I think that focusing on the money, on the business, is not enough. — Sergei Bubka

I think that focusing on the money, on the business, is not enough.

Author: Sergei Bubka

Insight: Most of us have felt that peculiar emptiness that comes after achieving a financial goal. You hit the target—the raise, the savings milestone, the profitable quarter—and then... what? If all you've been chasing is the number itself, there's nothing left to feel good about. The win feels hollow because it was never really about the money at all. What Bubka gets at here is that money is only ever a tool, never the actual destination. It's like confusing the GPS with the journey. When you organize your entire life around accumulating wealth or hitting business metrics, you've outsourced your meaning to something that was always supposed to serve something else. The money might come, but you'll have sacrificed the things that would have made it matter—relationships, growth, the work itself, a sense of purpose. The non-obvious part? People often think they're chasing money when they're actually chasing what money represents—security, respect, freedom, proof of their own worth. Those deeper things are worth pursuing directly instead. Your business might thrive if you focus on whether you're actually building something valuable, creating something that helps people, or developing yourself. The money typically follows when you're not looking at it obsessively.