Oct 2, 2026 · 46 min · 10 segments
My friend Zach Metcalf spent 10 years in pharma, making around $400K a year. On February 12th at 9:15 AM, his boss told him his position had been eliminated. After a decade with the company, he had 30…
Zach MetcalfGuest
Aaron AmeenHost
So when I met Zach for the first time, we were in a group together, but when we first met in person, it was six months ago in the Dominican Republic at an international retreat, and Zach delivered an incredible keynote.
And you presented, Zach, a framework not only with that provocative question, but you also really challenged that most people are really focused on the kind of only one element of a much larger picture of things that are really important domains in life.
So kind of right out of the gate, would love for you to just lay out what was the core framework you presented there, and what are the things that people kind of most often gloss over, um, when they're thinking about their goals and their life?
So yeah, context, which I will say I, I did that keynote in the DR six months ago, and you just did it, like, this last weekend, so kudos to you as well for stepping up and spreading the value to amongst our peers.
But yeah, man, I was asked to do a keynote with four days in advance in the Dominican Republic, and at first it was, you know, these intrusive thoughts of what kind of value can I give? And I, I said yes without knowing exactly what I would talk about.
But what just really came to mind was I was getting in the room with a lot of amazing men and women, a lot of amazing entrepreneurs and business folks, W-2ers, and I, I found myself asking questions outside of this thing called success, which I now call the what.
And I started asking questions more about what I now call the five different pillars of an aligned life, which obviously is your wealth, right? But more importantly in my world, it's kind of like the what and the why.
And so with that framework, as I started to kind of build this ideology around, uh, what does an aligned life look like, those were the four core things that I wanted to talk about.
And Aaron, as you were in the room, I was just asking questions to people, questions about how the relationships are in their family, with their partners, with their children, with their parents, right? How's their health? Uh, have they gained 25 pounds since becoming a father? Are they not going to the gym? Are they not eating well? Uh, what's their sense of purpose? You know, we're supposed to be on this earth for, let's call it 80 to 100 years.
Are you living a life that you f- actually find purpose in, or are you just in this mundane routine and comfortability? And then the last thing is identity, and I think this was the one that really hit home for a lot of people, which is, how do you identify as the person that you are? Are you tackling those generational cycles that have been taking place over and over again? Are you working on yourself? Do you have blind spots that everyone sees that you're just not willing to address? And so I kind of just created this framework around asking people the right questions, and half the room was crying.
People hadn't aligned and asked themselves questions about why they're doing anything, and they're so focused on this thing called what, which is the success, the accolades, the doors, the businesses.
And you have to ask yourself the challenging questions to get the challenging answers.
You know, and as I was receiving that talk, there are elements, part of why I love the idea of the blind spots that other people see but you don't, is that I am willing to sometimes ignore, maybe I'm subconsciously aware of certain blind spots-
So when I met Zach for the first time, we were in a group together, but when we first met in person, it was six months ago in the Dominican Republic at an international retreat, and Zach delivered an incredible keynote.
And you presented, Zach, a framework not only with that provocative question, but you also really challenged that most people are really focused on the kind of only one element of a much larger picture of things that are really important domains in life.
So kind of right out of the gate, would love for you to just lay out what was the core framework you presented there, and what are the things that people kind of most often gloss over, um, when they're thinking about their goals and their life?
So yeah, context, which I will say I, I did that keynote in the DR six months ago, and you just did it, like, this last weekend, so kudos to you as well for stepping up and spreading the value to amongst our peers.
But yeah, man, I was asked to do a keynote with four days in advance in the Dominican Republic, and at first it was, you know, these intrusive thoughts of what kind of value can I give? And I, I said yes without knowing exactly what I would talk about.
But what just really came to mind was I was getting in the room with a lot of amazing men and women, a lot of amazing entrepreneurs and business folks, W-2ers, and I, I found myself asking questions outside of this thing called success, which I now call the what.
And I started asking questions more about what I now call the five different pillars of an aligned life, which obviously is your wealth, right? But more importantly in my world, it's kind of like the what and the why.
And so with that framework, as I started to kind of build this ideology around, uh, what does an aligned life look like, those were the four core things that I wanted to talk about.
And Aaron, as you were in the room, I was just asking questions to people, questions about how the relationships are in their family, with their partners, with their children, with their parents, right? How's their health? Uh, have they gained 25 pounds since becoming a father? Are they not going to the gym? Are they not eating well? Uh, what's their sense of purpose? You know, we're supposed to be on this earth for, let's call it 80 to 100 years.
Are you living a life that you f- actually find purpose in, or are you just in this mundane routine and comfortability? And then the last thing is identity, and I think this was the one that really hit home for a lot of people, which is, how do you identify as the person that you are? Are you tackling those generational cycles that have been taking place over and over again? Are you working on yourself? Do you have blind spots that everyone sees that you're just not willing to address? And so I kind of just created this framework around asking people the right questions, and half the room was crying.
People hadn't aligned and asked themselves questions about why they're doing anything, and they're so focused on this thing called what, which is the success, the accolades, the doors, the businesses.
And you have to ask yourself the challenging questions to get the challenging answers.
You know, and as I was receiving that talk, there are elements, part of why I love the idea of the blind spots that other people see but you don't, is that I am willing to sometimes ignore, maybe I'm subconsciously aware of certain blind spots-
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