The Arrival Fallacy: Why Success Is Never Enough

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The Arrival Fallacy: Why Success Is Never Enough

Last week, the world's top ranked golfer, Scottie Scheffler, went viral for something completely unrelated to golf...

During his pre-tournament interview at The Open Championship, one of four annual major golf championships, a reporter asked Scheffler a simple question about his incredible streak of success:

"You talk about 'the show goes on which it does. What would be the longest you've ever celebrated something?"

Scheffler's five minute response, which has garnered tens of millions of views in the span of a week, was a masterclass, offering deep, raw insights on the hidden tension that exists between success and fulfillment.

"It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling...And then it’s like, what are we going to eat for dinner?"

He continued to expand on the lack of fulfillment he gets from the wins:

"This is not a fulfilling life. It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it’s not fulfilling from the sense of the deepest places of your heart...There’s a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfill them in life and then you get there and all of a sudden you get to number 1 in the world and you’re like what’s the point?"

The clips virality comes as no surprise, as it touches two distinct nerves:

1. Confusion. How could someone who has achieved so much—at the absolute pinnacle of his craft—feel such emptiness about the pursuit? He's doing the things everyone wants to do. Shouldn't he feel good all the time?

2. Understanding. At some point in our lives, we've all had a similar experience (albeit on a much smaller scale). We've built up some goal in our mind, achieved that goal, felt that momentary euphoria, and then the reset. The dread. The need to do more.

As it turns out, Scottie Scheffler is describing an all-too-common, and very natural, human phenomenon...

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Sisyphus and the Arrival Fallacy

In Ancient Greek lore, Sisyphus was the King of Corinth, known for his keen intellect and ingenuity, but also for his pride and deceitful nature.

One day, Sisyphus hatched a plan to trap Thanatos, the Greek God of Death, a devious move he believed would allow him (and all others) to escape death and live forever.

His plan worked. With Thanatos trapped in chains, no one could pass over into the afterlife, but the world was swiftly plunged into immortal disorder, chaos, and anarchy.

Unfortunately for Sisyphus, the other gods had taken notice, leading Ares, the God of War, to intervene forcefully and free Thanatos from his chains.

As punishment for his actions, Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of futile struggle: Forced to push a heavy boulder up a steep hill, but upon nearing the top, the boulder would roll back down, and he would have to begin the tiresome effort anew.

Sisyphus was immortalized as the personification of endless toil. Of the incessant quest for more that never quite satiates.

Whether we realize it or not, we are all living our own Sisyphean existence.

We near the top of our mountain—with all the anticipated happiness and fulfillment it will bring—only to find ourselves back at the bottom.

In The 5 Types of Wealth, I put a name to the phenomenon in what has become the most highlighted paragraph in the entire book:

"The arrival fallacy is the false assumption that reaching some achievement or goal will create durable feelings of satisfaction and contentment in our lives. We incorrectly assume that we will finally experience the sensation of having arrived when we reach whatever we have propped up as our destination."

Throughout our lives, we're indoctrinated into the belief that achieving certain external things—money, fame, wealth, success—will create the blissful state we seek.

That our good life exists on the other side of some thing that we prop up as our destination.

We say things like...

• "When I get [X], then I'll be happy."

• "Once I achieve [Y], then I'll feel content."

• "If I make [Z], then I'll feel fulfilled."

...and then fill the blanks with an ever-rotating cast of trophies.

In a 2019 interview, actor Dax Shepard shared his dark personal experience with this existence:

"They’re paying me a ton of money, people recognize me at the airport, I’m doing everything I had dreamt of doing for 30 years, it all came true. And I am the least happy I’ve ever been in my life, I’m [as close] to not wanting to being alive as I’ve ever been, and I have every single thing on paper that I wanted."

For Shepard, the moment served as an awakening:

"I think a lot of us proceed through life thinking, ‘We would be happy if…’ or ‘We would have self-esteem if…’ or ‘We would know contentment if…” and those are illusions that most people don’t get to find out are illusions, and I got to find out it’s an illusion."

Actor Jim Carrey might have said it best in a powerful award ceremony speech:

"I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer."

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If You're Not Enough Without It...

Before you've achieved your success, it's easy to brush off these statements and quotes as so-called champagne problems. Privileged problems.

And that's fair.

When you're climbing up the early part of the curve, those incremental wins of money will provide durable, lasting happiness. You'll be able to meet your basic needs, take care of those around you, afford basic pleasures.

That is real.

But once you get beyond it, the math changes. And if you're not careful, the cost for the more you seek will be one you never wanted to pay.

In a powerful scene in the movie Cool Runnings, the story of the unlikely journey of a Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics, the team's coach, played by the late John Candy, is having a conversation with one of his star athletes about the chase for gold:

Coach: You see, Derice, I've made winning my whole life. And when you make winning your whole life, you have to keep on winning, no matter what, you understand that?

Derice: No, I don't understand, Coach. You had two gold medals, you had it all.

Coach: A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it.

On Sunday, just a few days after his viral press conference, Scottie Scheffler won The Open Championship by a commanding four strokes.

He has the wisdom to know this win won't change how he feels:

"I'm kind of a sicko. I love putting in the work. I love being able to practice. I love getting out to live out my dreams...I love being a father. I love being able to take care of my son...I would much rather be a great father than I would be a great golfer."

He knows the truth:

Real happiness is found in the journey. It’s the quest. It’s the hunt. It’s the process. It's the anticipation. It's the moment right before you achieve it. It's not in the having, but in the becoming. It's an inside job.

Find happiness on the journey—or you won't find it at all.

And always remember:

A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it.