A reflection on my time in El Salvador.

This is not pontificating on El Salvador as a country, just on entrepreneurialism as a culture.

You get down there and mingle with people who are wealthy beyond your wildest imagination.

Mingling with people beyond your social sphere.

“Successful” in certain metrics.

And then you wonder by what metrics.

Everybody wants money, to a greater or lesser degree.

Everyone will always have problems and worries, but car payments or health insurance insurance payments are not ones that anyone wants above and beyond the inevitabilities of life.

Everyone wants some disposable income. Within reason.

Some of the entrepreneurs I spoke to… Massively wealthy.

Creating apps and products that will change the world.

Acquiring wealth beyond Johnny-everyday‘s wildest dreams.

And at what cost?

Divorce.

Addiction.

Not even getting married in the first place to get divorced.

No kids.

Working desperately for that big break.

The world needs all sorts of people.

The entrepreneurs.

The innovation.

And in a sense, the world needs people who will be sacrificed for that innovation.

The question is which one do you want to be. Which one do you need to be.

We only have one go at this life.

Do we want the millions at that expense.

To be a footnote in human achievements?

Or is success something much broader than?

The footnote in human achievements being our impact on family, our immediate community?

What I’m noticing at these conferences is that the wealth that some of these folks acquire quickly becomes a jail cell of sorts.

Some of these crypto guys can’t even walk in public.

You realize that when you have hundreds of millions of dollars in an easily transferable assets, kidnapping and extortion is a predictability, not an irrational fear.

Some of these Bitcoin gods live in a hell of their own making.

I often look at Joe Rogan as the prime example.

Would he rather be an up-and-coming stand-up comic who could go anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone without fearing that the only reason people are interacting with him is for their own personal gain?

Who knows. But you get to that point, and there’s no going back.

My first bowling game was a 159.

Second one is going a little better.

As I sit here, waxing philosophical.