The Gap and The Gain: The High Achievers' Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success

by Dan Sullivan

“The way to measure your progress is backward against where you started, not against your ideal.” —Dan Sullivan

“Your future growth and progress are now based in your understanding about the difference between the two ways in which you can measure yourself: against an ideal, which puts you in what I call ‘the GAP,’ and against your starting point, which puts you

“The day you stop racing is the day you win the race.” —Bob Marley

“If you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. If you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack.”6

hedonic adaptation. It’s the tendency of humans to quickly adapt to where they are and what they’ve got. It leads to never being satisfied, and to constantly seeking the next thing. 7

“the hedonic treadmill.”9 When you’re on this treadmill, you’re working harder and harder to be happy but staying exactly where you started.

GOALS EXPAND HAPPINESS “I don’t think we set and achieve goals in an effort to become happy. We do it because we are happy and want to expand our happiness.”