I always say: every person is capable of scaling dozens or even hundreds of times. Absolutely everyone. Because true growth and scaling is not the number in your bank account, not grades on an exam, and not the number of diplomas. It is an internal process. The very fact of understanding what genuine scaling means is already the beginning of moving forward.
Today I will talk about the fundamental reasons that stop a person in life. Each of them carries enormous significance. And if you become aware of them, you can move much further.
Habit #1. Negativity toward work.
One of the most common habits worldwide is to approach one’s work with negativity. This means coming to work and feeling irritation toward your responsibilities, your boss, colleagues, or even the very process itself. This habit is dangerous because work occupies a colossal part of our lives — literally one-third. That means if day after day you treat your work with dissatisfaction, then one-third of your life passes in disharmony.
A person constantly seeks something more interesting, easier, more joyful. But the habit of viewing work through the prism of dissatisfaction destroys him from within. Even if outwardly you smile and say you like your job, your inner state often betrays the opposite — hidden negativity.
I’m not saying that negative emotions should never arise at all. The question is different: have you made them the basis of your attitude toward work? If yes, then this is the destructive habit that keeps you from moving forward.
Habit #2. Striving for perfection and perfectionism.
Another habit that halts growth and prevents scaling is striving for perfection.
It’s important to understand: doing tasks with quality is good. But perfectionism most often arises when a person does not have a clearly set goal. As a result, he spends energy not on the main thing but on details.
A simple example from marketing. Suppose there’s a task — to post a video. It’s important to define the main goal in advance:
- is it the number of views,
- the number of subscribers,
- or that viewers watch the video to the end?
The goal determines the strategy. After all, a thousand views with only 3% watched to the end is 30 people. But if only 100 people watched the video and 70% finished it, that’s already 70 people. And in the second case, the result is more effective.
But when there is no goal, perfectionism begins: discussions about which words the speaker said, whether the lighting was right, whether the microphone was good. Remember: idealization is more often a psychological trap than a real necessity.
I always say: it’s better to do 150 tasks out of 500, and let 30 of them be brought to perfection, than to try to complete 10 out of 10 perfectly. For me, diversity and flexibility are more important: some tasks may be done “somehow,” some not at all, and some polished to brilliance.
Quality matters. But it’s not always decisive. For example, on YouTube, watch-through rates are often barely connected to the “perfection” of visuals. Moreover, overly dynamic videos with constantly changing shots can even repel viewers.
Recently I had such a case. We were driving with Polina, my wife, she turned on a popular video with millions of views. The picture changed every second. Literally after a minute and a half she turned it off saying: “I can’t watch this.” And I completely understand her. Personally, I don’t like that format: I watch video for information, I care about the content, the sound, sometimes seeing a person, their emotions. Constant frame changes are distracting. So, in terms of perfectionism and idealization, the question arises: what goal have you set?
Habit #3. Trying to look like someone you are not.
One of the reasons leading to deep inner degradation is the desire to seem like someone else. Most often this is tied to wanting to look better in the eyes of others.
For example, someone works as a taxi driver but tells people that he “actually” has a business. He changes his way of speaking, his behavior, trying to impress. But the foundation is not sincerity, but the desire to embellish reality. And here’s what matters: in most cases it works the other way around. The person thinks he looks better, but to others he starts to seem worse. Many don’t realize this.
💡 When we try to be someone we are not, we lose twice. First, we stop developing. A person living another’s life is doomed to suffering. Second, the goal “to seem better” is not achieved: other people still perceive him differently from how he intended.
Even if you want to shape a certain opinion about yourself, that doesn’t mean you need to invent dozens of businesses, flaunt big money, or display a collection of titles. True value lies in sincerity.
Interestingly, not only those who want to appear more successful face this problem. The opposite also happens. I knew a very wealthy man whose fortune exceeded a billion dollars. And he dreamed of looking “ordinary.” Why? Because when people found out about his wealth, they only wanted to interact with him for money. He was searching for simple human relationships. But this too is a problem. A person who hides his wealth still ends up being “not genuine.” He lives not as he truly is.
Habit #4. Choosing education based on “titles.”
Another serious mistake that leads to degradation is choosing education based on the titles of the teacher.
People think like this:
- only someone who earned billions should talk about business;
- only someone with the largest community should talk about spirituality;
- only a Nobel Prize winner should talk about science;
- only someone with many children should talk about family.
Social networks reinforce this habit: we want to see the “right caption” on Instagram, loud titles on YouTube or TikTok. Even I myself, when talking about something, sometimes add such “anchors”: I say that I managed a thousand employees, had six million clients, spoke with billionaires. All these are triggers that attract attention.
But here lies the danger. When we choose education based only on titles, we make a serious mistake. A person may own a business worth $10 billion but be deeply unhappy in his family. And if you begin to orient yourself by his views on marriage and relationships, you will most likely lose. His values may completely contradict yours.
Moreover, the title itself does not guarantee either that the person can repeat his success or that you can copy it. We often don’t know what really got him that title.
Here’s an example. NVIDIA. Today its stock is around $170, and just ten years ago it was a couple of dollars. The company grew dozens of times, and thousands of employees became owners of tens of millions of dollars. But does that mean each of them knows how to make such money? Of course not. They won’t give you a ready formula of where to work now so you’ll be rich in 10 years.
But in life we are inclined to believe people based on their titles. We think: since he’s a billionaire, then his family must be in order; since he has a successful business, he’s an expert in everything. But the truth is, each person’s life is unique. And titles alone don’t tell you what exactly you should learn from him.