keep myself on edge, always striving for more, always pushing beyond what felt safe.

That’s why I believe in getting rid of your money fast—but in the right places. Invest it, move it, don’t let it sit and lull you into a false sense of security. Because comfort can be an action killer. The more comfortable you get, the less you’re willing to take risks, to step into the unknown, and to grow.

There’s a sense of accomplishment, the growth you experience, the life lessons learned along the way.

That leap back in 2010? It set me on a path to the success I have today. And if I could summarize everything I’ve learned during my leap, it would be this:

Stop trying to make your life so comfortable. Success, and life itself, is found in the journey—in the wins, in the losses, in the struggle, and in the triumphs that come from pushing through.