“He’ll be a billionaire, just give him a few years.”
“It’s so amazing that you got in on the ground floor.”
“I’m so happy you’ve found success!”
Generally it’s completely innocent, even well-meaning. Oftentimes it serves to put us in a box. To discourage us from exploring other paths that might be more meaningful.
After years of being rewarded and encouraged for arbitrary measures, it can be a struggle to understand what you actually want. Inevitably we need to rescript our thought processes- route out how we’ve been encouraged to think for years and discover what we actually want.
Good questions to start with are right there- “What do I actually want?” “What makes me happy despite no one encouraging me for it?”