The Hidden Cost Of Success

If you've ever felt lonely or isolated while building your dreams, you are not alone. And it's not your fault. I used to be miserable in my 20s with no direction for my life. Today, I'm a millionaire business owner, and I have people who truly support me in all aspects of my life. So if you want to understand why you're stuck in this loneliness epidemic and how to fix it, keep watching. First up is the hardest one. Loneliness is the cost of growth. If you're outgrowing your friends, you need to walk away. You see, 58% of adults in the United States report feeling lonely every single week. I remember being in my mid-20s, which was not that many years ago, and I would show up to dinner or a hangout with my friends who had been there for me. But all of a sudden, the conversations weren't the same because I had changed. I was excited about the business I was starting. I was excited about these new opportunities that I was desperately trying to create for myself. And instead of being met with excitement, instead of being met with support, there was judgment. There were critical comments. And I actually had one of my friends in a group setting laugh at me over coffee. And I remember going home and being in tears. I was beside myself because I didn't want to create what I was creating by myself. I just assumed that the people around me would be happy for me. And what I discovered later is this concept of the pace gap. You see, the pace gap means that you're outpacing people around you. In some area of your life, it could be physically, it could be financially, it could be professionally. And this gap in the pace in which I was going left me feeling empty and isolated, like I was doing something wrong and maybe even silly and definitely invalidated in my dreams and my goals and ambitions for my life. And I actually had to move on from some of these friendships because they were so unsupportive during this time frame. Now, today I look at this and can take ownership for the fact that I had changed. Wasn't their fault. They wanted to be exactly where they were. And I was asking them to be somebody that they weren't. So I don't try to make them wrong. And I appreciate them for the role that they've had in my life. But it also doesn't mean that I have to continue to spend my time around them. And as you start to bump into this pace gap, that is the most uncomfortable part. You feel like you're trying to hold on to this thing that you might need to let go of for a while in order to get to where you're going. You can go back to these people if they really are good friends. You can always spend time with people in the future if they turn out to be good friends. But as you start to bump up against this pace gap, while you are building your dreams and creating the life that you want, it's OK to let go for the moment. And the isolation is always better than holding on to something that actually keeps you stuck. Losing people on your journey is a natural part of growth. So let go of the guilt when your circles shift. Next is number two, which is that you will carry all of the weights alone. You signed up for this. You see, the University of San Francisco recently did a study showing that startup founders are twice as likely to suffer from depression because carrying risk alone can change your emotional baseline. It is easy to shift into a new situation, a new place, a new opportunity and feel like you are entirely alone because you've just risen the stakes. So let's talk about this concept of the stake gap. Now, this is not steak as in red meat. This is literally the stakes. Because if you are a business owner, you have just raised the stakes. You have more at risk. And with more at risk, that's more pressure. And people around you simply will not understand. You'll go to hang out with your friends, and you will have all of this weight that you're carrying around. And they are wondering why you're so stressed out, why you can't hang out as much anymore, why you're not interested in the same things. It's because you actually are playing a bigger game. And the game is heavier. It's more involved. It's more challenging. And the people in your life likely don't want the risk that you've just taken on. So they're never going to understand. And this creates significant loneliness. This gap and at least identifying and seeing the gap does release some of the resentment that can very quickly build up, especially when you're newer to the raising of these stakes. But the key to this is actually building support systems with people who do have in the game. What I tell myself in these moments is I chose to raise these stakes because I wanted to play a bigger game. I was no longer satisfied with being somebody else's invite to the cool event or not being able to pay for something that I wanted to contribute to. So because I had a lack of something and a desire for something, I needed to do something that was much more risky in order to get me to where I wanted to go. I was the one who chose that I wanted to go there. Nobody forced this decision on me. I made this decision. And when you take full responsibility for your choices, instead of falling into depression and falling into being a victim and telling yourself how hard it is, you can feel a little bit lighter about it because you chose this. Next is number three, which is you can't vent at work. Power can make you silent. As soon as you get in a position of power, your ability to be completely open and honest with people goes away. Now, this doesn't mean that you're lying, but it would be irresponsible to tell everybody every thought that you have. And if you tend to be an overshare before starting a business, you have to figure out how to curb this desire because people don't need to know every thought. If you're worried, if you're frustrated, if you're concerned, if there's a problem, they should never see it. I tell myself often, never let them see you sweat. There's only a handful of people that get to know when I'm frustrated, when I'm stressed out, because it is entirely inappropriate to confide in your team members. You might think that you should talk to your family to vent, or maybe your friends. What I ask myself is, why do they need to know my problems? Why am I burdening somebody else with my problems? So you can't talk to your team members because you have a new problem. There is now a power gap. You are more responsible and you have more authority, which becomes isolating. You can't share everything that's going on. When a team member quits or you have to fire somebody, you can't tell somebody why. You're actually bound by state laws to not share this information, even though you are a human being and sometimes people do crazy ---- and you just want to tell somebody. You can't. This idea of venting has to be reorganized as you take on greater responsibilities because venting to the wrong person can compromise your team's cohesion and it can compromise your judgment and it can compromise your results. So if this power gap exists with your team, you can choose to seek others, either peers, coaches, or mentors, who you can vent to. But before you just go off finding people that you can vent to, let me just ask you this question. Why do you need to vent? Is there something that somebody can help you with? Do you just want someone to listen to you? Do you want them to understand you? What is the reason that you need to tell somebody about your problems? Sometimes this is just so habitual. Think that you need somebody to listen to you when it's not actually helpful because they then give all of their limiting beliefs onto you. You're not really trying to get a problem. You're just talking. Well, if you just need to talk to somebody, talk to a wall, talk to yourself, just talk in the car. It doesn't matter who you're talking to. Just get it out. But you don't actually have to dump this onto other people. They are not served by your problems. And if they can't actually help you solve your problems, you're actually doing you and them a disservice by venting. I know this is not popular because it's very easy to just say, oh, you should vent your problems. You should have somebody to talk to and you need a therapist. I don't believe in any of that because why do you need somebody to talk to? If you have a problem, go to somebody who knows how to help you solve that specific problem. But just talking about all of your problems and all of your challenges and what's happening in your life, no one cares. They don't care if you're in a powerful position and they certainly don't care when you're not in a powerful position. So just keep your business to yourself and solve your own problems in a way that is congruent with the life that you want to build. So this doesn't make you lonely. Let's rebrand this. It makes you independent. This brings me to my next point, which is that it is certainly lonely at the top. Success and money doesn't solve loneliness, but neither does being broke. So if we're trying to solve the loneliness problem, we have to figure out what are the roles of the people in our lives and how do we create a support mechanism so those people can actually serve us and we can help them. So you have to ask yourself, what is the real purpose of the people in your life? It might be worthwhile for you to actually write this down. I did this activity once just a couple years ago, and it changed everything for me because I was forcing everybody in my life to fulfill a role that only one specific group needed to help me with, which is the support and the growth of the business. Well, my team members should service in that role. They should help me and be excited with me about what we're doing in our business. But does my grandma need to be interested in my business? Not necessarily. My grandma can be interested in giving me comfort and support and love, and we can reminisce about old times. That's the purpose and function of my grandma in my life. It's not to keep me accountable and keep me going and inspire me to drive my business forward. Similarly with my friends. My friends are there for me to have a good time and to be safe with and to have trust with and enjoy moments where I'm not at work. Well, I don't need them to give me advice about work, which means that I don't bring them my work problems. So when you start to reorganize the function of the people in your life, you reduce your expectations that might be holding you captive from expecting your family and your friends to support you at work. If you didn't have that expectation, you might be a lot happier hanging out with your family and friends because that's actually not who you need that support from. Similarly, I don't need the people I work with to make me feel comfortable. That's not their job. My mom will help me feel comfortable. My dad will make me feel comfortable. My brother, my husband, those are the people that I want comfort from. But my people at work, I want them holding me accountable. I want them pushing me. I want us talking about targets and collectively helping each other achieve goals. Number five, would you rather be lonely and successful or lonely and unsuccessful? You see, I've asked myself this question in multiple phases of my career where I had to go all in on a specific target and I didn't have time to be with other people. There was not time with friends. There was not time with family. There was only time to create something that I was so passionate about. But in many of those moments, I felt entirely alone. And I wondered if it was ever going to be worthwhile enough to bring people into my life that would really appreciate and maybe even be able to add to this life that I wanted to build. There was a specific moment six years ago where I was working around the clock for months in order to get this project off the ground. And even though I work with my husband, he didn't understand the pressure I was under and he couldn't help me with any of the problems that I was solving. So it was me, myself and I working through these problems because it mattered. It mattered to me. It mattered to our clients and it mattered to our team. And the only reason today that I get calls from people that I used to look up to, that I used to study, and they're now interested in messaging me, they're interested in hanging out with me, they're interested in doing a collaboration is because I went through these moments of loneliness to create something that I'm proud of. I now have a result because those people came into my life not because I wanted to do those things, no, because I actually made sacrifices and was willing to go through a phase of loneliness to bring in something that I didn't have at that time. Choosing loneliness with purpose is far more powerful than tolerating loneliness with regret. So focus on building you and your business and naturally the right people will come into your life. This final point is going to sound so cheesy, but I mean this with every fiber of my being. You have to be your own best friend. The most powerful relationship that you can ever build is the relationship that you have with yourself. If you do not like yourself, if you talk poorly to yourself, if you don't believe in yourself, of course you're going to feel lonely because you're building something and other people don't understand and you hate yourself. And so when you listen to the way that you talk to yourself, do you ever think, man, I would never say the words that I say about myself to my best friend. I wouldn't even tell somebody that I disliked the things that I say to myself. I recognized this when I went to a all women's event seven years ago, we had to speak out loud the things that we say only to ourselves. And when we did this, I'm not kidding you, the whole group of women just started crying because I would never say something so rude to my mom or to my best friend or to my brother in the way that I was saying this to myself. And when you really pay attention to this, it can be shocking how mean we are to ourselves. So I decided in that moment many years ago that I was going to be my own best friend. I was going to talk to myself in a way that is supportive, not critical, not negative in a way where I'm motivating myself in a way where I'm really taking responsibility for what my life looks like and believing that it's possible for me to have an entirely different life in the future. The best friend that you can have in the process of building a business is you. Now, what does it take to like yourself? Well, you have to hold yourself accountable and actually keep the promises that you make to yourself. And most importantly, you have to not lie to yourself. When you lie to yourself and say, oh, I didn't want that anyway. Well, it doesn't really matter if I show up early or stay late or work hard. You start to not believe yourself and you start to not like yourself. You can't do that if you're going to be your own best friend because you have to be really honest with you about your limitations, what's holding you back. But more importantly, what you really want. Your self-trust creates confidence and satisfaction that no external relationship can ever provide you. It will help you weather seasons of isolation and moments of loneliness because all of a sudden loneliness becomes optional when you realize that you're actually not alone if you like yourself. Don't get me wrong and we can't tell my husband this. Hopefully this doesn't get flipped for shorts on social media, but I love hanging out with me. I am my favorite person to hang out with. Give me a face mask. Give me a bubble bath. Let me work out by myself. Listen to music by myself. I love hanging out with myself. So focus on spending time with yourself and reflecting and building towards your goals because that is what makes you a true friend to you. If you found this valuable and want to take the next step towards changing your life with just one habit, check out my next video.