#1: The Lie of Success: Why High Performers Never Feel Fulfilled (Part 1)

WELCOME TO CAPITAL T, TRUTH! 

On today’s episode of Capital T, Truth, Larry Yatch and Vicky Giangregorio take a surgical look at success—and why most high performers are unknowingly chasing a version of it that guarantees they’ll never actually experience it.

If you’ve ever set goals, achieved them… and then immediately moved the target—this episode will hit hard.

Larry breaks down why the traditional model of success (set a goal → achieve it → repeat) creates a cycle where fulfillment is always just out of reach. Instead, he introduces a radically different perspective:

👉 Success isn’t something you achieve.

👉 It’s something you experience.

And if you don’t understand that difference, you’ll spend your entire life chasing something you can never hold.

This is Part 1 of a foundational series that will challenge how you think about performance, achievement, and what it actually means to win in life.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is Capital T Truth. Here we expose the beliefs, patterns, and trauma loops that have kept you limited. I'm Larry Gatch, a former Navy SEAL officer and entrepreneur who learned the hard way that the strategies that create success can also quietly destroy the quality of your life. This work exists to expose that truth. If you're ready for freedom through alignment, you're in the right place. I can almost guarantee that your definition of success guarantees that you will never experience it, especially if you're an above-average performer. Success is not a goal or objective. When that opens up, like, oh success is not a goal or objective, what is it? And the first thing that had to shift in me to understand what it was was to understand that it's an experience of a human being. It's not a car, it's not a promotion, it's not an amount in the bank account, it's not a position. It can't be a goal, a thing. It has to be an experience of a human being. We can make a distinction between accomplishments and success. So accomplishments are goals or objectives that we put effort towards achieving. That produces an accomplishment. Accomplishments are measurable, they're in the world, we can see it. Success is the experience of a human being. So you can produce accomplishments and not experience success. And I would say this one, particularly for entrepreneurs out there, can be very heavy, very hard-hitting. And what we are sure to leverage is if you're a high performer in any domain in life. What I mean is if you perform better than average in just about anything, if you are better than average at school or sports or business, uh all the way to being exceptional, uh, this I can guarantee that your performance, uh, your above-average performance ensures that you have this backwards. Uh, you have this wrong. And and what this is, is uh your understanding of what success is in your life. And what I can say, and I say this whenever I talk about success, I say that uh I can almost guarantee that your definition of success guarantees that you will never experience it. Uh and so I'm gonna say that again because this is a big statement. Your definition of what you understand success to be will guarantee that you will never experience that success, uh, especially if you're an above-average performer. And so we're going to hit success from all different angles, and more than anything, my intent for all of you is to change your understanding of success, and then uh as you probably become used to, I'm gonna give you a formula as to how to produce it on demand. Uh, and once you understand that formula, now all of a sudden you go from a life where you can never experience success to where you can create the experience of success whenever you want to in any domain. And so this is this is gonna be a big one.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

You know, it's funny because when you think success you you were talking about success, I was just of course reminiscing in my life. You know, success is even in high school. Like what uh what would I think success is? What do I think success is of the mother? What do I think success is in relationship and career? And um if I were to have to define it, I'd be like, well, I win and I feel good about it at the end. Success.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

Check it's funny because in I've given the uh a speech on success uh 50 times, hundred times, and in odd in front of an audience, I always start the the conversation with saying, okay, what is success, right? Because you have an audience, and the audiences I get to speak to are generally high performing audience. So I'm not I'm talking to people that have kicked ass and produced successes in their lives over and over again. And so in that room, when I say, well, what is success? Everyone knows the answer. Like they're all very confident, and uh I can predict what their answer is going to be, which is exactly what you just said. Uh the way I would would rephrase what you just said was set a goal or objective and achieve it. Check, I'm done. Success.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Success.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Right? And so we'll hear that over and over again. Success is setting a goal or objective and then achieving it. And as soon as you achieve that goal or objective, uh you now have success.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Right. But um what is success really?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Well even before we go into what it is really, so um for you, uh you know, I'll ask you, and then it's the same thing out there. Okay. And I would say even for the for the audience, think of a success that you have achieved. Okay. Right? Uh in the success, uh, what what did you achieve in this thing you were thinking of?

SPEAKER_03 5:41

Okay, work. So career. Like what? Like a specific. Give me a specific goal uh going all the way at the top.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Meaning.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

And it's in what I wanted. So my goal, I hit it um as far as promotion levels and at a very fast level.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

Yeah, and so within like they have no idea what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about, but it's actually meaningful what you produced.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Right. So what was it? Like when you got to what specifically?

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Oh, like my actual business.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

What was the first success when you were to say in your actual business? Okay, and this will prove a point here in a second. So in your actual business, in your actual progression, when you started the business, there is something that you said, if this, then I'll have produced success. What was the first one?

SPEAKER_03 6:19

Oh well, one was a title, and then after that it became like a monetary thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Meaning what? Like the monetary one specifically.

SPEAKER_03 6:27

Like if I hit a certain dollar amount invested.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

Of savings for me.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Well, yes. Okay, yes. If I sold this many of my product, then that was my first level, probably.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

And then when you got to that, what happened the first time?

SPEAKER_03 6:43

Well, it was fine, and then I wanted to do more.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Oh, so you just remove the goalposts.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

Yes. Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

So that's what that's the same answer. Right. Anyone out there thinking about when was it what was an initial thing? If I did the w X, I would be successful. And when you think about it anywhere in life, then I say, okay, well, what happens when you got it? How long did you enjoy it?

SPEAKER_03 7:08

Oh, maybe a week. Then I was ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

A week, yeah, a month, maybe. And then what's funny is that first time maybe it was a week, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

And then you set the next goal, did you achieve it?

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yes. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

What and how long did that one, how long were you successful in that? Um experiencing success in that.

unknown 7:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 7:28

Before you moved it. Shorter than that. Shorter. Yeah. Because I because once you build that confidence, you're like, oh, I could do that again and I could just do it better.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

And then eventually you get to the point of you don't even get to the goal or objective. You get close and you make a new one before you even get there. So you don't even get to experience it then.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

No.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

And so I go back to the statement I said at the very beginning. Your definition is success. Success is a goal or objective that you achieve once you achieve it, right? That is success.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

If you do that, all you do is move the goalposts. Eventually, you produce it where you'll move the goalpost before you get to the actual goal or objective because you know you're going to. Therefore, you never get to experience success. You produce accomplishment after accomplishment, but you don't get to experience success.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

And so the this the you've heard me tell this story. Uh I should have worn my other shirt, my Porsche sweatshirt, because that would have been meaningful here.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

So I in another podcast I had a Porsche sweatshirt on because I'm a big Porsche fan.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

And I remember being uh I was still in the hospital in Bethesda Naval Hospital after the surgeon had said I was I was gonna be unable to be a SEAL anymore, right? So uh what I thought was my true purpose in life was taken away from by the surgeon surgeon's scalpel and laying in that bed, I was that well, you know what? Uh I've been fighting for others' freedom my whole life. That's what I've been dedicated to. I want to fight for my own freedom, and I figured the best way to be free would be to start a business, be an entrepreneur. And for all you entrepreneurs out there, you know that that is one of the worst lies in the world. That uh when you get to work for yourself, you get to be free, because the least free I've ever been is being the CEO of a startup. Like uh not free, but in that hospital bed, I'm gonna fight for my own free, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur. And so uh I was still in the wheelchair, went down to the the little commissary thing and bought all the business magazines I could could find and started reading Inc. and Entrepreneur and all those. And I remember reading the magazines thinking, like, oh, this is gonna be easy. Like, no one's shooting at you. I've got a roof over my head, no mortars, like this is gonna be this gonna be cake. Um, like this isn't gonna be hard, and then like turn the page and there's an ad for Porsches. I'm like, ooh, you know what? And I remember sitting there at that moment thinking, uh, I'll be successful in business when I can buy one of these Porsches. And I'm like, that's it. So my goal or objective was set, and I knew I would be able to be successful in business when I could buy that car. And so it wasn't but a year, a couple years later, like produced enough success, bought the bought the car. It was gray instead of red, but still, you know, still there. Uh, how long did I get to experience the success of that car?

SPEAKER_03 10:35

What did did you even experience it when you got off the the lot?

SPEAKER_02 10:38

No, like this is the you'll laugh at this. Okay. The the sad part was um I didn't have enough self-worth to accept that I deserved the car, even though I paid for it, even though I produced a business that could pay for it, I didn't get I experienced guilt and shame every time I looked at that car.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 11:03

Because of the no self-worth. So, how much success did I get to experience in buying that car? Zero. Meaning zero. Zero. I actually got the opposite of that.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

And then this is where the story gets funny. What happened to the car? I totaled it. But I didn't know that part. Oh, no, this gets even better. Okay. So uh I'm I was uh at the time a licensed racing driver. I was it's instructed at a race course. The Navy had put me through three different advanced driving things. Like, I'm an excellent driver. I have driven in some of the worst environments and some of the fastest environments, the fastest cars never once wrecked. I totaled that car at seven miles an hour.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

I do find that funny.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Everyone does. Like, I love it when I'm speaking on stage and I go to I totaled it, and they're like, oh yeah, of course. I'm like, no, but I was a racing driver, and at seven miles an hour, and then everyone laughs.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Everything has to go to shit for you.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Everything has to go to shit. Of course you totaled it.

SPEAKER_03 12:04

And you weren't even worth to have that car.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

What did the car represent in my life? Yeah. Pain. Unworthiness.

SPEAKER_03 12:10

Suffering.

SPEAKER_02 12:11

Right. Unworthiness. Pain, suffering. It didn't represent success. And so how did how did I wreck it? It's everyone wants to know how I wrecked it at seven miles an hour. I was in Minneapolis at the time, living in Minneapolis, uh, having a big estate sale, selling a whole bunch of stuff at the house. And the last thing I had to do to prepare for the sale was move the car. This was November 21st, I remember the date. Yeah. And I was there really late prepping all the stuff for the sale, and I got in the car to move it. I was moving it two miles down the road to park it at a friend's place. And I opened the door and there's like two inches of snow. And so I'm driving with my hazards on at like 10 o'clock at night, down the road at seven miles an hour, super slow, get to the top of the hill. As soon as I get to the top of the hill, the car goes sideways. And it was so sad about it is it turned sideways. I could have walked faster than it was going. And I had to just sit there as it gained speed and then hit hit a curb, a wall, and total the car. So wow.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

That's impressive.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and at the time, talked to one of my partners, they're like, Yep, nope, no wonder you never just you never thought you earned or deserved that car. So no wonder it's not in your life. And so to me, that concept that I had a very clear goal and objective, I produced the results to get that goal or objective because of my internal lack of self-worth. I lived in guilt and shame around the car, not experiencing success. So if success truly is setting a goal or objective and achieving it, I should have experienced success, but I didn't. And so that to me is always serves as a very clear and painful, very expensive reminder that uh success is not a goal or objective. And when that opens up, like, oh, if sex success is not a goal or objective, what is it? And the the first thing that had to shift in me to understand what it was was to understand that it's an experience of a human being. Right? It's not a car, it's not a promotion, it's not an amount in the bank account, it's not a position. Uh it can't be a goal, uh, a thing. It has to be an experience of a human being. Uh the table cannot experience success. It can serve a purpose and it can serve its purpose well, but it can't experience success. Only a human can experience success. And so that opens up a whole new understanding. This whole time we've been thinking that if we produce accomplishments, we get to have success. Right. But in our lives, there's all sorts of times where we produce accomplishments but don't experience success.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Do you have any Oh gosh, so many. I'm thinking of all the times that I've felt so unfulfilled when I hit something. Um, whether that was being able to pay cash for a house and it was a big house. And uh I, you know, I had the goal board, did all the things in order to save the cash, and then be able to spend a couple million dollars on a house. And I did that. And you get in the house, you're like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:32

Empty.

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Empty. Now we gotta fill it up. Um and then and then you're like, oh wait, I need a bigger house.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

Maybe that'll produce the feeling of the yeah. Maybe that'll produce the feeling of the experience.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

The experience, right? And so I th that was the first thing that came to mind. And even in the uh having one franchise, it wasn't enough. I had to have 45. Right? But I never ever felt I I felt I did it. Check, check, check, accomplished. If it was a perfect piece of paper, but did I experience it? No, I don't think I ever have. Not yet. But where I feel right now in my life that I'm experiencing an abundance of success is what the work that I'm doing now, personally, and in relationship now with others, which is pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Which is gonna be like we'll uh let's put a pin in that. Like I want because for everyone there, we can't jump to the end and tell them exactly what it is, right? Or better yet, the formula. But what's neat is that when we go and get through that formula, I want to come back, and then we can look at what you were doing before that was producing accomplishments with no experience of success, right? What you're doing now that is producing the experience of success and see how the formula that we share lives here, doesn't live here.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

So yeah, uh cliffhanger. You'll have to wait till the end of the year.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

But the good thing to know about that is it doesn't have to be career at all. It could be monetary, it could be in relationship, it could be in self, it could be with family. Um so this is for everybody when we speak of the word success for sure.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

And the biggest piece that now uh on the rest of this podcast, we can make a distinction between accomplishments and success. So accomplishments are goals or objectives that we put effort towards achieving. Right. Like that produces an accomplishment. Accomplishments are measurable, they're in the world, we can see them. Uh success is the experience of a human being. So you can produce accomplishments and not experience success. And what's cool, I always talk about this being a two-for-one deal. So when I put my focus on producing an accomplishment, um generally I produce the accomplishment, but I do not experience success. The reason being is the accomplishment comes from outside of me, and therefore I give up fulfillment. Anytime that I'm driven by a purpose from outside of me, from outside, an external accomplishment, the the gray Porsche, right? That was an external accomplishment that I was trying to produce. Because that came from outside of me, I produced the accomplishment, but I did not feel the fulfillment because I didn't have the internally derived purpose. What's crazy is when you go the other way and you start focusing on producing the experience of success, now all of a sudden, accomplishments tend to show up as well. You get a two for one. But when we focus on accomplishments first, we often give up or sacrifice success. So then that leads us to what is success then, if it's an experience. And the way that I define it, or the specific words I use, and these are uh they all come from a middle school curriculum that I built was now 10 plus years ago, and it was 140,000 kids across uh the Midwest went through this leadership development or character development program. And one of the first things I had to do in this development program was to build a curriculum that was going to be taught by teachers, but the the teachers union wouldn't allow me to train the teachers. So they had to be able to open character development the day of the lesson and teach things such as success, leadership, responsibility, communication to a fifth grader with no prep. And that required the distillation of these concept complex things into the fewest words possible. And so the one of the first ones that I had to produce was success. Because in order to talk about why why develop character, why lead in the classroom as a for children, you had to first connect it to success. And so the distinction for success was an optimized daily experience that's sustainable over time. And those uh two parts to that. Uh we already know that success is not a goal or objective or a thing, right? It's an experience. What type of an experience? An optimized daily experience. But the key part is the second half, sustainable over time. Yeah. Because it's quite easy to produce an optimized daily experience today at the cost of my experience tomorrow. Right. But when you build optimized today with sustainability into the future, well, uh the easiest way to put it is if you knew today was gonna be awesome, it is, right? We we haven't had an awesome day today. Uh tomorrow's gonna be awesome, next week's gonna be awesome, and you've set it up so that next year is gonna be awesome too, wouldn't that be successful? Like a hundred percent. Now, what's crazy about that is uh when you look at most people say m today, you and I we uh have a relationship, right? I care about you. Uh say I made today amazing for me. It's gonna be awesome for me today, tomorrow, the next day, but not for you. Would that create an optimized daily experience for me?

SPEAKER_03 21:21

For you, yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

If I care about you?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Which of you am I talking about? Or talking to? Larry, like the Larry? Yes, it would.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Think about it. So if if I care about you, yes, and my n I knew my day was gonna be awesome today, tomorrow, and next week. Yes, and I knew yours was gonna be miserable today, tomorrow, next week. Okay, would I be able to be happy and fulfilled if I care about you?

SPEAKER_03 21:49

No.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

I'm surprised. This is a hard question.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

Sometimes he likes to trick me all.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

What about you? Say you knew. Today was going to be amazing for you, but your partner, your children, their lives are all going to be miserable. All your employees, their lives are all going to be miserable. Could you be fulfilled and happy and optimized?

SPEAKER_03 22:12

No.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

It's an important question. Yes. Now, is your happiness dependent on their happiness? No. But when we live connected to someone else, we want them to experience the same light, joy, fulfillment that we have. And so if I live in a world where I have amazingness today and into the future, for me and those I care about, have I produced some accomplishments?

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

You had to have.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Yeah, you had to have.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

That's where it's the two-for-one deal.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

Right? When I'm able to create that optimized daily experience sustainable over time for me and for those I care about, well then accomplishments show up, but I don't have to focus on them. But what most of us do, especially if you're an entrepreneur out there, what most of you do is create an optimized daily experience for those around you at your expense, at the cost of your experience. And then all of a sudden, I can create accomplishments, I can better people's lives, but I end up suffering because my daily experience sucks.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Right. And that's the experience part.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

And the focus on the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:25

Thanks for listening, Capital T Truth. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode. As you know, the work doesn't stop when the episode ends. For more, visit the website at capitaltruth.org to submit a question to be answered live on a future podcast. We also invite listeners onto the podcast to work directly with me, where we dive into your personal strategies of survival and we solve them live. Until next time, live in Capital T Truth.