From 99 Points to Square One: Why Comfort Kills Growth

Ben BeeriThere gets a point where you've made it so far in one game, and the next level just kinda reco like, requires a completely new level of you. And there's a part of you that wants to remain the big fish in the little pond, but you gotta go from the pond to the river. At a certain point, gotta go from the river to the ocean, and you're going to become a smaller fish and a bigger body of water. And there is going to be a new game to play. There is going to be a new level for you to get to. And that new level is going to require you doing something that you've never done before. That really is just going to be being at the level that you're at and raising that exponentially.

Like, forget about doing the thing that got you from point a to point b. Like, you're going to crash and burn going from b to c doing the same shit you did going from a to b. And that's why fish starts out in a pond. And if you become the big fish in the small pond, you are never going to want to get into another body of water if you're choosing your level of comfort. If you're choosing comfort over growth, you are going to stay in that little pond. But at a certain point in time, you no longer want the comfort. You want growth.

And the only way to grow is to get your ass into that bigger body of water. So you find yourself a river. You get into the river. And now all of a sudden you are swimming in a much bigger stream of water. You might not be the biggest fish anymore, but you have an opportunity to grow. And for you to grow in the river, it's going to require so much more than it did in the pond. And as you keep growing, you get to a place where you realize that you've grown so much that you didn't even belong in that original pond to begin with.

Like, the pond was just preparing you for the river. Like, the the amount of time that you stayed in the pond after you grew and after you believed that you should go to the river, you were just stunting your own growth. You're wasting your own time because you're hesitant. And so many of us hesitate to get to that next level. We don't want to see ourselves in a place of discomfort, seeing ourselves in a place of questioning whether we can get to the place where we want to get to. Some of us want a guaranteed outcome.

And the only guaranteed outcomes we have in our lives is when we play at a level below the level that we belong at. Like, yeah, if you're an adult and you wanna go score 50 points at a basketball game and you go play with five year olds, you'll go and score your 50 fucking points. But why don't you go play with people your own age, your own skill level, and go score 50 points that way? Like, that's a fucking win. And as you continue to grow when you're in the river, you already know where the ocean is.

There's fucking sharks in the ocean. You're gonna keep growing in the river where it's nice and safe. You're gonna keep growing in the river where you know you're gonna grow some, but you're really not gonna become the greatest version that you can become. I feel like for me, what put me over the top in diving into my authentic journey, my self development, personal development journey was being in a place where I got so uncomfortable being comfortable. And I was essentially chasing this sense of safety, this sense of comfort, this sense of let me put myself in a place of I don't have to survive anymore.

I'll be good. I can be comfortable. I could take a couple steps back. And by taking a couple steps back, I'm simply talking about just me in life. I don't have to show up from a place of survival every day. Like, my early days in business, my early days going to school, like, every day was war. It was a battle. Like, let's wake up in the morning. I don't know how the fuck I'm going to survive, but I'm going to figure it out. And I get to that place where I'm 25 years old. My business hit 7 figures. And getting to a place where I felt like I could let out an exhale led me down this road of, do I really want this life of comfort?

Do I really want to be the person whose entire vision was let me get to a 7 figure business and then bow out. And those next few months were very difficult for me because I felt worse about myself than I'd ever felt before. Because there was a part of me that thought that something was going to change. It's like I'm sitting there. I'm looking at the scoreboard. There's only two digits of the scoreboard. I just hit 99. My next bucket, what's going to happen with the scoreboard? There's only two digits to go up on the scoreboard.

And it's like, okay. Get up. Get going. Get a layup in. Scoreboard shows o one. Doesn't show 101. It shows o one. Just like I have one point. And that just meant I was playing a new game. And it took me a while to realize I was playing a new game. So I just sat there looking at the scoreboard, looking at my one point on the scoreboard and going, wait a minute. I had run this thing up to 99. I used to have 99 points on this scoreboard. Now I'm at o one. What is going on here? And I got to a place where I really tried to see what it would like to be in my comfort, to not force myself to work sixteen hours in a day, to not be in a place where I felt like I had to survive. And what could I do to make myself comfortable?

I could start buying stuff, buying stuff that I wanted to buy. Before then, I wouldn't even let myself buy anything because I convinced myself that I was broke regardless of whatever I had. And I thought that buying stuff would fix things for me. If I bought a watch, it might fix things. If I bought a new car, it would fix things. If I saw a TV and I wanted it, I could buy it. I like those fitness toys, like the massage guns and the Normatex, and those were fun for me too. And it's like I could go to a new restaurant every day. It's fun.

And I thought that that was what I wanted. I could go to the nice gym in town. I didn't have to go to the cheapest gym in town. And it got to a place where it built me into realizing that, hey, these are all lifestyle choices, and we all get to choose our lifestyle. We get to choose the lifestyle we have. We get to choose the lifestyle we want, and we get to choose when we stop upgrading our lifestyle. And for that period of time, it's probably about a couple of years, I just sat there deadlocked looking at the scoreboard, reading o one on it because I didn't realize I was playing a new game.

And I got to a place where I was so comfortable. I became uncomfortable. And what I realized is becoming uncomfortable is one of the greatest experiences we get to have as human beings because that's when we get to expand our capacity. We get to expand our signal. We get to do things that we weren't previously capable of. And that's where I wanted to be. I wanted to live in a place where I was uncomfortable because I was the version of me that I could look at and be proud of every day. I could be proud of myself for being uncomfortable, for going through the battle, for going through the war, for putting in that long day, for eating my first meal at 10PM, I could look at that version of me and go, hey.

I was making shit happen. All of a sudden, I'm not really making shit happen anymore. Kind of stuck, kind of just doing the things I have to do. And some good things came out of it. During that time, I became more social. I made some more friends. I got myself out of my comfort zone, and I allowed myself to have friends. I allowed myself to have evenings out. I allowed myself to allow people in my life. I allowed myself to have conversations that were not specifically work related. That was rare for me.

I didn't really have conversations that were non work related before. It was either making money or it was fluff. And I didn't like fluff. I didn't have time for fluff. I started exercising more. I prioritized getting in shape. That was really important for me because I was young, I made some money, I couldn't do five push ups. What's that worth? It doesn't matter how much money you have. If you can't do five push ups, you should learn how to do five push ups. And it was cool. I started swimming.

That became a really big staple in my life. I started getting to a place where I would jump in the pool and swim laps and started working towards, hey, this is a great great cardio, great calorie burn. This is really good for building endurance. It's also really good for concentrating all of my thoughts and really regulating my nervous system, regulating my thinking, being in a place where I can be present, where it's just me in the water. The cool thing about me swimming during that time was I started getting to a place where I ended up setting a goal to swim a million yards.

And that for me started in 2023. So in 2023, I started swimming pretty intensely. I'd swim a few times a week. I would try to swim about a mile a day. And eventually, I got to a place where I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna go and swim a million yards. 1,000,000. That is uncomfortable. That is a challenge. That is going to make me a better person. Less people have swam a million yards. And that became a journey. And I learned that I could jump in the pool reliably a few times a week. 25 yard pool, 72 laps gets me 1,800 yards.

Depending on my level of fitness on the particular day, it would take me between thirty three to thirty six minutes to complete the swim. Now it's just about stacking days just like it was in the early days of my business. And here I am in 2026, and I'm actually not far away. I probably need about, like, 50 yards to go. I'm at about just hit 950,000 yards recently. And getting to a million is gonna be cool. I have no clue what's gonna happen after that, but I feel like getting to a million is a nice number on the scoreboard, kinda like the number 99.

Putting that number 99 up on the scoreboard is really special for all of us. Because when you put 99 up on the scoreboard, it means that something has to change. It means that the game that you've been playing all along is now too small for you. It means that you have achieved peak comfort in what you're doing. Nowadays, I get ready for my swim. I enjoy it. I really do. It's not even that uncomfortable anymore. I go in. Shit. I can even say it's comfortable. Like, yes, I have to get in my head to a place where I am ready to go for up to thirty six minutes straight, and I do it.

But what becomes the changing of the game? What makes things different for me? What will get me to a place where I can now be uncomfortable swimming again, kind of like when I was at zero, kind of like when I was getting my first basket, kind of like when I was putting my first points on the scoreboard. And in swimming, for me, the first points on the scoreboard was yards. In business, my first points on the scoreboard was revenue. And there are these metrics in anything you do that constitute for you to throw out the old game that you were playing, to realize that you got comfortable operating the game you were operating.

And for me, I was comfortable as a 6 figure business owner. I was comfortable in a place where I was making a solid living, and I thought I could carry that same level of comfort onto being a 7 figure business owner. But the scoreboard changed, and now I'm playing a new game. And I realized I don't get to take that level of comfort with me. And that's one of the biggest privileges I can have because now I get to be uncomfortable again. Then with my swimming, I'm at 950,000 yards. I'm at peak comfort right now with swim with swimming.

Like, I know exactly what a swim is gonna look like for me. I know how long it's gonna take me. I know how many yards I'm gonna swim. I probably can estimate at which point in time I will get to my million yards. And I feel that any time in life that we have that level of predictability, that we need to do something to get from a place of comfort to a place of growth. Because there's no such thing as I'm uncomfortable. You're just experiencing growing pains, and growing pains is where shit happens.

That is the going to war. That is the fighting to make shit happen. That is the working the sixteen hour days. That is the long commute to the place you know you need to be at to do what you feel is right for you. That is the sticking it out in the tough day of the relationship. That is the going into the new social circle that you haven't been before. It's all growth. And is growth uncomfortable? Absolutely. Being uncomfortable and growing goes together. But the day you get to 99 on the scoreboard and the day things are comfortable for you, if you decide you wanna keep the comfort, you can stop playing.

You really can. You're just not gonna grow anymore. And if you decide you don't wanna grow anymore and that you want the comfort, you can choose the comfort. But when the comfort gets so uncomfortable that something needs to change, that's when you're gonna make the decision to play the new game, to score that basket, to get the scoreboard to change from 99 to o one. It looked like you have only one point up on the scoreboard. But you know deep down that you already beat the first game, and now you're playing the next game.

And the next game is exponentially harder than the first game you just played. But because you know that you can beat the game, you're gonna beat this one too. You're just gonna have to figure out how you're gonna make it happen. And that is why there's nothing more comfortable than being uncomfortable. Because if you know you're capable of it, you're just gonna make it happen. And when you make it happen, you get to know who you are as a person, and then you can do anything. There gets a point where you've made it so far in one game, and the next level just kind of, requires a completely new level of you.

And there's a part of you that wants to remain the big fish in the little pond, but you gotta go from the pond to the river. At a certain point, gotta go from the river to the ocean, and you're going to become a smaller fish in a bigger body of water. And there is going to be a new game to play. There is going to be a new level for you to get to. And that new level is going to require you doing something that you've never done before. That really is just going to be being at the level that you're at and raising that exponentially.

Like, forget about doing the thing that got you from point a to point b. Like, you're going to crash and burn going from b to c doing the same shit you did going from A to B. And that's why fish starts out in a pond. And if you become the big fish in the small pond, you are never going to want to get into another body of water if you're choosing your level of comfort. If you're choosing comfort over growth, you are going to stay in that little pond. But at a certain point in time, you no longer want the comfort. You want growth.

And the only way to grow is to get your ass into that bigger body of water. So you find yourself a river. You get into the river. And now all of a sudden you are swimming in a much bigger stream of water. You might not be the biggest fish anymore, but you have an opportunity to grow. And for you to grow in the river, it's going to require so much more than it did in the pond. And as you keep growing, you get to a place where you realize that you've grown so much that you didn't even belong in that original pond to begin with.

Like, the pond was just preparing you for the river. Like, the the amount of time that you stayed in the pond after you grew and after you believed that you should go to the river, you were just stunting your own growth. You were wasting your own time because you're hesitant. And so many of us hesitate to get to that next level. We don't want to see ourselves in a place of discomfort, seeing ourselves in a place of questioning whether we can get to the place where we want to get to. Some of us want a guaranteed outcome, and the only guaranteed outcomes we have in our lives is when we play at a level below the level that we belong at. Like, yeah, if you're an adult and you wanna go score 50 points in a basketball game and you go play with five year olds, you'll go and score your 50 fucking points.

But why don't you go play with people your own age, your own skill level, and go score 50 points that way? Like, that's a fucking win. And as you continue to grow when you're in the river, you already know where the ocean is. There's fucking sharks in the ocean. You're gonna keep growing in the river where it's nice and safe. You're gonna keep growing in the river where you know you're gonna grow some, but you're really not gonna become the greatest version that you can become. Or you identify your fears, take a look in the fucking mirror, and say, hey.

I know that the ocean is there. I would rather get eaten by a fucking shark than stay here and shortchange myself of getting to my highest level. And when you make the decision that you want that growth in life, that you want to take that jump, that you want to swim from the river to the fucking ocean, that is where you're going to achieve your ultimate growth. If you get eaten by a shark, you get eaten by a fucking shark. It happens. The good news is is in life, when we get quote unquote eaten by a shark, usually get to start over at the level that you were at previously.

Or you get to start over at a much earlier starting point with the level of knowledge that you've accumulated over time before you got eaten by the shark. And the next time you meet the shark, you just know not to get fucking eaten. So we want to be in a place where we choose our growth. We want to be in a place where we see our comfort, and we say, hey. Yes. I worked for this comfort, but I'm trading this comfort in to be the big fish in the big pond even though you know you're going to start out as a small fish in the big pond when you know you were the big fish in the small pond.

The small ponds are for the small fish. And if you're not a small fish, you do not wanna be in a small pond.