The Quiet Life Is the Most Underrated Path to Success

The world keeps telling us that a normal life is a wasted life.

I live a boring life. I’m 39, and most of my days look exactly the same.

I work from a small office, take walks, see my family, lift weights, read, and write. That’s about it.

And I love it.

My 19-year-old self would scoff at this. Even my 29-year-old self would. “Is that all there is to life?” he’d say. “You’ve got to be out there. In the middle of the action!”

What action?

I think I watched too many TV shows and movies.

The dream you inherit is not the dream you keep

In my head, I had a different picture of how my life was supposed to look. In my twenties, I watched shows like Mad Men and Suits. I like that life and wanted the big city.

The skyline office. The business dinners that ran past midnight.

Instead, I graduated in the aftermath of the Great Financial Crisis and started a business with my dad. We bought industrial laundry equipment, refurbished it, and sold it.

I was 24, driving to industrial parks to talk about used commercial washers and dryers, feeling…