Chase Your Hero

At the end of each year I go through a few books, podcasts, and quotes that serve as refreshers on how I want to execute during the year ahead.

Those resources range from practical (Atomic Habits, Essentialism, favorite podcasts, etc.) to corny and over the top. This week’s post is on two of the latter, and I'm not one for aspirational talks, so bear with me.

This year, one idea kept coming back to me: there’s value in never catching up to your future self.

”Who’s your hero?”

Someone asked Matthew McConaughey that question early on in his life. His answer, made famous in his 2014 Oscar acceptance speech, was “me in 10 years.”

You see, every day, and every week, and every month, and every year of my life, my hero is always ten years away. I'm never going to be my hero. I'm not going to obtain that and that's fine with me because it keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.

There’s something profound in that response from someone known for coining the phrase, ”alright, alright, alright”.

While I've always been a fan of inversion when it comes to solving problems, I'd never thought about applying it to other parts of life even though in hindsight it's blindingly obvious. It's kind of like the personal version writing the headline you want as a business.

The genius is that this inverted goal will never be accomplished as long as we keep pushing ourselves and that's a recipe for success. We're always chasing an ideal of ourselves that we know we're capable of, but can't reach without the work.

This is different from standard goal-setting. Goals are static targets: run a marathon, close a deal, hit a number. But 'future-me-as-hero' is a moving target that evolves as you grow.

You're not chasing an achievement, you're chasing a  person, someone who has the discipline, skills, and experience you don't quite have yet. We've all been at the point where we hit a goal and got comfortable for a bit. This approach mitigates that.

It reminds me a lot of James Clear’s view that identity matters a lot in goal setting. True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity.

The goal is not to read a book, the goal is to become a reader. The goal is not to run a marathon, the goal is to become a runner.

If McConaughey is your laid back, slow-talking, uncle sharing wisdom with you at 2 AM over a glass of tequila, David Goggins wakes you up at 4 AM to run in a snowstorm with pneumonia because comfort is for the weak.

If you're not familiar with Goggins, he's an acquired taste and speaks with profanity that makes a Scorsese or Tarantino movie look tame.

He went from an abusive household to an obese kid in a town full of racism to Navy SEAL, ultra-marathoner, and bestselling author. It’s a journey that sounds fake until you hear him talk about the work it took. In Never Finished, he wrote:

I’m haunted by my future goals, not my past failures. I’m haunted by what I may still become. I’m haunted by my own continued thirst for evolution.

Like McConaughey, he's focused on the future, though in a decidedly more cynical way. Both refuse to let their past accomplishments (or failures) become their identity. McConaughey's version is aspirational and optimistic and Goggins' is relentless and uncomfortable.

Same insight, different approaches. One says keep moving forward; the other says “stay hard.”

Imagine you had an incredible 2026, and you're meeting a new version of you on 12/31/2026. What needs to be true about the person and what are the steps you need to take to become them?

Ideas I’m Chasing

Ambition gets tested in the details.

Weigh risks, don't count them.

Ideas I’m Collecting

Not affected by success. Not affected by failure. On to the next play. Never satisfied. We play to a standard, not the circumstances of the game. - Curt Cignetti

When some retreat from the market, it creates an opportunity to gain share. - Hans Wilsdorf, Founder of Rolex

Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” ask, “What do I want to go big on?” - Greg McKeown, Essentialism