In 2021, Amazon was the pride and prosperity of Seattle, but things changed when Jeff Bezos left, the stock price fell, and layoffs occurred. The shift in mood reveals the burden of high expectations. Achieving extraordinary things felt like breaking even, and the joy was overshadowed by the debt of expectations.
The knee-jerk way to set expectations is to anchor to what everyone else has right now. But imagine the tragedy of there being unbelievable progress throughout your life and you enjoy none of it because you expected all of it.
This episode is all about expectations, and how the key to happiness in so many things in life is to aim low.