What an ASIO Raid Taught Me About the People Around You When You Chase Success

This one is a little different.

Between the false promises, the stolen superannuation and the office politics, my previous place of employment was raided by Australia's Security Intelligence Organisation on multiple occasions.

Phones in a bucket. Sat on the kerb in the car park. Waited.

I told people about it. Friends, family, people I trusted. And almost every single one of them said some version of the same thing.

"Oh well, sometimes this stuff happens."

"It's a good job, you don't want to lose it."

This was not a misunderstanding at the office. We were being raided by ASIO. And the people around me were encouraging me to stay.

Miserable, stolen from, and somehow still being cheered on to keep showing up.

Fast forward to the van.

I am the happiest I have ever been. Free, healthy, finally enjoying myself for the first time in years. Living simply, spending time alone, figuring out who Dale Meyer actually was outside of a job title and a pay cheque.

You would think that would be the moment the messages of support rolled in.

They did not.

For most of that year I got called homeless. A bum. Going nowhere. Wasting my life.

The same people who encouraged me to stay in a workplace being raided by a national intelligence agency were now questioning the year I spent finding myself in a van.

Here is what that taught me.

People care about where you are heading right up until the point it becomes inconvenient for them. And that is not because they are bad people. It is not because they do not want good things for you. It is because they are busy living their own lives, carrying their own fears and navigating their own uncertainty.

Sometimes the people around you would rather be comfortable with what you are doing than genuinely invested in how much you are growing.

Staying in a toxic workplace made sense to them. Living in a van did not. Not because one was better than the other but because one was familiar and one was not.

Success hides behind being okay with making yourself and others uncomfortable.

You do not need everyone to understand your path. You just need to understand it yourself. Know what you are doing. Know why you are doing it. Know what it means to you.

The ones who were genuinely in your corner at the start will still be there at the end. And the ones who called you a bum from the sidelines will be the first to congratulate you when you get there.

All that matters is that you know.

Lesson 4: The people around you will always be more comfortable with your misery than your growth. Do it anyway.

Dale Meyer shares the real lessons from the journey every week on the TSP Podcast. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and join The Sequoia Project community on Facebook.