# “Is this it?” Source: https://geoffblades.com/is-this-it/ Published: 2026-05-23 Author: Geoff --- Do you ever wonder? Is this it? All life is meant to be? How it’s meant to feel? This question came to me this week from a legendary investor. “I thought once I achieved all this,” he said, “And my family is doing well I would feel more than this.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “You know what I mean,” he said, “It says this on your website! I want to know what you do about it.” ## Lived it! We laughed. He’s right this was one of my questions when I stepped back from my career at Goldman Sachs back in 2000. Back then it felt like I “should” have been thanking my lucky stars. This was the sort of thing I told myself. Be grateful for what you have. What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you just love it? Because from where I started life in suburban Melbourne Australia I was living the dream! But now living in Silicon Valley dot-bomb it didn’t feel this way. Sure, the bubble had burst and comp was being slashed along with half the team and office but I kept my job, I worked for a greatest firm in the world, why can’t you just love it? I didn’t know. I’d never thought about it before. Just knew I needed to figure it out. But how? ## Better job? Come on! Now there’s lots of cultural indoctrination going on but when you work at Goldman Sachs you’re never thinking about going to a better bank. You work for the best bank. And back then the buy-side was beaten up and other jobs especially in Silicon Valley and around the country weren’t so hot either so what do you do? And in many ways I had it so good too. I’d loved the job. My good buddy and colleague Pete still reminds me just a couple years earlier interviewing him in the Sydney office saying, “I’m a lifer.” I was back then. I loved the firm and still do. It’s a wonderful place to work. Loved the people too, still do, many are clients and closest friends. But I needed to find answers, how? ## “Getting weird” That’s what a best friend and client calls it. When we start talking about topics outside the ordinary for more ordinary thinkers he labels it for them “getting weird.” Back then I didn’t know what weird was because one year I was cooking chicken at KFC and the next I was a finance geek. Four years in Uni I studied accounting and finance with none of that liberal arts rounding you out type stuff. Just hardcore finance like writing a thesis on option pricing in my final year. Studying around the clock and getting top grades in the country landed me the only job Goldman offered in Australia my year. I’d made it! Then an early promotion and transfer to plum job in Menlo Park at the height of the dot-com bubble, yes! But only months later I was asking my question, “What do you truly want?” ## What? I didn’t know. Just knew it didn’t feel like this was it. Never because comp or promotions were down from where I started in life all that was plenty. My issue was big questions like, “What am I doing with my life?” “Is this the life you dreamed as a kid?” Yes! And no! Why? Didn’t know. What was wrong? What else would I do? No clue. How do you do it? Less of a clue. So walking into Borders on Market Street when you read books that way I started getting weird. ## Studying life See, this is where I got lucky and also fell into a trap thinking knowledge is the answer. Because I was such a dedicated student now I applied this same rigor to studying self-help. You might know I have this tendency to put on blinkers and shut out nearly everything else becoming single-mindedly focused and this was my way. Because there’s few things that truly matter to me in life. I want zero distractions. What matters I am 100%. All in. All the time. Every moment is how I dived in. Now seeking the most important answers in your life I wanted to know everything, all at once, right now! ## Going deep Also see I never started reading obvious books like on success or biographies of winners because I already had the obvious things down. I went deep. Deep into the mind seeking new ways. I never knew exactly what I was seeking. Just the obvious answers of having goals and working hard and managing your time and taking actions and achieving results were obvious to me. But now finding myself wondering if I was running the wrong race I was seeking new answers beyond how I had charged at things before. What I found transformed me. And there was no going back. Because I was learning things I perceived way more important than what I had focused on in my career and it felt like the best use of my life. Still I didn’t know where I was racing but I did have a new meaning for winning. ## Winning? “What is winning to you?” I asked this legendary investor. “I’ve won so big I no longer know!” he laughed. Winning is one of my favorite words because we all love the feeling of winning and you must know what winning this game of life means to you. “This is the key,” I said, “You knew what winning meant to you and now you’re seeking a new meaning.” So you never get to the end of your human race looking back like you ran to the wrong place. But, what is your right race? Your right place? “How do you know what is winning?” he asked. “How don’t you not know?” I asked the mind-bending question! Because by every measure he has won the game. He’s written about all the time. Has employed tons of people. World looks up to him. He’s a glorified winner of the Wall Street and human race. “But what you feel is missing you can’t find there, can you?” he asked. ## “Is this it?” First of all when you are asking a question like this you must understand the question is the problem as it messes with your brain. Break it down I showed him word by word 3 words filled with mind-bending ambiguity! How do you know what “Is?” And what do you mean by “This?” A job? Money? Success? Station in life? Then what does “It” even mean? Is it a feeling? Some glorified answer that is the same or different for each of us? You can drive a truck through the linguistic holes which tells you exactly what is going on in the brain. Confusion! Same with my question “What do you truly want?” When? How do you know? A feeling? Outcome? Way? It’s like people who want you to believe their meaning or reason for being is right for everyone and for you. Only you know. Personal development and evolution is “personal” and only you can know what is personal to you. “I can show you the way,” I said but only you can know, “Is this it?”