1: Edward’s suffered from anxiety and worry. His body language made that clear, Chad Willardson thought to himself.
Chad is the founder and president of Pacific Capital, a premier wealth management firm in Southern California. He was meeting Edward for the very first time. The year was 2003.
“Edward mentioned that he was concerned about the stock market and where the economy was headed,” Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in The Gap and The Gain.
Edward was in his early 40s. He had a six-figure income with $2.5 million in cash to invest.
“If I can just get my investment portfolio to $5 million, then I’d feel secure financially and finally be able to relax,” Edward told Chad.
Chad “assured Edward with the right team, plan, and strategy, his financial future would be secure and abundant,” Dan and Ben write.
Together they set Edward’s goal for financial freedom at $5 million.
Over the next several years, Edward followed the plan he and Chad had created. He added money to his accounts, and his investments were compounding at a nice rate. Within a few years, he surpassed the original goal of $5 million in his investment portfolio.
But Edward didn’t feel secure. He was concerned about the future.
“I feel like I need $10 million to really feel safe and secure,” he told Chad.
Because of this substantial income and wise investment strategy, Edward’s portfolio increased above the $10 million mark. By 2019, his investments were up to $17 million—more than three times his original target.
2: “From an outside perspective, this man was more than living the American dream,” Dan and Ben observe. “He had grown to have a seven-figure income. He had a huge nest egg of compounding assets. And without question, he was a savvy and smart businessman.”
Yet, Edward was in what Strategic Coach founder Dan Sullivan calls “the GAP.”
Imagine a sheet of paper. At the top of the page is the word “Ideal.” At the bottom is the word “Start.”
The word “Achieved” is in the middle of the page. Achieved is where we are now. It’s what we’ve accomplished since we started.
We all have an ideal in mind. When we measure where we are now against our ideal rather than against the actual progress we’ve made, we are in “the GAP.”
Being in the GAP makes us unhappy.
When we measure our progress backward from where we started, we are in “the GAIN.”
“The GAIN is the antidote,” Dan and Ben write.
“The GAIN creates immediate happiness.
“The GAIN connects us to ourselves and our own progress.
“The GAIN transforms everything.
“The GAIN gives us power over the direction in our life.
The GAIN gets us out of the GAP.”
3: Edward was in the GAP. He was measuring where we was versus his ideal. The idea is like the horizon. As we move forward, it does too.
Because Edward didn’t measure backward from where he had started, he was not grateful or happy about his situation.
“He remained anxious and worried about the future,” the authors note. “He continued to consume GAP-media that convinced him the financial world was going to collapse, and that he was going to lose all his money.”
Edward called and requested a meeting with Chad. He had decided to abandon the strategy they had successfully executed over the past 16 years. He told Chad he wanted to sell his investments and hold cash.
Which is what he did. Chad and Edward decided to part ways.
“Edward sold off his investments and put all of his GAP-money into the bank, where it sat since early 2019 when they had that conversation,” Dan and Ben observe. “At the writing of this book in mid-2021, the S&P Index has grown over 68% in the 2 years since Edward fearfully took his money out of the market.”
Edward was always trying to bridge a GAP he believed was somewhere in the future. He couldn’t escape the GAP. He couldn’t appreciate the GAINS.
“But the hard fact is that the GAP was always deep inside himself. Eventually, his GAP-thinking became so extreme that he stopped believing in his future entirely. It’s a sad tale,” Dan and Ben write. “But even more sad is how common it is.”
It’s easy to fall into a GAP mindset. It’s easy to reserve “happiness” and “success” for some future date. It’s easy to make ourselves miserable.
When we are in the GAP, “nothing is ever enough. Nothing ever will be enough,” Dan and Ben note. “We can’t see the GAIN in ourselves or others. And until we do, we’ll never be happy. Plain and simple.”
More tomorrow.
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Reflection: How do I typically measure my progress? Do I measure where I am against my ideal? Or backward from where I started?
Action: Share the GAP and the GAIN with someone I love and care about.