2625: Return Maxing

LifeBlood: Most people believe success comes from doing more. More work. More saving. More exercise. More planning. More learning. But life doesn't reward endless effort…it rewards wise investment. This episode explores the economic principle of diminishing returns and introduces a new framework: Return Maxing. You'll discover why too little effort guarantees failure, but too much effort often creates the very problems you're trying to avoid. We'll explore Return Maxing through economics, psychology, philosophy, faith, health, work, money, and the Meaningful Few framework. Because the goal isn't maximum effort. It's maximum return. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of You’re Money Isn’t the Problem- You Are here: https://amzn.to/4uDYFRz Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live http://lifeblood.live/, Twitter https://twitter.com/ourlifeblood, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lifebloodlive, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeblood.live/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ9Gc4mMwCHZKUHjbt0-qA and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifebloodlive or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates https://george-grombacher.aweb.page. Copyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:42Speaker 01

  Work harder. Everybody tells you to work harder, grind more, save more, exercise more, learn more, hustle more, more, more, more, more, more, more. Ugh. What if more isn't better? What if there's a point where more actually produces less? You already know this, but it's called diminishing returns. And understanding that might be one of the most valuable skills that one can ever develop because life isn't about maximizing effort, it's about maximizing return. Economics has understand this law of diminishing returns for hundreds of years. Imagine hiring workers to harvest apples. First worker doubles production, second almost doubles it again, the third helps,

• 1:27Speaker 01

  the fourth helps a little, but eventually you have too many people climbing over each other to harvest not enough apples. So output actually ends up falling. So the problem wasn't effort, it was excess. More input, less output, and you can find that principle existing absolutely everywhere. But the opposite is of course also true because zero investment produces zero return. Never exercising is going to keep you weak. Never investing is going to leave you broke and never making phone calls keeps your calendar empty. Never having difficult conversations, that's going to destroy relationships.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  So too little is just as destructive as too much. Life isn't simply about avoiding diminishing returns, it's finding optimal returns. The idea that I call return maxing. So instead of asking, how can I do more? Ask, where does my next unit of effort create the greatest return? And that's what return maxing is. So the first four focused hours of the day, incredible. What about hour 10? Oof, you're reading the same email three times. What about hour 14 of the day? You're creating tomorrow's mistakes for sure because fatigue is going to create negative returns. What about sleep? Six hours?

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Maybe it's survivable. Eight? Perfect. Sleeping 12 hours a day? That's a different problem altogether because recovery matters, but excess sleeping to recovery eventually will have a higher cost. What about exercise? Don't exercise, get weak, become sick person. Reasonable exercise, you're going to be healthy. Extreme exercise with no recovery, burnout, injury. So body grows during recovery, not during the workout. In terms of learning, if you don't read, you're going to be a dumbass. Some good reading, you're going to find wisdom.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Reading 40 books while applying none of the information and just entertaining yourself disguised as growth. Well, knowledge compounds only through action. And what about planning? If you don't plan, you're going to live in chaos. A little bit of planning, you're going to be prepared. Planning just into oblivion, well, that's just fear wearing to disguise. So at some point, you gotta aim, aim, aim, aim, aim. You gotta pull the trigger. You gotta shoot eventually. What about money? If you spend everything, just blow through all your cash, your future is going to suffer. If you save everything, well, you're not going to enjoy your life. Money is not meant to be worshiped.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  It's worshipped, it's meant to be used and deployed. Too many people die financially successful, but life poor. You built wealth, great, but did wealth ever build a life? Hmm. What about your relationships? If you never say no, you're going to foster resentment. If you're always saying no, you're going to be an isolated person. So boundaries exist somewhere in the middle there. And this is exactly why the idea of the meaningful few really matters. Because the goal isn't maximizing everything, that's stupid and impossible. The goal is optimizing what really matters the most. Your time, your attention, your energy, your money.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  And those are valuable because of course they are finite. So every extra unit that you invest somewhere means one less unit invested elsewhere. So the idea of the meaningful few asks, where does my next hour create the greatest return? Where does my next dollar matter the most? Where does my next ounce of emotional energy actually improve my life? That's return maxing. From a psychological perspective, we human beings are into, we love extremes, feels productive, more hours, more books, more supplements, more meetings, more certifications, more podcast episodes, more hacks. Why? Well, because effort, that's a measurable thing.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  And results, they are not always immediate. So we can substitute visible effort for meaningful progress. And psychologists refer to this as effort heuristic, which we naturally assume more effort means more value, even when the relationship has flattened or actually reversed. Aristotle talked about this 2,000 years ago. He said that virtue is not found in excess or in deficiency, it's found in the golden mean. He knew that courage lives between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity lives between stinginess and wastefulness and confidence that lives between insecurity and arrogance.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  The wise life isn't lived at the extremes, it's lived at the point of proper proportion.

• 6:35Speaker 00

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• 7:03Speaker 02

  Football Sundays are at my house this year, so I've been making a Total Wine & More run before every kickoff. Cold beer for the group is a given, but this time of year I like to bring in some fall flavors, a bottle of maple whiskey and a salted caramel whiskey that even my friends who don't drink whiskey end up trying. I get everything I need at the lowest prices at Total Wine. Discover your new favorite fall flavors at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, must be 21.

• 7:30Speaker 01

  Religion also taught us this through scripture. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. Even good things become harmful when they dominate everything else. Rest is commanded, work is commanded, neither is optional. Jesus regularly withdrew from crowds to pray, not because the work wasn't important, because renewal was. The Sabbath itself is a recognition that constant production is not God's design. Human beings are finite and rhythms of work and rest acknowledge that reality. Nature doesn't maximize, it optimizes. Trees don't just keep growing forever.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Predators do not hunt every minute of every day. Your heart contracts and then relaxes. Breath comes in, it goes out. Everything alive functions through rhythm, not redlining constant acceleration. So this idea of return maxing, it questions, it asks, how can I do more? Instead of that, ask, where am I getting negative returns? Where am I underinvesting? What creates the highest return on my time? What should I stop doing? What deserves more of me? Am I maximizing effort or maximizing outcomes?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  What would just enough look like in each of my six key areas of life? So maybe success isn't found by adding another hour. Maybe it's found by stopping one hour sooner. Maybe financial freedom isn't saving another dollar. Maybe it's finally spending one on something that really matters. And maybe health isn't another workout, maybe it's getting into bed. Life does not reward extremes, it rewards prudence and wisdom. So return maxing isn't about doing less. It isn't about doing more, it's about knowing and embracing the difference because the goal isn't maximum effort, it's maximum return.

• 9:37Speaker 01

  I think that most of us ask the wrong question. They ask, how much should I be investing? More time, more money, more effort, more planning, more learning, just squeeze in that little bit more. But again, it's just not the right question. To really drive this home, the better question is, when does the next unit stop paying for itself? One more hour, one more dollar, one more meeting, one more email, one more workout, one more revision, one more certification, one more rental property, one more client, one more, one more, one more.

• 10:16Speaker 01

  Does that next unit still create proportional value? Or have we crossed that Rubicon? Am I simply investing because that's what I've always done? Because every meaningful decision in life eventually reaches a point where another unit costs more than it's worth. That's the point of maximum return. That's return maximizing. But if you continue investing after that point, you've crossed into something different. You've crossed into return chasing. And return chasing, that is not discipline. It isn't commitment, and it's also not grit. It is being on a hamster wheel and continue to spend your MVRs after the returns have flattened or even disappeared.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Working because stopping feels just more comfortable. Saving because spending is a scary thing. Planning because action feels risky. And learning because applying feels vulnerable. These are all forms of return chasing. The wise person doesn't simply know how to work harder. The wise person knows when to stop. It's not because they're quitting. It's because they understand opportunity cost. That every additional hour spent here can't be spent somewhere else. Every additional dollar invested here can't be invested there. That every ounce of attention that you give one thing is attention that you cannot give to another thing.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  Life isn't asking you to maximize effort. It's asking you to maximize return. So here's the question I encourage you to carry with you this week. Before you invest another hour, before you spend another dollar, before you say yes to yet another commitment, ask yourself, does the next unit still pay for itself? If the answer is yes, keep on keeping on. Keep good going, brothers and sisters. But if the answer is no, you may have stopped return maxing and started return chasing. And that is a distinction that is worth remembering. Because meaningful life isn't built by doing the most. It's built by investing your time, attention, energy, and money where they produce the greatest return.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  So like everything else, it's not easy. It sounds relatively easy, but it does hard. We need to be interrogating our reality, how it is that we're spending our most valuable resources of time, energy, attention, and money. Valuable because they're finite. When we say yes to one thing, we're saying no to everything else. Same stuff that we always talk about. But it's important enough to be paid attention to. And it's all in service of doing your part by doing your best.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Cool fall nights always make me want to entertain more. A few friends around the table, maybe a fire outside when the sun goes down. Before everyone comes over, I stop at Total Wine & More. Right now, there's a cranberry flavored wine, a crisp apple wine, even a pumpkin spice cream that's perfect in coffee after dinner. And with the lowest prices, I can bring home a few different fall flavors for everyone to try. Find your favorite fall flavors at the lowest prices at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Must be 21.

• 13:38Speaker 04

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