The Fear Behind Success | What Silicon Valley CEOs Never Say Out Loud with Mike Grossman

Some of the most successful people in the world are secretly falling apart, and nobody notices because success hides pain really well. And we think we've normalized burnout so much that people now call it survival mode ambition. Today, we're talking about the emotional cost of success, the pressure behind leadership, The fear of hidden inside the achievements and what happens when your identity becomes tied to your performance. I'm your host, Edna White, and this is Keeping It Real On Purpose. Today, I'm sitting down with none other than Mike Grossman, a six-time Silicon Valley CEO who has spent decades inside one of the most high-pressure environments in the world. But what interests me most wasn't the success. It was the honesty, because people love talking about winning. Very few people talk about trying to hold everything together. So, Mike, you know what's interesting to me about Silicon Valley already. So everybody imagines confidence, genius, innovation, money. But I've always wondered, what does the world actually feel like over there? Well, thank you for having me on the show. I really appreciate it. A quick answer to your question is that it's really challenging. I mean, I went to Silicon Valley because I was an aspiring entrepreneur. I wanted to do things that were innovative and impactful and creative, but I never really thought about what the psychological and emotional cost would be. So it's incredibly pressure-packed, and in a lot of these early-stage companies, the truth is you spend more time failing than you spend succeeding. And you have to really come to terms with that. That's what they don't see. Wow. It took me years to really kind of get my mind around that to some extent. That's not the story when people think about Silicon Valley. It usually comes from... That's why I asked you that. I was like, that's not the story. I think it's the real Silicon Valley. I mean, people hear about the Mark Zuckerbergs and Elon Musks of the world, and they're really an aberration. And my guess is that they struggle a lot too. That's my guess, but who knows? But certainly for most of the companies, and there are many of them, thousands of innovative companies are getting formed all the time. It's very challenging. And if you're used to this idea that you work hard and the work is rewarded by the results, It can be very jarring because in a lot of these types of companies, you can work hard, you can even do a good job, and the company can fail or face enormous adversity. And then you kind of have to come to terms with the fact that you actually don't have that much control over the outcome. Wow, that's scary. That's really scary. That is scary. I know that, you know, failing is part of success, right? That's what they always say. I don't know if, you know, that's part of it, you know, kind of learning to get to that. But that statement you just said just kind of makes that, I don't know, just makes it. Well, where I've come to terms with it is this idea that there are certain things you can control and there are certain things you can't control. You can't control your effort. You can control how you treat other people, but you can't control the outcome, and so you can do things the right way. You can treat people well, your employees, your customers. You can work really hard. You can find a team of people to work with you who will work really hard. And sometimes that yields a great result and sometimes it doesn't. And so it's kind of like, you know, serenity prayer. Yeah, you could kind of... That's a good one, Mike. Very good. Did you ever feel like everyone around you was pretending they had it together? Yes. I mean, in some sense, I feel like I projected that as well. Really? You know, it's... Because there's this kind of mythology around Silicon Valley and the impact and transformative nature of these companies, and as well as a lot of folks are very, very financially focused, it's not a place that's really fond of vulnerability or sort of revealing weakness, which, of course, we all feel. So, yeah, I think a lot of people, and I would say that I've done the same in the past, is you try to project an optimistic view, even when things are actually very challenging. And sometimes you can end up very disconnected from yourself and how you're really feeling, because what you're showing to the world is a performance, and it's not actually the truth of how you actually feel. Over the years, I got better at it. And everyone has mentioned in the intro six of these companies. And at the beginning of that journey, I was much more tightly wound, I would say, when it came to these types of issues. And over time, I became less tightly wound. I came to accept and really embrace more of the control that I mentioned. And here's the most interesting thing is that I think the more I came to terms with the The fact that I couldn't control the outcome. The companies actually tended to do better. And I sort of then questioned, why would that be? And I think the answer is that if you spend all your time anguishing about what's going to happen, you don't have as much positive energy that is, well, first of all, you're tired. And you don't have as much positivity which you channel towards Doing the best you can do. And if you stop worrying about it and you take kind of a more Zen type of view, which is, well, I'm just going to do the best I can and whatever happens, happens. In the process, things tend to do better because you're just focusing on what you can control. I see that all the time with some, I want to say, entrepreneurs that I work with, right? They've been told, even when I became an entrepreneur in the real estate realm, they said, fake it till you make it. Right. And I found that very hard because I was tired all the time. Like, what am I doing to myself? And my nervous system was overloaded. Like I was like a nervous wreck. You know, what is that? You know, I don't understand. Like, you know, I know this is going on. And you do have that in the back of your mind that it's going to fail no matter what I do. What do you do with that? Or how do you teach people to do something with that? Because it's, like you said, it may be inevitable, even though if you're doing a great job. There's a couple of things. Let's do this to ourselves. Yeah, there's a couple of things that I've. I kind of thought about it as the years have progressed. And actually, I wrote about this in a book that I just wrote called Failure is an Option. Thank That's good. From a coping perspective, I kind of trained myself, and this is what I encourage others as well, you try not to get too high or too low. So, when things don't go well, very if you really just keep applying yourself, there's a pretty good chance you'll figure out a way to make it better. Even if you don't know exactly how, the odds are you will. much. And at the same time, if things are going well, you kind of have to assume that they're not going to always go well. So, you have to sort of assume things will go worse. And so, I kind of developed this approach, which is, you know, don't be an optimist or a pessimist. Just be kind of level. And I found that that helped me cope because when times got bad, I said, you know what, I believe they're going to get better. And they usually do. And then the second thing, as I mentioned, this issue of focus around control, it's focus on the input, focus on what you can control. Try not to worry or define yourself so much. by the result But the other thing in these entrepreneurial businesses is a lot of times what you think the business opportunity is, is not exactly what the opportunity is. So you have to sort of be open to the universe. I think, you know, you you think it's one thing you listen to that, you know. Oh, actually, it's not this. It's this. Right. And I have to be open to kind of pivoting, and shifting And I think if you do that and you're willing to adapt, you're open to adapting and listening, again, to the universe, you're, you know, you're pretty likely to find the path that is better and working better when you're on. I love that. I love that. Be open to the universe. Of course. You know what I've been realizing more and more? And I think I was talking to another coach about this. A lot of high achievers are not driven by confidence. They're driven by fear, but they're dressed up with good branding. One day. And then I find out later that, you know, when I'm kind of contacting them again, they're gone. They're no more, you know, and that's what I'm finding. Are you finding that? Or is that, in that arena, the same, you know, what's happening in Silicon Valley? I think that just because somebody seems confident doesn't mean that they're confident. Sort of It's performative, right? I mean, very often I think the people who are most confident are the ones who are not trying to appear confident. They're not worrying about it as much. And I also think these things develop over time, you know, as people get older. And, you know, I think also and have to confront adversity and figure out how to come through it. And if you come through adversity in various ways, I think that does build confidence in terms of being able to come through it again. In the future, but there's no question. And I see this in Silicon Valley all the time. There's a lot of people who are faking it till they make it, if they make it, and people who are trying to project an image of themselves, which is in fact not necessarily the reality at all. In other cases, though, I find people who are actually overconfident. They kind of have undeserved confidence and They think they're going to succeed. And I would actually say when I, my company number one. Yeah. I actually thought in some ways I fell into that bucket, which is, I thought, well, I'm going to work hard and it's going to work. Yeah. And I believed it. I really believed it. And then, and then I. You know, learn that doesn't really always work that way. And And, you know, you fail and you fail and you fail. You realize, oh, well, that's a possibility. And what do I do with that? Because I've always, if you've defined yourself by your results, I guess, is the issue. And then the results end up not being so good. What does that say about your identity at some level? Right. And then soon it gets attached. That kind of attaches to your identity, too, because you can't kind of turn it off, you know. And we're in a society where a lot of people have their ideas about success. I mean, at some level, what is success? I mean, society has its ideas. I think one of the main things I've learned through the years is that Success is in the eye of the beholder. Yeah, absolutely. You know, some of these companies, I had an amazing mentor, a guy named Bill Campbell, I write about in the book, who had a really interesting backstory. He had been a football coach until he was about 40, and then he went to Silicon Valley and ended up becoming known as the coach of Silicon Valley in a lot of ways. And, uh... Then I completely lost my train of thought there. There. You talk about your mentor. Talk about your mentor. He was really a remarkable person because he was so empathetic. Yeah. He really cared about people. And a lot of times in the business world and Silicon Valley, people don't really care about people that much, they care about just financial results and themselves. He cared about that, too, but he cared about it through the lens of how do you really do right by the people that you work with and so on. I see a lot of. Fear. Fear of losing, being irrelevant, especially along with social media and things like that. Feeling of losing status, feeling of disappointing people, and especially, again, around social media. And fear of slowing down, because when you actually start to feel something when you slow down, and people don't like to slow down, do you see that in leadership? Yeah, I mean, I think that's, those are really interesting comments. So I definitely see where people don't think about how they're feeling, or they're not introspective, because they're able to avoid it in some sense by being busy. And they don't really want to be introspective, because then they realize they're actually not happy doing what they're doing. They're not happy with how it's going, but they're also just not enjoying themselves in a way that they had thought. I think a lot of the people who I've seen who run these types of companies in Silicon Valley aren't all that self-aware in a lot of ways, almost pathologically ambitious. But if you were to probe on why, I'm not sure you'd always get a real, I think there's a limit to how cogent the answer would be on some level or how coherent the answer would be. Yes. I think. They're impacted by, I was going to say before, society in a way. Society defines these things. It's more important to define how you feel. And I remember now when I was referencing Bill Campbell, he made a comment that often success in these entrepreneurial companies is survival. It's not. That you're, you know, in the headlines or you're, you know, a billionaire. It's just that you find a way to keep something alive. Absolutely. And that's a real achievement a lot of the time because it's really hard to be an entrepreneur. It's really, really hard to try to create something out of nothing. Yeah. And I don't think people who haven't done it really understand how hard that is. I know I didn't. Mm-hmm. And so... There is this question of, well, what is success to you? Right, right. And I'm not convinced that we have to accept society's definition of that. Right, exactly. We're affected by it, right? And so you mentioned social media. I mean, we're affected by social media and the world around us. But I think it's better to try to figure out what makes you happy and motivated and fulfilled and regard that as success. Right. Yeah. And because it's so easy because of society and social media, you see all these other people kind of being millionaires, being this, being that, doing this, doing that. It's so easy to compare. And I know when a lot of people come to me, they want a different strategy. Like, oh, I got to have a different strategy because I don't know. Tony Robbins is doing this, you know, and Lisa Nichols doing this, you know, and I got to I need a different strategy. So they come to me for the strategy. But then we often find out that they think they need a strategy, but really they need some emotional honesty. Like, again, on your, like you said, why are you doing this? Like, that's a real question. Why are you doing this? Is it because you want freedom? Is it, what do you want? Or do you want to be like this person? Because that's not really a reason for success. Because if you want to compare yourself to them, you're going to have a whole lot of failure going on, right? So I'm going to talk about, you know, what you said before, achievement, the addiction to achievement, because I think that's what it is. Can you talk about that? Yeah, I mean, I can talk about my own personal experience. When I was little, I did very well in school and I got praised for doing well in school. And so as I was growing up, I sort of defined my identity by that. I sort of thought, well, I work hard, I get good grades, and I thought that was good. There's nothing bad about it, but I thought it was good because I got parents telling me, oh, we're very proud that you did that. And so I think that does create a sort of sense of, oh, well, then achievement, sort of specific results that are visible is important. And then as you get older and you get into the working world, you just sort of naturally apply the same type of framework. And so what does that look like? Well, what is the scorecard? It could be promoted. What's your title? How much money do you make? How impactful if you're doing something entrepreneurial? Has the company been in sport? But what I came to realize through many different challenges and failures in the entrepreneurial And your real world is. That in reality, that wasn't a great definition for success. Got that right. And it kind of isolated myself from myself. That's all. Mm-hmm. And I think I informally coach about . a dozen first-time Silicon Valley CEOs these days. So I find myself also in a kind of coaching type of role. I never actually thought I would be. And the common theme that I see is that they pretty much all struggle with this issue because none of the companies achieve easily. And so they're constantly forced to confront their own vulnerability, constraints, limitations, Questions? fears, insecurities. I think every single one of them, to some extent, struggles with their mental health. Some more than others, but all of them do. And none of them tell anybody really about it. A hundred percent. Yes, 100%. You get to really have a private sort of trust-based relationship with them. Yeah. I think some people built businesses before they built themselves. That is really well said. I think that's what happened. So let's talk about authenticity, because I know I talk a lot about that and performance that you kind of experienced as a CEO. Oh, you. That's what you look for to develop. I'm gonna look. I know sometimes it feels exhausting to perform. No. Even when you don't want to, sometimes you have to push through it. And Silicon Valley, of course, pushing through it regardless of what the end is going to be. I think people are tired of performing success and performing confidence and just performing certainty, like everything's going to be okay, you know? And I think that's why authenticity is exploding right now for the last five or five or six years, maybe, and people are emotionally tired. At what point do people stop building companies and start building character? I mean, in some sense, if you try to build companies, I think that life ends up forcing you to build characters to some extent because you're going to end up confronting adversity along the way. You know, different people do these things differently. I think for me, I found that taking a more authentic approach. Is... It makes it a lot easier to build an environment for the people you work with, folks who really care about that. And it's a much more enjoyable environment to work in. And I think it also tends to lead to better results as it happens. But again, I come back to this idea of focusing on the input. And I believe in that authenticity is important just as an end in and of itself. But I also believe that it's actually a great way to build successful companies. I've seen that multiple times when things get tough. If you're really if it's an authentic environment, people are much more likely to stick. You're much more likely. I really want to try to help this organization. Right. Exactly. I care about the people I care about. I believe, you know, I people matter to me. And I like being with people who regard authenticity as important. And if you don't have that, when things get tough, I think everybody runs away as fast as possible. And that doesn't lead to a good outcome, that's for sure. Right. And I know here in New York you see a lot of turnover when the leaders are like that, you know, when they're not authentic and when they have their own idea of what, you know, You know, they're... I've seen a lot of leaders that become emotionally trapped by their own image. You know, they have this image they have to put up. And, you know, and I've even heard a woman that I was working for stand up in a meeting with all employees and call herself the bitch. And I'm like, whoa. That's an image, you know, and I realized that it was, you know, it was sort of her way of protecting herself, almost like being a bully telling you right up front, who she was, and you're not going to mess with her. And this is, it's her, this is her stuff. She's going to run this the way she wants to. So I knew that was her emotion speaking. But they get trapped in that and then they force people away. They like people do not stay. They can't stay in that type of. I just interject the other part of that I see is that a lot of leaders tend to spin things when they talk to folks in the company, especially when things are tough. They don't really want to talk about the fact that things are tough. They want to make it sound rosier than it actually is. Right, right. All right. All right. I always think that's a mistake because people see through it. People know that it's not true. And so whether it's people, you know, the leader trying to protect themselves or maybe even in some cases protect the people they're talking to, but ultimately it's not true. And when people are dealing in what I would, you know, their lives really, things don't end up being sustainable because. No, it doesn't. It does not. You don't have credibility as a leader at that point. And I think it spills over. Doesn't it spill over into their business, whether it be someone else's business that they're running as an executive director or a CEO, whatever, and they're running it. I think that what they don't take care of emotionally kind of spills over into how they manage, how they lead others, and it kind of spills over into that. That becomes like a lie. What they're trying to build is actually a lie because they're living on a lie, if that makes sense. It does. I mean, I actually, I quoted Billy Joel in my book, which is, honesty is such a lonely word. Oh, that's so good. I just heard that song today at the doctor's office. It's a great song. It's a very powerful song. It is. It is. And And it is in the world, and Silicon Valley is a microcosm of the world. So in a lot of companies that I've seen, people are spinning or trying to make things sound better than they are and not really confronting the problems. And I don't know, my experience has been, or maybe my perspective, I should say, is you. that entrepreneurial business or business generally, all it's about is trying to solve problems. That's kind of what it is. Absolutely. So it's better to talk about them. And have a open discussion about them and try to create a safe space where people, you know, people can have those discussions. Because if you don't, then you just kind of sweep them under the rug and make believe they don't exist. They fester, of course. Nothing gets fixed if you make believe it doesn't exist. And it just keeps going on. It's like having a rug that you put, you know, you sweep things under and then you sweep everything, keep sweeping everything under and it gets bigger. And then you have to walk over that rug every day. Trying to get bigger and bigger, and it's harder to get over it. And sooner or later, you can't get over it because you built a bridge. Like, not a bridge, but a wall. You built a wall. So it's best to talk about it, like you said. Absolutely. It doesn't mean it's easy to talk about it. No, and that's a good thing. Hard things are good to talk about because that means once you get it out of your mouth, it's over. It's good. You can do something about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, another thing that I've found, Mike, is about high achievers, their body usually tells the truth before their mouth does. You're right. Yeah, I think that's right. I think sometimes people are disingenuous, and so leaders will talk about something that they know isn't true. Yeah. But I also think there's a lot of times where they say things that they're not intentionally lying, but they're basically lying to themselves. That's good. And then, you know, in effect, they're lying, but they're not completely aware of it in some cases. And I've seen this in Silicon Valley a lot, is people have such an emotional need for something to work. But they want to believe that what they're saying is true, even though the data doesn't support it. And in the end, it's proven to not be the case. And those are the hardest situations. I think when I've seen entrepreneurial leaders in these types of companies who are disconnected, not just from themselves, but from the reality of the situation that they're in, they're much more likely to fail than actually because they're not willing to confront what's happening. They don't want to face reality. Well, you know, reality bites, right? I mean, reality intrudes. I mean, you can't avoid it. And so if you're not recognizing it or acknowledging it, it doesn't make it go away. It's still there. People say they're fine, and that's a telltale. Fine is not an emotion. Yeah, they're fine. And then they're probably exhausted or they didn't sleep for a couple of nights, you know. You know... They're just not there, you know. And they're just pushing through. When I started my first company, first full-time kind of entrepreneurial, company, it coincided with the birth of my wife and my first child. And when I say coincided, I mean, literally, I left my job. I said goodbye to everybody. I went home and my wife went into labor. So I had this entrepreneurial experience at exactly the same time that I became a parent. And so a couple of things about that. One is that I had wanted to be an entrepreneur for many years, but I actually quickly realized. That I like being a parent more. That was one thing that I realized. Thank Regarded as more important for me, but the second that it's, uh, you know, it was incredibly you stressful. And when we then faced a lot of adversity over the first, well, actually it was nine very years and we had many more downs than ups and it went up and down, down and up and sort of a ran sequence of events. much. There were a lot of nights I didn't sleep at all. I mean, I would just sort of stare at the ceiling and. And it was, a lot of it was confronting. Yeah, it was fear of failure is really what it is. Of course, of course. But through it, I, you know, I adjusted my approach and came to view it through a different lens. And I actually came to like the career over the years. So, but for different reasons, I think, than I thought when I got into it in the first place. Yeah. I think we normalize functioning in that survival mode because I see that, especially in real estate, I saw that people were just like pushing through, right? And we normalize that because that's the business. That's the word I used to hear. That's the business. So I had children, you know, going into real estate. So I was like, I'm not working the weekends. What do you mean? That's when you make your money. You know, they'd say that. What do you mean? You got to push through. It's like, no, I have children and the weekends are reserved for them. And so, um, they normalized that they work seven days a week, you know, it's like, when do you get a break? Like, and, and most of them were graying before time they were like exhausted. Some of them had such bad eating habits. It showed up in their body, you know, um, young people like younger, you know, the I would say I was maybe 10 years older than most of them. And the men were losing their hair, not because of heredity, literally because it was just there was stress completely out. And then they couldn't even hold relationships because that's the normalization they took, you know, that I have to be. Doing this all the time. So they were in survival mode and they called it success. You know, they would high producer. That's what they would put on it. High producer, you know, and, and that's dangerous. I was the only one walking around singing. Hey, you know, I was like, I was happy. Like, I'm curious. What, where did that come from for you? What? The fact that you get a different perspectives on it. I mean, that you, you weren't. I wanted to, I, I knew that I had to rest. Let me just say, it was when I was 12. I pronounced, my mother asked me what I wanted to do. And I said, definitely not work. Oh, ****. Because I saw her work all the time and she was exhausted. So I said, I don't care what it is, as long as it's not work. I said this at 12. So my mother always reminds me of that. She always said you never want to work. And I said, I don't. I wanted to have fun. So I think. It came from that, that everything I do, I wanted to be an adult, but have fun doing it, if that makes sense. It does. And I think that I kind of carried through. And every weekend, my kids and I were going to Pennsylvania to hang out at the water parks and things like that. So it's been my goal for years to always be off on the weekends. I mean, it seems to me that that's better for you. Family, it's emotionally healthy. But I don't think most people are wired that way. Maybe that's the reason you're coaching people. Yeah, I don't think most people are wired that way. And then when I went to Italy, you know, there, when they break for lunch, it's two hours. It's like everything closes. I love that. I was like, yeah, I want to move here. Nothing moves. Everybody's with their family, you know, and they ride their bikes to work. You know, it's like, great. Like, that's the attitude we need to have. And I think we normalize that total drive all the time that we can't really be emotionally honest. We can't really be just breathe sometimes. And we're overloaded. And that's the thing that we teach every generation. You've got to be overloaded. When is it time, as a CEO, that you may see that maybe people need to start to get rid of that part of it? I mean, it's interesting. It's a kind of conventional wisdom. in many parts of Silicon Valley, that the way you build great companies is that you get people who are willing to work 80 hours a week. And maybe in some cases that works. But that hasn't been my observation. My observation is that if you really want to build a great company, It depends on great people and the only way you can really keep great people and have them perform their best and be as motivated as you want them to be. Is if there's some balance in their lives. Right. We work 80 hours a week. There is no balance. That's not sustainable. There's no. These companies are much more analogous to marathons than sprints. And yeah, you have to move fast. And if you're a world-class marathoner, you move pretty fast. That's for sure. But it's not the same thing as a sprint. If you try to sprint all the time, you burn out. It's not sustainable. And I've seen that with. People in companies and CEOs, and I don't think that that's a good approach. I mean, I think you have to try to enforce some amount of work-life balance and actually mean it. Not just say it. There's a lot of companies that will say it's important to us, but they don't mean it. But I think it's really important. I think people perform better when they're happier. They're happier when they have a balance in their lives. Yeah, they do. Yeah, that's true for me. I know I performed better. I was cheerier. I was able to, you know, I was getting million-dollar houses, and I had to do that. So I just walked up and like, hi, how are you? I guess walked in with, I guess the attitude was different, you know, not like saying it was a job, but it was something, you know, cause I liked going because I was lighter. I had a balance, you know, and it's contagious. I think it really is. It really, really is. What did failure teach you that success could never do? Well, it taught me, I mean, humility is, is part of it. And I think that's, that's important. It's important. I think that one of the consequences of humility is that you listen more. You listen more to the universe before we also listen to other people because you realize you don't know the answers in a lot of cases, but so, you know, but groups of people often can figure out answers if you, if you talk to them and kind of seek out other people's perspective. Yeah. I think on one level, it taught me a form of grit. You know, things don't work. I forgot about that word, grit. I forgot about that. No, I like that. I mean, it's like. I do too, I forgot about it. Things don't work out, so you try again. Yes. You try a little differently. You try again. And frankly, when you finally, something works, you feel like you earned it, right? And so I think there's a piece of that. And I think failure has often taught me to think creatively, which is. I thought this is what it was, but that's not working. And so, therefore, let me think about other ways to approach that problem or even a different problem and reinvent what I'm trying to do. Reinvention, yeah, or pivoting, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pivoting is very important in life. It's not just business. Yeah. Interesting, I have a son who's about, the son I mentioned before, actually. He's almost 30 now. And in fact, in a couple of weeks, he turns 30, which is hard for me to believe. And he initially went into a career in the film industry. He was a director and worked on some films in Hollywood. And for years, he thought that's what he was going to do. And about four years ago, he had this epiphany where he just said, you know, I want to do this. I want to do something very different like, what was his big passion? This is kind of hobby, but his passion. And the answer is basketball coaching. And he decided he was going to pursue a career in basketball coaching. This is a guy had never, he didn't play college basketball. He, you know, he didn't play professional basketball. And, you know, he said. He was going to go for it. And I think that's a great way to approach life. I agree. Every age. Every age. Let's do that. Every age. Absolutely. I agree. 100%. I think failure forced me to be honest with myself. And honesty is uncomfortable when your entire image was built around looking strong. Because for me... I was always in my masculine because I had to raise boys, I had to raise my daughter, you know, and I had to be the disciplinarian and I had to work and I had to do all these things, you know. So I think I was always too strong and I had to, once things failed, I had to sit down and say, no, why did it fail? What part did I play in it? And I think It taught me honesty, not necessarily that it was a failure, was a bad thing or was a good thing. Neither one of those things. It just taught me how to be very honest. I took on too much or I did, you know, and it was clear, you know, things were clearer for me. I think that's what it taught me. And audience, if they're listening, this is some good stuff. I'm loving what Mike has given us here. I hope you got your pen, your paper. I know that you're writing notes and you can actually replay this later on. But right now, we're going to go to the flash round where Mike is going to answer questions real quickly, one to five word answers, if he could, for these questions that we're going to give him in this flash round. So get your pen and paper ready, because they're going to be good. You ready? Mike, what's the biggest lie people tell themselves? I think the biggest lie is that who they are is what other people think they are. Oh, that's good. What emotional secret secretly drives Silicon Valley? The secret is this idea that making a lot of money creates a significant life. I don't think that's true at all, but I think that's what actually is driving a lot of. Wow. Okay. What does burnout really sound like? Sound like? These are good questions. I'm starting I sort of, I think of standing alone on a bridge with the wind howling all around you. You can't hear your own thoughts. to speak. All you can hear is the wind buffeted on this bridge as it sways back and forth with gray ominous clouds up above. That's good. What do successful people hide best? Successful people hide best. Truly successful people don't necessarily explain how they define success for themselves. That's good. What makes a leader trustworthy? I think you have to really, I think not only do you have to have extremely high integrity, you really need to mean it and you need to live it. You need to walk the walk. So it's not enough to say you're honest. You actually have to be honest. And if you can do that consistently, eventually people will realize that it's true. Okay. And one truth people avoid hearing about ambition. Say again, please. One truth people avoid hearing about ambition. I think the idea that if you achieve your goals, you're going to be happy, because that assumes that you know what the right goals are. And so I think that ambition is good if you're doing what actually is personally meaningful. But if you're trying to pursue goals Based on. Your impression of what you should be doing, then you're less likely to, you're less likely to be, I'm sorry, that's okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead. Sorry. Say that one more time. We'll cut that out. Yeah, we should. I think the truth is that. And I'm not sure what I said exactly before, but ambition is. It's only good if you're actually pursuing goals that are really personally meaningful to you. I think a lot of times the truth is that people are ambitious about the wrong things. They do it for external reasons that they don't actually relate to. I think that's the key. If you're ambitious about things that really matter to you, I think that's a great thing. But a lot of times the truth is that people's ambitions have been kind of defined for them and they haven't really reflected on them all that much. That's good. Well, audience, you know what you heard today because I know I heard it, that success can become performance, that fear can disguise itself as ambition, and that people can build businesses while silently abandoning themselves emotionally. I think a lot of us got something out of it. I know I did, Mike Grossman. This was wow, wow, wow, because we know that people are out there struggling. Because they don't have this information, but as of today, they have it. I think it's worth repeating over and over again. Guys, if you have to play this over and over again, please keep playing it. Because this is some good information. It's the same fear. Same pattern, and we want you to get rid of it. Thank you so much, Mike, for being here with me today. Is there any final words you would give our audience who's someone who's probably not in Silicon Valley and sees their business is going to end, but still working vigilantly? What could you tell them? I would say, well, first of all, Silicon Valley isn't like everywhere else. I mean, it's got this sort of mythical sort of, you know. Thank reputation, but the truth is, it's exactly like every other business. And I think, you know, you fight the fight, and you do the best you can, and you are not the business. And the results of the business are not you. So just do what you can try to adapt, try to enjoy it as best you can. And you. maybe in the end, you'll figure out how to make it work. And if you don't, that's okay. That's, that's life. And that's it. We've talked about it. Now let's start doing something about it. If this conversation made you think about somebody or even yourself who looks successfully outside, but secretly feels exhausted trying to hold everything together, share this episode with them. And make sure you like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell for keeping it real on purpose. This is Edna Wang, your host, and my esteemed guest, Mike Grossman, saying goodbye for now.