#2: The Lie of Success: Why High Performers Never Feel Fulfilled (Part 2)

On Part 2 of this powerful series, Larry Yatch goes deeper—revealing what success actually is and how to create it on demand.

After dismantling the traditional definition of success in Part 1, this episode builds the new model:

👉 Success = an optimized daily experience, sustained over time  

But here’s the twist…

That experience is different for every single person—and it evolves throughout your life.

Larry and Vicky unpack:

• Why you can feel happy and accomplished… yet deeply unfulfilled
• How your “success” might be disconnected from your true purpose
• Why your environment has changed—but your brain hasn’t
• The hidden role of connection and tribe in human fulfillment

This episode gives you the framework to start defining your own version of success—and actually living it, instead of chasing it.

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🔗 Subscribe + send your questions for Larry:

trupathmastery.com/podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 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. And so is that the true experience of success to be happy, accomplished, but unfulfilled? No, because we're here, each one of us is here for a unique purpose. And when we don't get to live to that unique purpose, we don't feel fulfilled. Ultimately, what had to happen with human beings is they had to develop in a way that they felt or experienced success by strengthening their position in the tribe because that's how we do it. Imagine if cavemen 200,000 years ago felt successful when they did things that got them kicked out of the tribe. We'd all be dead. So we've been conditioned for hundreds of thousands of years to experience success when we get to be part of the tribe. So the formula is very specific, very clear. To be in tightly coordinated action towards a commonly held purpose with people that we care about, uh care about, and they care about us. So no matter where you are in life, if you are in tightly coordinated action, you feel good about it. And if you're in isolation or discord, you don't feel good about it. So that first part is coordinated action. The second part is commonly held purpose. When we have commonly held purpose, when we're acting from the thing that comes from inside, we get to feel fulfilled. So I can be in tightly coordinated action, but not in fulfillment because I'm doing it for an external need.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

And people want to know that. Because yes, I've had success. I can see it. It's on the paper. Look at my life, look at where I'm at.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Well, whatever you had.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

And I've been and I've been happy the whole time. So because I'm happy and I've had success, then you produce accomplishments. I've been experiencing it. So I feel that there could be some confusion to some of the listeners thinking, oh no, I've been experiencing it this whole time. So how could how could somebody differentiate that? Like have they really been experiencing it?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Well, you know, you said it through fulfillment, not being fulfilled in the accomplishments.

SPEAKER_03 2:51

That was my story, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Right. So that could be an experience where you have produced the accomplishments. You were happy and yet unfulfilled.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

And so is that the true experience of success to be happy, accomplished, but unfulfilled? No. No, because we're here, each one of us is here for a unique purpose. Right. And when we don't get to live to that unique purpose, we don't feel fulfilled.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Even if we produce accomplishments and live happy. Right? Live with a new house.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Right. But as you said, bought the new house, oh, it's empty. It's empty because of the experience as much as the fact there's no furniture in it.

SPEAKER_02 3:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

And so we're looking for that. And when, like you said, well, what is what does it feel like to be in an optimized daily experience? The coolest part about that definition is that varies from everyone for every person. Right? My optimized daily experience that is sustainable over time and yours are not going to look the same.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

No, they will not.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

And so my my experience of sex success or my experience of success and your experience of success are never the same.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

And and I can't judge yours, you can't judge mine. And that creates a unique opportunity for each person to start defining what does it look like to have an optimized daily experience. And that's going to vary not only from person to person, but at different times in your life.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Right. So when you're talking about the formula to produce it on demand, what is that?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

So if we have established that success is not a goal or objective to achieve, something to check off, that it's an experience of a human being. And then we further refined it that it's the experience we're really looking for is an optimized daily experience that's sustainable over time. And then we we further went that that optimized daily experience varies from person to person, right? So you really do have to define what daily experience do I want to have on a regular basis, and how do I make sure that that daily experience is able to be experienced today and into the future, right? That's where it does take some work. And and within that, as we have different phases of life, what is an optimized daily experience when I'm 20, when I'm 40, when I'm 80 is going to vary, right? So what allowed me to have an optimized daily experience 10 years ago may not be the same today. That's why uh our experiences of success change, evolve over time. But the way we produce them is as human beings is the same based on the fact that uh we are cave people, uh modern-day cave people. And what I mean by that is as a as a human being, I like to think that I'm evolved from my caveman brethren. But the reality is that the only thing that makes me different from a K person is I have nicer clothes and fancy tools. Like the biggest differences are environments we're in. K people lived in resource-constrained high-risk environments, and being in a resource-constrained high-risk environment as a human required something. Uh what is the most important thing in a K person's life?

SPEAKER_03 6:19

Survival. Right? I would think.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Survival's the outcome. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

What is the most important thing in a connection being part of a tribe, maybe?

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Connection.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Right? Like that's a survival is key, but I can't, as a K person, in a resource-constrained high-risk environment, I can't survive without other humans. So I need tribe. The most important thing in a K person's life is tribe.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Uh how long have we lived in a safe, abundant environment?

SPEAKER_03 6:51

As far as like being a big human beings.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah. How long?

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Since Cavan days, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Well, is that five years ago, fifty years ago, ten years ago, a hundred?

SPEAKER_02 7:02

A long time.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Think of like we're in Utah right now. Okay. Right? In the mountains in Utah. Uh, if we are sitting in the same spot 300 years ago, would it be abundant and safe?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Fifth uh 150 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

200 years ago, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

200, 150, 200? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

I was thinking, when was air? When was heat? My my level of abundance and safety.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Well, but what's crazy is we tend to think like, oh, you know, thousands of years ago we created abundance and safety. No, it's like 100, 150, 200 years, 50, 50 years. Some people what's crazy is there'll be people out there listening now that have never lived in a safe or abundant environment. Right? So they live in the same environment as our cave caveman brethren, right? Like it it is really been recent that we could trick ourselves into thinking, because generally it's safe for most of us, at least in the United States. Uh, and with Amazon, it's abundant and credit cards.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Because that's nuts. Like press a button, I have a motorcycle delivered from Amazon. I don't even need the money because I can put it on credit. So it's really only been in a very short amount of time that we've lived in abundant and safe environments.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

And so we can now trick ourselves into thinking we don't need other humans. Oh, I can be alone, I can do it myself. But that's absolutely not true. And even if it was true, even if you could live in an environment without other humans today, uh, your body, your mind, your your neurochemistry, your nervous system, it's been conditioned for 200,000 years to know it needs people. And so one of the core pieces to understand the formula of success is to understand that as a human being, I am fundamentally uh reliant on coordination of action with other humans. And if I don't, I'm gonna suffer and die. And at least on a subconscious physiological level, if I ever feel like I'm no longer part of the tribe, I'm going to I'm gonna be in trouble. Have you ever had a really bad breakup?

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

What think of that, think of really bad breakup. What did it feel like? Like did after that breakup, describe it.

SPEAKER_03 9:33

Like an emotion?

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Emotion, physical, what was it like?

SPEAKER_03 9:37

Um, well, yeah, like you were gonna die. I remember my first one. I literally was like, I'm just gonna die. I know that was extreme. No, but I was also like a 15-year-old girl, okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

What's funny is that's literally the perfect reaction, right? Because I'll ask people that, like, who's who's had their heart broken?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

And and I'll always joke is like, oh, it's none of the ugly people raise their hand, but happens. Which is the autistic bad jokes coming up. So within that place, though, still, like some of the good looking people raise their hand. Right. And then within that piece, I'll ask them like describe it. And they always get to like, oh, so it feels like you're gonna die. Like, yes. So think about that. Right. Some guy said anyone to hang out with you, right, and your physiological, mental, emotional response is I'm gonna die.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

And that is just a testament to how much we need other hum, we on a just physiological, mental, emotional level, need other human beings.

SPEAKER_03 10:41

Yeah. And if anybody doesn't believe it and they have a a daughter, you believe it. Trust me. I remember my daughter first breakup. She thought she was gonna die too.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

And so knowing that, okay, we're just gay people in nice clothes and fan with fancy tools, and the most important thing in a gay person's life is tribe, uh, and that we are conditioned for 200,000 years to function and be important in that tribe, be accepted into the tribe, that gives us a window into what it takes to produce feelings of success. Because ultimately, what had to happen with human beings is they had to develop in a way that they felt or experienced success by strengthening their position in the tribe because that's how we look. Imagine if cavemen 200,000 years ago felt successful when they did things that got them kicked out of the tribe. We'd all be dead.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Right? So we've been conditioned for hundreds of thousands of years to experience success when we get to be part of the tribe. So the formula is very specific, very clear. Uh to be in tightly coordinated action towards a commonly held purpose with people that we care about, uh, care about and they care about us. So three parts to it. The first part is tightly coordinated action. And what's crazy is if you take a minute, like a little experiment you can do listening to this, think of an area of your life where you are experiencing the most success, the greatest experience of success. What would that be?

SPEAKER_03 12:26

Right now?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

Um for me, it would be uh my my personal journey right now, my own. Of development. My yeah, my healing, my development, my being steady.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

And so within that, are you in coordinated action with those around you in that? Or are you in Discord?

SPEAKER_03 12:44

No, I'm in coordinated action.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

A lot of it.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

A lot of it. Like in it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

So where is an area, and I imagine if you're sitting out there listening, think of take a minute to do this. Think of some area in your life where you're experiencing the greatest amount of success. And then measure from zero to ten, zero constant discord, conflict, attack, ten, full coordination of action. I guarantee you're at five or above. Oh yeah. Right? Where's the least experience of success in your life right now?

SPEAKER_03 13:13

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

I don't think I'm there has to be something that's on the lowest end of it.

SPEAKER_03 13:21

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

Um it doesn't have to be bad, it just has to be lower than the average.

SPEAKER_03 13:27

Um okay. Going to the gym. I should be going to the gym more.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:32

So kind of let that go.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

In that personal health, let's say health taking care of yourself. Are you in uh tightly coordinated action with those around you or are you in isolation?

SPEAKER_03 13:41

No, I'm trying to avoid them. Isolation. I isolate and let them all talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

So all the way to the point of I have nothing.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

So, same thing out there. Think of the area in your life where you're having the least experience of success in your life. And it could be personal, relationship, business, does make a difference. Right. And then assess zero, I'm in discord or isolation. Isolation, avoidance is the same as discord or conflict.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

All the way to, or 10, are you in tightly coordinated action? And I guarantee you're five or below. So no matter where you are in life, if you are in tightly coordinated action, you feel good about it. And if you're in isolation or discord, you don't feel good about it. So that first part of coordinated action. The second part is commonly held purpose. Right? When we have commonly held purpose, when we're acting from the thing that comes from inside, we get to feel fulfilled. So I can be in tightly coordinated action, but not in fulfillment because I'm doing it for an external need. And so the first step is am I in discord or tightly coordinated action? Second step is am I do I have clear purpose and does that purpose come inside of me, or am I doing it for some sort of external need? And then, and so going back to your examples, do you have a clear internally held purpose for your development?

SPEAKER_02 15:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

And do the people around you at least identify, share in the same direction?

SPEAKER_03 15:13

Oh, for sure. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

And then on the fitness side, no purpose.

SPEAKER_03 15:18

There's a list.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

There's a list, but there's no internally derived purpose. Or you would be taking action on it.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Absolutely correct. Yep. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

So you've got those two pieces, right? Tightly coordinated action, zero to ten, internally derived purpose or external driven purpose or no purpose. Right. And then the last one is uh care, shared care. Where it and I almost look at this like a bonus. If you create tightly coordinated action towards a commonly held purpose, you will feel success even if you're not producing accomplishments. Think of like early business, where you had you had a bunch of people working hard together, you had clear purpose, and you were not producing any accomplishments yet, you still felt successful.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

Yes, because we were coordinating action and we were all going, we were basically had the same mission.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Push in the same direction, right? And then when you add caring, joint care, where I care for you and you care for me, it's like adding a turbocharger to it.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

And so any environment in which you have tightly coordinated action, commonly hair, commonly shared purpose, commonly held purpose, and you you care for that person and they care for you, uh, their shared care, you will experience success. And it doesn't matter if you have accomplishments or not. But what's crazy is if you have a bunch of people working together towards the same thing that care for each other, are you going to produce accomplishments?

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, you get it. A two-for-one deal.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

And yeah, that leads me to I I just love that formula because I lived in a world of suffering for all the time, as we've talked about before, uh, where I like to suffer for others. And suffering for others, I would be entirely coordinated action, external purpose, and no one got to care for me, even if they wanted to.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

So you're missing two parts of the formula.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Two of the three, yeah, which resulted in not experiencing success.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

Wow. Well, that is definitely an amazing way to look at success. It really is. There's just a huge difference between experiencing it and having it.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Have you seen uh when you're working with your your distributors or your your the pe your team, uh people, can you look at someone who is experiencing success and someone who isn't and seeing what's missing?

SPEAKER_03 17:44

Oh yes. Yeah, especially now.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Like example, do you have any examples?

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Um so the I you know what's funny is probably they just kind of do exactly what I've done because they've watched it. So um it starts with how many sales? Yeah, um, how many people, how many franchises? And um so they have they've had the accomplishments and and honestly the same exact thing. Oh, you've almost hit your goal, you might as well change it to the next goal. So without giving them the opportunity to experience it in this way.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah, to actually live in it.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

To actually live in it. Which then I I feel it would almost become uh so powerful to feel that and just get you even more um lit up to want to experience more, and if you want to have the experience more, then the accomplishments will just come.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

What is so this is where you get, you know, you get extra benefit for being the co-host and they get to all listen. Okay. What would you have to what's missing in your organization? Tightly coordinated action, commonly held shared purpose, internal drive versus external drive, or care, shared care back and forth. Which one's missing that's resulting in a non-experience association?

SPEAKER_03 19:02

I think it's the internal drive. Yeah. I know for sure the care is there. I know for sure we have the coordinated action. I think it's the internal drive. Um well, uh all of us, I believe that um it's the external yeah, external drive. The external drive has always been in play here with all of us, including me as a leader. So um we haven't had the internal drive.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Which produced early results. It produced results, it produced effects.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

Massive results at the beginning, like skyrocketed. And it lasts for almost a decade, which was great. And we're still doing great um at any standard.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

It's just a matter of um But not experiencing the expect success that you can simply by reconnecting to purpose.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

Yeah. Yeah. So that leads what what should you all like what can you take from this? I think we like leaving little exercises for this. I think it's a super simple one. Uh look at the different areas of your life. Uh, and we kind of put them into finance, uh, let's call it purpose, business, professional, relationship, and health. They're kind of the chunks that we always talk about. Uh look at those different chunks and uh which which of those chunks are you're experiencing success in? And then confirm that you do have coordinated action, that you do have internally derived shared purpose, that you are experiencing care and giving care within that place, and you're gonna find that you do. And then which one of those four are you struggling to experience success in the most, even if you're producing accomplishments? Because, like the trap I got into and you produced a bunch of accomplishments, everyone was pointing at look at these amazing accomplishments, yet the experience of success was not there. So, either where you're not producing the accomplishments and not experiencing success, or where you may be producing the accomplishments and not experiencing success, looking at that and saying, which of these three, like take that assessment, is it because I'm in isolation or discord? Is it because I've lost my purpose and or it's not shared, right? There's there's diverging purposes, or is it that uh most likely most of our audience cares a lot but won't receive it? And so it's both sides, like you can sit there and trick yourself into saying, Oh, I got the care thing checked, because look, I care about everyone, but if you're not receiving it, then it doesn't count. You gotta hit hit both directions.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

I had that problem too.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Exactly. Yes, we share that for sure. We do, but it's it's a really cool tool to one understand what we're missing, and then once you identify it, it's okay, now I just need to focus on that.

SPEAKER_03 21:55

Right. And I think that once people experience it, they're gonna want more experiences. Exactly. For sure.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

So within all this, like the big things that we covered, uh success is not a goal or accomplishment to achieve, check off the box. Uh success is an experience, it can only be the experience of a human being. What type of experience? And it's the experience of having an optimized daily experience that's sustainable over time. Today's awesome, tomorrow's awesome, next month, next year is gonna be awesome. Within that place, you get a two-for-one deal. If you don't focus on accomplishments and focus on producing the experience of success, accomplishments will show up as a byproduct to our focus of success, and then the formula for success. In order to produce that optimized daily experience, remember you're a K person, uh, you need tribe. And so it requires one coordinated action, tightly coordinated action. Two, it requires the shared internally derived purpose. So within that place, just as a the distinction, my internally derived purpose and yours don't have to be exactly the same, they have to be pointing in the same direction. And then the last piece is care that flows both ways. You care for those that you're in tightly coordinated action with, shared purpose with, as well as you receive their care as well. You do those things, you're able to produce the experience of success anywhere, and the accomplishments will follow. So that's success. Uh we we hit it hard and fast. Uh I'm, as usual, grateful for all of you to be here and can't wait for you to visit us when we hit our next topic. 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.