The budding chef and hot sauce supremo Brooklyn Beckham has been in the news recently.

A couple of days ago, the British tabloids broke the story that Brooklyn had renewed his wedding vows with actress and gazillionaire’s daughter Nicole Peltz.

This brought to mind a humdinger of a headline from a couple of months ago when Brooklyn and Nicole were swanning about the South of France on Nicole’s dad’s yacht:

Brooklyn Beckham 'flexes' his in-laws' wealth on £85M superyacht that dwarfs his parent's £16M vessel as they narrowly avoid each other in St Tropez amid family rift

Brooklyn certainly put the “ship” in “one-upmanship” with that little move.

Now, what poor old Posh & Becks must’ve realised (and what Brooklyn will no doubt realise soon) is that the “bigger, better, faster” ladder is a ladder which goes on forever.

There’ll always be someone with a bigger yacht than you.

There’ll always be someone with a spicier hot sauce than you.

And, even if you’re “Cookin’ with Brooklyn”, there’ll always be another celebrity chef whipping up tastier treats than you.

That’s just how the world works.

I’ve seen this during my 15+ years in corporate banking too.

If anything, banking attracts these competitive status-seekers.

I’ve worked with lots of colleagues over the years whose only mission at work (and in life) was to amass as much money, as much power and as much prestige as they could. Whenever they got wind that a peer might be on their way to a promotion, a big bonus or a corner office, they’d start sniffing around like a dog on heat, quite literally panting, whimpering and drooling over each & every rumour.

The one-upmanship game was all these colleagues could think about.

But they were never satisfied. They were always under pressure too. 

Even when they got a promotion, pay rise or “Head Of” in their email signature, they couldn’t sit still.

They always needed more. And the more they got, the more they seemed to worry. And the more they worried, the more they pined after even more. And on it went, like a dog chasing its own tail.

That's it in a nutshell right there. 

This really is a game you can never win.

Maybe that sounds like bad news. 

But to my mind it’s exceedingly good news when you realise you don’t have to play the game in the first place.

A fulfilling life doesn’t live in the realm of money, power and prestige.

It doesn’t live in the realm of superyachts, truffle and edible gold.

It also doesn’t live in the realm of what we’ve acquired, amassed or own.

A fulfilling life simply comes from knowing you don’t need any of this to be fulfilled.

As I write on this crisp Friday morning, I know it might sound like I’m above all this. Like I’m sat here in Fort Grundy smugly judging anyone who parks their brand new Porsche outside the office.

But I’m not.

I was swept up in the corporate status game for over a decade. No doubt I still am, in lots of ways.

The difference now is that I see the game for what it is. I know another promotion or pay rise isn’t where my bread is buttered.

And once you see it, you can't unsee it. You notice when you're getting pulled back onto a ladder with no top rung and with that noticing comes a choice about whether to climb the ladder or not.

If you'd like to find your own path to fulfilment outside the “bigger, better, faster” game, I'd love to help you explore what that looks like.

Sometimes all it takes is someone to hold up a mirror to help you spot the patterns you can't see yourself.

More info here if so:

https://signup.followingfulfilment.com