A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller, the first billionaire, the richest man on the planet, “How much money is enough?”
His answer? “Just a little bit more.”
That’s the trap.
The “More over Enough” Greatness Trap
In my work with entrepreneurs, I see this pattern constantly. It shows up as:
- Constant upgrading
- Lack of satisfaction
- Always wanting the next level
- An elusive finish line that keeps moving
In his book Never Enough, billionaire Andrew Wilkinson describes his own struggle. Looking out from a plane window, he wondered how many of the people below were truly happy. “In truth,” he confessed, “I knew I wasn’t, even with all the money I had.”
The Doubling Game
Wilkinson discovered something interesting when he asked wealthy peers: “What number would you need to see in your bank account to feel like you had enough?”
Everyone, regardless of their current wealth, gave almost the same answer: they’d be happy if they could just double what they already had.
The person with $500,000 wanted $1 million. The person with $1 million wanted $2 million. The person with $10 million wanted $20 million.
The number changes — the feeling doesn’t.
A Different Measure
The Goodness Journey offers an alternative: Define enough before you get there.
What would “enough” actually look like for you, not in some abstract future, but right now?
- Enough money to do what?
- Enough recognition from whom?
- Enough achievement toward what end?
When you define enough in terms of your actual values and purposes, not in comparison to others, the treadmill stops.
Rockefeller himself eventually said: “I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money’s sake.”
Goodness over Greatness explores how to escape this trap and build a definition of success that doesn’t require “just a little bit more.”
