Written by: Craig Stanland, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What is The Golden Treadmill, and how does it impact your life? More importantly, how can you free yourself from its grip?
You've climbed to the top of your corporate ladder.
Years and years of work and sacrifice, and for what?
When you reached the top of the ladder, all the things you thought would be waiting for you aren't there.
There's no purpose, meaning, or fulfillment.
When you find yourself without purpose, meaning, or fulfillment in your career, you feel empty.
The default mode you know to fill that hole is acquiring more power.
Money is the low-hanging fruit of more power, and the path to more money is the next rung on the corporate ladder.
You're back to climbing.
The next rung on the corporate ladder is a symbol of success.
Therefore it's a symbol of status ‒ which also satisfies the desire for more power.
It's a win/win.
However, an issue arises when money and status don't satiate the emptiness.
Now you're working more hours, your stress load has doubled, and the emptiness is expanding.
The next avenue you'll pursue to give meaning to your unfulfilling life is acquiring status-seeking materialism.
You deserve the new BMW, the new Panerai, and the bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape to compensate for the increased hours and stress.
You deserve to spend your hard-won earnings.
Status-seeking acquisition provides a blast of happiness and satisfaction.
But much like a new car smell, the feeling fades, and the emptiness returns.
You want and eventually crave that blast of happiness and satisfaction.
Welcome to The Golden Treadmill.
You'll chase short-term highs after short-term highs to fill the hole in your life.
But, you become conditioned to the short-term high; you grow numb to life and need more, more, more to feel what you once felt.
The speed of the treadmill increases as you chase the elusive more.
Your acquisitions will increase in cost and status, and you'll seek other outlets to fill the hole.
Anything to feel something because the faster you run, the larger the hole becomes.
Porn, affairs, alcohol, drugs, even binging Netflix and scrolling endlessly on social media.
Short-term hits that are designed to keep you sprinting on The Golden Treadmill.
You Have 3 Options:
You'll stay on the treadmill until the day you die, never finding what you were ultimately seeking. This is your path to dying with regrets.
Life will knock you off the treadmill. Divorce, heart attack or illness, DWI, prison. 2 creates two paths: Ignoring the sign and continuing as is or accepting the sign and changing.
You make one of the most courageous decisions a man can make. You slow the treadmill down to a stop, step off it, and onto the path of meaning.
You evolve from chaser to creator.
Because meaning is what man desires and what you've been chasing.
You just chose the incorrect method.
You want your life to have a purpose, you want to know your life meant something, and you want to know you're leaving a meaningful legacy behind.
And what you ultimately desire is the peace and freedom to pursue the purpose and meaning he craves.
Stepping off The Golden Treadmill is your path to peace and freedom.
What's one thing you can do today to slow your treadmill down?
Let's talk if you're ready to invest in 1:1 support so you can write your extraordinary life story.
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Craig Stanland, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Craig Stanland is a Reinvention Architect & Mindset Coach, TEDx & Keynote Speaker, and Best-Selling Author.
In 2012, Craig Stanland made a choice that would cost him everything. After exploiting the warranty policy of one of the largest tech companies in the world for almost a year, the FBI finally knocked on his door.
He was arrested and sentenced to 2 years of Federal Prison, followed by 3 years of Supervised Release, and ordered to pay $834,307 in restitution. He lost his wife, his home, his cars, his career, and even his identity. He wanted nothing more than to die.
A well-timed prison visit from his best friend of over thirty years turned his life around. Craig rebuilt and reinvented his life from rock bottom to a life of meaning and fulfillment.
As a Reinvention Architect, Craig leverages his experiences and personal reinvention to work 1:1 with clients so they can re-architect their lives with freedom, passion, purpose, fulfillment, and meaning.Craig's mission is to help people cultivate the courage to pursue their calling so they can live meaningful lives.
His book, "Blank Canvas, How I Reinvented My Life After Prison" is available on Amazon.
