The Vendetta I Called Vision

How Your Why May Be Wrecking You

The Fever Pitch Trap

What if the very drive that built your business is also what's destroying your peace?

I'm writing this during a season that's teaching me about stillness. I've spent at least nine hours today in one room, and the absence of familiar chaos is revealing something uncomfortable.

There's a void where the noise used to be. And I'm realizing I've been filling voids with fever pitch for years.

The Vendetta I Called Vision

Eighteen months ago, I wrote out a vivid vision for Mark Braber Properties. If I'm completely honest, it wasn't rooted in service—it was rooted in vendetta. I wanted to prove I was smart enough to crack the code on exponential organic growth in residential property management. I wanted to show the world that ethical principles weren't just nice ideals—they were the secret ingredient to explosive success.

I wanted to stick it to the most successful property management company in our market. For 14 years, I've used them as comparison fodder, demonizing their practices while perched on my moral high horse. I told myself I wouldn't stoop to their "unethical" methods, but really? I was just scared I wasn't worthy of their success.

The pot of gold under the rainbow looked so vivid, so close, so deserved if I could just prove my principles worked.

The Charles Koch Mirror

Charles Koch built Koch Industries into one of the largest private companies in America. But here's what separates us: Koch is obsessed with creating value. I was obsessed with being right.

Koch focuses on the process of innovation that drives long-term value to partners and customers. I focused on the destination that would validate my intelligence and worth.

He's a business philosopher. I was a business evangelist with an inferiority complex.

The difference? He let the business fill the measure of its creation. I was forcing mine to fill the measure of my insecurities.

The Confession

A month ago, I committed in this newsletter to launch client surveys and feedback loops. I haven't done it. I know why—I'm scared of what I'll find. Not because our clients are unhappy (past surveys have been surprisingly positive), but because my ego might get bruised if we're not as amazing as I think we are.

That's fever pitch talking. It's more concerned with protecting my self-image than serving my clients.

What God Can Work With

Here's what I'm learning in this forced stillness: Forward movement toward a worthy goal is the thing God can work with. But as He does His work, we can relax into the awareness that whatever He's fashioning us into is the point—not the gold in the pot that keeps eluding us around the next bend.

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (Matthew 6:33)

The "things" get added when we stop chasing them as proof of our worth and start pursuing them as expressions of our service.

The Fever Pitch Check

Maybe you recognize this pattern in your own life:

  • Aggressive forcefulness toward goals that should bring joy

  • Comparison-driven motivation that makes someone else's success feel like your failure

  • Needing to be right more than being effective

  • Avoiding feedback that might challenge your self-image

The fever pitch feels productive. It generates motion, noise, adrenaline-laced enthusiasm. But it also generates anxiety, comparison, and a chronic sense that you're never enough.

The Value-Creation Shift

What if instead of proving something to the world, we obsessed over creating something for the world?

What if we let our businesses grow organically toward their true purpose instead of forcing them toward our personal validation?

What if we focused on the journey of becoming who God is fashioning us to be, rather than grasping for the destination we think will finally make us feel worthy?

I'm recommitting—again—to those client surveys. Not because I need to prove we're great, but because I want to understand where we can serve better. The feedback might sting my ego, but it will feed my mission.

Your Turn

What fever pitch are you running at right now?

What are you trying to prove, and to whom?

What would happen if you shifted from proving your worth to creating value?

The pot of gold might be closer than you think. But it's not where you've been looking.

Update on the car :

Back when I was driving my model 3 performance I floored it all the time. It was like launching at the beginning of the Incredicoaster at Disneyland. In the Plaid I almost never floor it now. Teddy Roosevelt said “Speak softly and carry a big stick: you will go far.” I think that’s what’s happening. The power is there, I don’t have to prove it. Also, it’s not fun-power, it’s violent. Like, schedule-an-adjustment power. Destroy-your-peace power. In the most unexpected way I have become a more docile driver (also maybe the pain of the traffic ticket is still fresh?? 😣)