Crabs in the Bucket: Don't Let Them Pull You Back

What's going on everybody. Kevin here.

I want to ask you something straight up.

How often are you chasing something bigger than yourself?

Playing pro sports. Being a sponsored athlete. Traveling the world. Building a house on a bunch of acres and raising a family there. That big, delusional, semi-unrealistic goal you used to carry around... and then somehow let go of.

Not because you wanted to. Because it felt like society was pulling you away from anything that big.

If that hits, keep reading.

There's an old story. Old man fishing on a pier. Bucket full of crabs next to him. A little boy watches one crab climb the side, almost out. He taps the old man: "Sir, want me to help you get that one back in?"

The old man says, "Don't bother. The other crabs will keep him from getting out."

And they do. They pull him right back in. Self-policing. Self-regulating. Nobody escapes the bucket.

That is a lot of our lives.

Friends. Family. Coworkers. Classmates. Not always because they don't like you. Because what you're trying to do sparks something in THEM. It reminds them of the dream they stopped chasing. And bit by bit, they (and the world) pull you back into the bucket until you lose sight of the thing that used to light you up.

Sometimes it happens so slow you don't even notice. You just wake up one day and go, "Man... I used to want that. What happened?"

Here's what I want from you.

Go back to that list. Pick something big and crazy and delusional and maybe even impossible. And pursue it.

Pursue it because it's bigger than you. Because it makes you feel alive. Because it gives you a why. A destination. Targets worth aiming at.

Pursue it because you have air in your lungs and you are capable of doing great things.

I'll get real for a second. I'm thirty-five. Three kids. Five foot nine. I can't dunk. I'm not going to the NBA. But that fire to be a world-class athlete? Still there. I never let it die. I'm just finding a different lane... HYROX, jujitsu, avenues where I can still go after great.

Other delusions while we're at it: I want to be a New York Times bestselling author. So I keep writing. Newsletter. Social. Long journal entries that may never see daylight. I write because I love it, and because one day that stack becomes something bigger.

And yeah... I want to make more than a million dollars a year. So I keep going after business opportunities like a maniac.

Those are my crazy dreams. My delusions.

What are yours?

Write them down. Memorize them. Feel them. Envision them. Be there.

It is not too late. You deserve to go after those things. Plenty of people run out of time and sit with regret. You still have runway. Don't waste it.

I'm Kevin Bell. This is the Jump. I'm here to walk you from a nine-to-five you hate toward financial freedom, time freedom, location freedom... and the life that used to feel impossible.

Some of this is abstract. So is life. I'll keep giving you the tactics too.

For now: climb out of the bucket. Don't let the other crabs pull you back.

Stay in the fight, Kevin