The High Cost of Low Standards

Jake Luehrs
June 28, 2025

ONE QUESTION

When was the last time you took a big leap on something? Meaningful rewards only come from those very leaps.

ONE THING TO PONDER

Negativity festers when our attention is focused on things outside of our control.

ONE PERSPECTIVE

The safest path often leads to the most profound regrets, quietly stealing who we desire to be.

Fear is a mile wide and an inch deep.

If we're being honest, most of our fears are stories we've invented that never actually come to life.

Safety and comfort, while they serve short-term desires, create more regret than nearly anything else. Here's why:

Comfort is not neutral. While we’re standing still, life is moving forward. The gap between who we are and who we could become widens every day we choose safety over growth.

The NUMBER ONE regret people have at the end of their lives based on research from Bronnie Ware is:

"I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."

Another way to say it….The courage to be themselves. I actually don’t think we’re any different with the exception that we still have a choice we can make right now.

After thousands of coaching conversations, I've discovered fears typically fall into 5 core categories with many subcategories that fall under one of these:

1. Fear of failing
Every person you admire has a graveyard of failures behind them.
Your failures aren't unique; they're actually qualifiers for progress.

Truth - We will all fail at some point, fear doesn't change that. Insert cliche here - Failing is your teacher.

2. Fear of being judged
Truth- We are judged every day, we might as well invite judgment from who we actually are.

3. Fear of success
Success doesn't corrupt character—it reveals it.

The fear isn't really about success itself; it's about whether you'll still recognize yourself when you get there.

Define success on your terms before you achieve it.
Truth - We are more fearful of our potential than we realize.

4. Fear of being broke
Wealth isn't about what we make, it's about what we spend.

The poorest person isn't the one with the least money—it's the one with the most fear about money.

Truth - Most don’t have an income problem, we have an spending problem on things we believe we ‘need’.

5. Fear of being misunderstood.
Truth - Being misunderstood is a human condition. We’re not unique in that sense.

So it makes sense that we focus on what we believe we were put here to do and follow that path with our best efforts and intentions.

Identify one action you've been avoiding because of fear. Not a life-changing decision—just one small step toward what you actually want. Take it. See how shallow that mile-wide fear really is.

Every meaningful life, one that has minimized regret, started with someone deciding their dreams were worth more than their fears.

Onward and Upward!

PODCAST

Alex Hormozi - 41 Harsh Truths Nobody Wants To Admit

Modern Wisdom

I’m suggesting that you go to this podcast. There are some significant truths that can free you here. I’m not telling you to, but I’m telling you to. You can jump to any part of this and even 15 minutes, you’ll gain something. This is about what drives our behavior, how we fabricate our perspective, not from truth but from comfort, and how to build resilience. Please listen!

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

Stillness Is The Key
by Ryan Holiday

We confuse stillness with a lack of progress yet, stillness is what actually points us in the right direction. There are some meaningful takeaways from this book that could be helpful in aligning what your next right decision is to make.