I coach the most ambitious people in the world as a physiologist and neuroscientist, Fortune 500 CEOs and world champion athletes among them, and I’ve never met someone who was genuinely operating at that level while still deep in these habits. The two can’t coexist, because ambition is built on the willingness to earn a reward slowly and these habits teach your brain that rewards are free. Porn borrows intimacy, dating apps borrow choice, processed food borrows nourishment, weed borrows peace, alcohol borrows confidence, video games borrow achievement, doom scrolling borrows learning and connection. Your brain doesn’t know it borrowed. It just learns that reward arrives without effort, and it applies that lesson to everything you actually care about. Then the work gets hard, the discomfort shows up, and you go straight back to the thing that pays out instantly. Every time you do that you’re reinforcing the exact mechanism that’s blocking your ambition. Let’s discuss in the commen...