The Uncommon Man Project

EP26: From Chasing Goals to True Fulfillment: The Hidden Keys of Lasting Achievement

• Episode 26

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In this episode of the Uncommon Man Podcast, Harry and Nick dive deep into what they call Sustainable Success —a powerful perspective for achieving high-level success without sacrificing your health, relationships, and personal values. They share personal anecdotes about reaching “summits” that weren’t truly theirs and how living in constant pursuit can drain your energy, erode your fulfillment, and fracture your closest bonds. By practicing presence, clarifying personal values, and taking responsibility for your emotional state, you can experience sustained success and feel truly aligned every step of the way.

Relevant Data:

  • According to a 2023 Gallup poll, 44% of U.S. workers report feeling “stressed a lot of the day,” underscoring the need for better alignment between professional and personal goals.
  • A study published in the Harvard Business Review found that burnout costs U.S. businesses more than $190 billion annually in healthcare spending—proof that success without self-care comes at a hefty price.

3 Key Takeaways

  1. Identify Your Values to Define Success
    • Many high achievers climb “summits” set by others, only to find emptiness at the top. Defining your own values ensures the goals you pursue will feel genuinely fulfilling.
  2. Practice Presence for Sustained Momentum
    • Learning to return to the “here and now” stops you from living solely in the future or dwelling on the past. This focus on presence boosts emotional resilience and prevents stress from spiraling out of control.
  3. Daily Reflection to Rewire Autopilot Behaviors
    • Use simple reflection (e.g., “Where did I go unconscious today?”) to pinpoint moments you checked out or let stress take over. Conscious awareness paves the way for intentional behavior change and long-term growth.

What was your biggest takeaway?

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Welcome back, guys, to another episode of the Uncommon Men podcast. Today, it's just myself and Nick, two of the greats. Today, we're going to dive into the sustainable success matrix.

Harry Orr: how you can have success that lasts a lifetime without feeling like you're just chasing the end of that tunnel that you never really get to. Or maybe you find that success and you don't feel as fulfilled as you thought you would. Or maybe in the pursuit of that success, you get burnt out along the way. You lose your values. And you kind of get to that point of what the hell am I doing this for? I'm missing out on time with my family.  my health is turning to s*** and this is not the life that I signed up for. So, we want to go through a few ways that we've found personally and that we've helped with our guys to have that sustainable success so that along the way you don't lose yourself and you get to the top of that mountain. So, Nick, what have you found, man?

Harry Orr: Have you had an instance in your life where you've kind of set this goal or this summit and…

Harry Orr: you've been chasing and either you kind of lost your way or you got there and it wasn't so fulfilling.

Nick Vonpitt: Yeah, I think and…

Nick Vonpitt: if I go back just on my own journey, I've had a lot of summits that they weren't my summits.  they were expectations and someone else's set of ideals and their own projected version of reality Nick would do well here and at that point in my younger years I didn't necessarily have the understanding of values and this understanding of alignment and

Nick Vonpitt: what that meant and what that did result in is me having achieved certain things but I didn't have the fulfillment because it wasn't something that I wanted to do per se. I felt forced and it felt like the right thing to do what the good man would do. And I've had a couple of those summits over the years and it also got just to a point where felt burnt out. ed drive. I lacked motivation.  I felt that There wasn't this sense of fulfillment. There was a lot of frustration and all of that wasn't just reflective within the state of my life, but relationship, business, my own health. so I think this goes a lot deeper than just the general idea of success. it also ties into sustainability. yeah.


00:05:00

Harry Orr: how you measure success or what sex success even means to you obviously in different realms of life that's going to be very different for a lot of people and then also based on your values will then tie into that as well right so I think it's worth having a good idea for some people like accumulating or considering all of your values collectively what would

Harry Orr: What could success look like in a capacity where you're not sacrificing some of your values for others? So you're not sacrificing your value of health or family just to have financial success. You're not sacrificing the financial success the business just to spend more time with your family and have better health. what does that sweet spot look like so that you're measuring it for you?

Harry Orr: Right. you said as opposed to this is what your partner thinks you should do or this is what society or your parents or whoever this other figure or pressure that is trying to tell you that this is where you should be going in life and aiming for right

Nick Vonpitt: …

Nick Vonpitt: you touched on such a important point there. I think a lot of people also just don't realize that they're living out someone else's expectations. that's the part that just confulates them or they're living out their trauma. That's it.  So I remember I worked with a guy really successful gentleman and he was struggling with stress management and struggling with a lackbased mentality as well as a sense of fulfillment. Now this person was in the 9 10 figure space.

Nick Vonpitt: It wasn't a small fish by any means. And even then, he said, if I'm going to paraphrase here, he said that it felt like, there were these two wolves that were, trying to feed off him. And the one had all these expectations and all these things that he didn't have when growing up.  and he had to step into the space of being the eldest and even a provider in his household at a young age. And There was a lack of safety. And as a child to move into a space where you're having to essentially be one of the breadwinners, that's a very messy situation to be in. And on the other side, he also then realized*** you've done it. you're in a space of safety.

Nick Vonpitt: You have the success, you have an incredible family, you're holding so many lives in your hands, you've built an incredible, set of businesses and you've created opportunities and you create impact and you're a philanthropist, etc. And in between that he struggled to invest in himself. He struggled to feel safe even in the life that he had built. He still felt that he didn't have enough money for his family and his kids if he were to pass.  He didn't feel fulfilled. He didn't know what hungry ghost was still or wolf was still trying to attack him the whole time. And one would think that when you've achieved a certain level of success that there would be this meaning and fulfillment and satisfaction that would just arise. And what was very apparent was he struggled with his selfworth.

Nick Vonpitt: He hadn't necessarily navigated that conversation between those two walls yet because he hadn't unpacked that effectively and he really wasn't clear on his own. He had principles but he wasn't clear on his values and was struggling to derive meaning from all the things that he had done other than what he's done is he has made sure that he doesn't need to survive. he can thrive. But he still had a belief around that. And I wanted to share that story with everyone here because no matter where you are financially,…

Nick Vonpitt: there are people that are in completely different, stratospheres from a financial standpoint and they are struggling with the same mental and emotional constraints that you are right now.

Harry Orr: It's such a funny conundrum…

Harry Orr: and we've all heard money won't make you happy. Having a six-pack won't make you confident. having this thing that we've tied that happiness that fulfillment that success that whatever it is to we've heard so many stories of people saying that I had it and it didn't do it for me but there's still that part of our brain that's like let me achieve it and then let me decide for myself right let me see once I've got multi-millions of dollars in the bank account and I'll make that decision for myself right so


00:10:00

Harry Orr: how does that story end? did he get to a point of finding that fulfillment or finding that balance

Nick Vonpitt: It's like work life balance is a complete f** myth. every day the balance is slightly different. It's going to be focused on what is it that you are needing or desiring in that moment in time. So it might be 30% family today but 70% family tomorrow or whatever the case is. So that idea of where you can just say you're going to get this percentage of my day, to get a little bit of life is going to happen, And you can't plan Life is just going to do what life does.  But you can allow yourself to be present in that experience. I think he found more presence with how he was living. he received what he could receive. and he did seem to be in a better space when we had stopped working together.

Nick Vonpitt: But I think the big shift that he had made was he no longer found that he was living in the future and projecting these chaotic scenarios of everything has just gone to s*** and he no longer found himself living in the past to the same degree. he was able to find himself more in where he was in that moment and step back into flow. And if he did, venture onto the other side of the riverbank, he would find his way back into the current and get back into the natural flow of things. And that gave him more capacity and actually allowed him to heal to a degree.

Nick Vonpitt: So obviously I can't exactly measure that, but he seemed to be better off and more content with himself, which I think everyone looks for in some way, shape, or form.  Yes. Yes.

Harry Orr: I think that fulfillment just purely by being present changes as massively cuz like you said especially in that story or…

Harry Orr: sorry that example when we're so often focused on the future and on that chasm on that huge gap between where we are and where we want to be which is never ending, I think it was a Alex Horoszi quote or maybe he shared the quote but it was something along the lines of things that you have today you once said would make you happy.

Harry Orr: and you're still saying that there's these things in the future that will make you happy when you'll have more time for your family or when this happens you'll start to prioritize your health or these markers and then you achieve that and I can't stop now there's this next thing I need to do I just need to get the hire that next person or get the business to this next level I just need to wait till we get this deal over the line or just to this next level or to this next month or whatever it is and it's always that next piece but there's never  that almost gratitude and presence of okay it's awesome to be pushing for where we want to go in the future, but at what point do you enjoy the journey aspect as opposed to just being solely focused on the destination?

Harry Orr: And so I think that's where for a lot of people if you're not and this will bring us into this first point if you're not in purpose driven work if you're not conscious of that purpose that intentional focus of where you want to go and you're solely focused on the destination the journey is pretty s*** right if you're the only reprieve you get is I'll be happy or be confident I'll be fulfilled or be whatever when I achieve this as opposed is to just enjoying and…

Harry Orr: getting purpose and fulfillment from the journey process itself, then that's a long ass journey. If you make it to the end

Nick Vonpitt: And the thing is you end up missing the journey.

Nick Vonpitt: I don't know about you, but I mean when I can go back to moments in my life where I completely dissociated, there's massive gaps where you don't necessarily remember what you've done, how you've gone through certain things. It just felt like you were just on a treadmill just running nowhere. There's no clear direction.  there's no meaning or weight within your steps moving forward. And that's been a practice that's probably been one of my greatest I don't want to say flaws, but things that I've had to work on and I still work on a day-to-day b I have to remind myself every day. It's just your kids are not going to be kids forever. Even though you might be navigating X, Y, and Zed, be here.


00:15:00

Nick Vonpitt: Be in the moment. Take in the temper tantrum. in Take in the spilled milk. Take in the giggles. Take in whatever you need to Take it in because that's where life is happening. It's not hap it hasn't happened. it's happening. That's where you need to be. And the more I do that, the less cortisol I find is running through my system and there's just more ease and there's more space and capacity and that ripples into all areas of my life. But when I'm not and I forget, goodness, then I find myself on a different river bank.

Nick Vonpitt: I find myself in a different boat. I'm capsized. I'm upside down. I can't lose any more hair at this point. But for everyone listening,…

Harry Orr: But I'm in a dried up river well out of the banks and…

Harry Orr: just going like how did I get here? Yeah.

Nick Vonpitt: But it is that and…

Nick Vonpitt: then it's like s*** then you feel the misalignment and then you feel like f*** I'm not in align with my values. I'm not enjoying what I'm doing. why the f*** am I doing this? And what I'm doing I'm also being completely ineffective within this process. I'm not showing up as my best.  If I was a worldclass athlete and I was competing, which we all are in different areas of our lives, why would I be comfortable competing in this state with this mindset? I need to adjust it to get myself back to where it feels good and it feels congruent with my values, my principles, and move forward from there.

Nick Vonpitt: my god.

Harry Orr: And we're kidding ourselves…

Harry Orr: if we think the people around us do not notice. we can think that we're hiding that or we're hiding this stress or we're taking it all on our shoulders on our own. even people that aren't married emotionally in tune and I guess woman such and such as yourself, but everybody notices. They can tell by the energy that you show up with that something's that off. You're stressed. You're not present. You're all these things. And then it's night and day when you're in alignment, when you've got that presence, when s*** can hit the fan.

Harry Orr: And it can be something that maybe, when you're in that stressed out, focusing on everything else but the present moment state, you would have just instantly at the drop of a pin, lost your absolute s*** and had a real hard time caging that frustration or that emotion and handling that from that stoic controlled masculine that we want to be.  versus when you're present, you're doing you're just there and it's like, that's not idea You crack a joke at it and then you just move on with it, right? It's polar opposites.  and start.

Nick Vonpitt: is contagious. So when you're not in alignment, you're in a space of duress and Stress is contagious. it's a proven fact like your stress there's a smell and You infect your entire family unit. So your kids are going to have higher cortisol levels. Your partner is going to have higher cortisol levels.  Everyone's going to be on overdrive because you as the masculine set the** tone for your home and your life. And if you are, lying down half, I don't know, just** being complacent and you're like, "Woe is me." And stuck in your victim space or you're angry and frustrated and you're fighting against life and you're angry at yourself and everyone else that is going to infect everyone else.

Nick Vonpitt: So then what do you think your household is going to look and feel like? Is it going to be accommodating and loving and restorative and nice warm fuzzy place for you to lay your head?

Nick Vonpitt: No, it's not. You're going to have kids that are acting up and they don't know why they're acting up. They just feel all these weird feelings and they feel heightened and it's not a natural state. and your partner is going to be in a position where they're maybe a bit more snappy or they're just going to be like, let's give this person some space.

Harry Orr: Yep. Yeah.

Nick Vonpitt: And it's like, there's this mood and there's this overall state like this dark cloud of despair around you.  H how do in that state going into diving into the hermatic principles that Josh touches on you're not going to attract anything exciting and joyful from that state.  You're going to be doing the opposite because is going to attract Yes.


00:20:00

Harry Orr: And I had a client when he first realized that was pissed off. He's like, " Why is it** on me? Tell them to sort their own mood out."

Harry Orr: he was almost shunned that responsibility and that control was f*** why is it my problem that she's a moody b****? Why is it my problem that the kids are acting up and they're just little s**** and they just do this? you are the masculine like you said like you are the rock. if you're stable and strong, everybody's standing on even ground, everybody is safe, everybody's happy, everybody's in harmony.  If you are crumbling and you're like a volcano going off, everybody's on edge. And so, no wonder you're always arguing, the kids are acting up, you never get laid. dude in the mirror number one. Yeah.

Nick Vonpitt: Start there. and here's the thing. It's not about being dissociated. it's about being present and…

Nick Vonpitt: being nonreactive. you're responding. Yes. Sometimes things are going to happen and you're going to be triggered. It's natural. if your kid's been screaming in your ear for half an hour and you haven't slept and you maybe haven't had your third cup of coffee. By the way, this is where you need to sell everyone on primal and say draw don't do coffee, do primal energies brain juice.

Harry Orr: Yeah, brain juice.

Harry Orr: Coffee is bad for you. Oops.

Nick Vonpitt: You're going to find yourself in those situations and that's where all these practices come in. that's when it counts. When you're actually in the chaos and it's like I don't feel doing this. They're ready. You're saying feel. It's got nothing to do with your mindset. You don't feel like doing it's your feelings. It's emotions. Is my kid trying to attack me and hurt me? Do they have a malicious intent? No. Is my wife trying to berate me? No, she's not. She's maybe just experiencing some discomfort and projecting it onto me.

Nick Vonpitt: What can I do to best facilitate this? Act like a child and throw a temper tantrum and blame and shout and scream and stomp my feet or do I grow up,…

Harry Orr: It's not personal.

Nick Vonpitt: take a deep breath or two or three, maybe step out of the space if it's safe to do so cuz you need to obviously watch your kid. So be a good parent first, guys. And Come back Take a second. Recognize, no one's trying to hurt it really isn't personal. And you're not the victim here, but You have the opportunity to listen and to be that space of safety.

Nick Vonpitt: And when you make that energetic and state flip or switch, you'll notice that whatever mood and whatever was happening, it dies down really** fast versus perpetuate and multiply and become this exponential, chaotic situation. that's the invitation here.

Harry Orr: Of course.

Nick Vonpitt: It's to find that space. And that's easier said than done cuz let's add in lack of sleep and financial stress and duress.  So maybe you're like, " s***, I need to pay someone because they're working in my business and I haven't had this in whatever your story is." That's great. But it still does not give you the right, and this is being very honest, to treat people s*** because you feel like to project your s*** onto other people. Own your s***, deal with it, and move on.  Yes.

Harry Orr: Yeah, that ownership and the discipline is a huge piece as well. just cuz you feel something doesn't mean you need to act on it. But I think coming back to what we said before about that presence. If you've got that and obviously as a parent when you're stressed, when you're sleep deprived, when you've got all a lot of those factors which aren't always, the most in our control as much as we would like them to be. There's always s*** outside that.

Harry Orr: For the most part, if you're present in that moment, you have a much greater bandwidth, a much greater time to go from being present and neutral to going to that extreme of frustration and f*** this kid, I'm about to kick it out the window if it doesn't shut up. Right? Whereas, if you're always stressed, thinking about work, thinking about the future, thinking about all that other stuff that isn't right there, then that happens in an instant.  and your chance of catching yourself before that escalates and goes down that path almost Extremely difficult to catch yourself in that freaking moment, Takes practice and surely you can do it. But prehandle the stuff that put you in that slightly irritable or on edge state at the start and make life easy for yourself.


00:25:00

Nick Vonpitt: So if you were to now break this down in just to a practice and a place to start. So I think whoever's been listening maybe has a clear understanding. here's a couple of situations or spaces where this would be more apparent or these type of things would arise.  So someone starting from scratch and be okay how do I create more alignment, find more flow, cultivate that sense of presence from a practical standpoint. Just maybe two or three basic practices that's maybe in a sequence that they can use to reflect on a day-to-day basis moving forward.

Nick Vonpitt: and using this as a baseline for how they start their day and how they move throughout their day. So they can have more of the uptime in the state of presence and…

Nick Vonpitt: responding, taking responsibility versus reacting and being running in the future or running in the past.

Harry Orr: I think a good place to start is first of all look in your current life.

Harry Orr: Where do you find those places of alignment of flow? what segments of your day or your week do you find where you're just naturally present in that flow? Time seems to go by like that and there's nothing that could distract you from what you're doing, right? You're just in that zone as people say.

Harry Orr: It might be hobby related, if you're a surfer or you skate or you snowboard or you do things like that that require balance that require that movement of your body forces you to be responsive and present in what you're doing. Other areas as well, look for evidence.  I think that's a good place to start for most people because if there's already something in your life, it's going to give you clues because then you can look at what element of that is like do you find aligning? If it's ideally to do with your purpose or your work or something that you do on a more regular basis, not that's just solely enjoyment focused, but that can be a good place to start to bring that presence. Another one as well is just look at why we're not so present.

Harry Orr: being distracted all the time, right? Functions do not disturb, airplane mode, turning notifications off on your screen and things like that whilst you are doing work or you are sitting down to do some of this reflection can be massively beneficial so that you're not training that little monkey brain to expect dopamine every 30 seconds because you can't focus on what you're doing. that presence whether you're with your kids or you're working or you're at the gym or whatever you're doing is going to come down almost to that attention span as well. And so if we've trained oursel to expect dopamine from food, from social media, from notifications almost inst on the regular, it makes it real hard.

Harry Orr: And so that's one of the pract reason reasons why I'm a big advocate for meditation for that discipline of being able to refocus. meditation isn't the practice of kind of silencing your mind. It's acknowledging the distraction then back to center, refocus. In the same way that you strengthen your muscles at the gym, you strengthen your mind by being able to refocus.  Because in the mo we know the people that are most successful in anything are the ones that can stay the most focused longer than anybody else. And so if you can hold that focus no matter who you're with or what you're doing the chance of success in that domain drastically increases. so another piece this is one of Joe Dispensza's cues on reflection at the end of the day is just simply where did you go unconscious?

Harry Orr: And by unconscious he means where did you revert to autopilot behaviors? That autopilot behavior might be checking your phone at the dinner table. It might be acting out of emotion rather than taking that breath or allowing the day to get away from you rather than being present and intentional with your focus, with your energy, with your efforts. so by acknowledging where you went unconscious, your cue for the next day is in this bracket, in this setting. I'm now going to bring that new level of consciousness to rewire my brain to this behavior that I want. So that I'm more present at the dinner table so that I'm more focused at work in communication so that I can do these things to a higher level, to my best standard. And then we do the same process.


00:30:00

Harry Orr: where did I go unconscious today? And then we're the aim there is constantly raising the standard of that autopilot behavior so that we're not just raising the ceiling for our potential and our success and all these things, but we're raising the floor as well. So you get to a point of even on a day of complete autopilot, I still didn't eat s***. I still didn't go on a bender. I still didn't spend our life savings. I still didn't react emotionally and act out and do all these things. I was still able to eat nutritious foods and…

Harry Orr: have relatively health and present focused or intentional habits and things like that.

Harry Orr: And then it's just that constant progression to win. Yeah.

Nick Vonpitt: I think that's it in a nutshell.

Nick Vonpitt: What I loved about what you said it really is about raising that baseline and that baseline is essentially the habits that you install through your practices because when you do go into autopilot it's your habits that take flight. Yeah. that's thing that keeps that's the thing that allows things to move. and it just takes to do that.  21 days and you can rewire your entire system and get yourself moving in the best ways possible. Yeah, thank you for that insight, that was great.

Harry Orr: get off on yeah, that makes sense. That's real good. got my fix for today and then tune in tomorrow.

Harry Orr: But something that you can actually go and do today or tonight that's going to shift that pattern of behavior, that autopilot mode that you've been in

Nick Vonpitt: And…

Nick Vonpitt: just here's a question that I ask everyone and just to add to that, we touched on, creating fulfillment and meaning with everything that you're busy doing. The question that we don't ask ourselves enough is, Why does this mean something to why is this important to me? And use that as your frame as you're moving through these different practices. why am I working out? Because love myself. I want to look and feel at my best because when I am that I get to share that and model that to my kids or to my partner and I want that experience.

Nick Vonpitt: Why do I want to interact with kindness and compassion? because That's how I would treat myself. I want to do that with other people. get as your golden light or your north star that you get to focus on. Why is this important to me? Why is this something that I want to pursue and engage in this way? And you'll find more meaning with that.  And yes, we can talk about understand your values. That just creates a framework for you. So values it's a really good baseline with everything that we do here. in terms of mental fitness. but the practice that you've just shared there, Harry, I think is that as a baseline is absolutely incredible.

Nick Vonpitt: Alongside understanding those things that you're doing need to also align with things that mean something to you or…

Nick Vonpitt: least start to find the meaning within that. Otherwise, you're not going to want to do it and pursue it.

Harry Orr: Yeah. And…

Harry Orr: then that way as well once you're not so motivated to do it, you have that deeper reason cuz it's super easy to justify why we shouldn't do something or I'm doing it because the guys on the podcast said or…

Harry Orr: because this person on the internet said so because my wife said so or because someone else says I should but you don't really care about but if you know why you're doing it on that deeper level then that can be the difference between being able to override that but I don't feel like it today and…

Nick Vonpitt: Yes. Motivation.

Nick Vonpitt: Yeah. The lack of motivation. Yeah.

Harry Orr: yeah it's like you're the one that

Harry Orr: said you wanted this. This is like no one's going to force you to do it,…

Nick Vonpitt: Exactly that.

Harry Orr: but you got to live with the fact if you don't, So, wrap it up there. I hope that's been helpful for you guys. As a bit of a closer, guys, we are kicking off and boosting our community presence at the moment. So for the guys that want to create more in their business, in their income, and the level of impact that they have, not just in their own community, but their life and everyone that they come into contact with without sacrificing their sanity and their fulfillment along that way.


00:35:00

Harry Orr: for guys that want to be able to less, build a level of health that enables them to have that level of fulfillment and that impact as well so that you can operate at your peak in your performance. And guys that just want to live deeper connections with themsel, with those around them, both family, friends, colleagues, business partners, all that stuff. We've built a community on school.  We've got varying levels in there of how you can get access to all the resources that we've built in there that we've helped thousands of guys to achieve that and more. If you want access to that, the link is going to be in the show notes. You can check out that. There's a few free resources and workshops in there to just get a taste. And if that's your vibe, either reach out to us or in that will be the link for more info. But otherwise, we will see you there and I'll see you in the next episode.