When I worked as a pro speaker, I spent my life standing on stage talking about leadership, self-compassion, and self-love. Behind the scenes I was falling apart. The following is adapted from my upcoming book, When Success Isn’t Enough, out everywhere on June 16th. It’s the moment I realized no amount of success or validation was going to fix me.
You never imagine feeling worthless while receiving a standing ovation. Yet there I was.
Two thousand people on their feet, clapping and looking up at me in admiration. The lights were blinding, and my chest felt hollow. I plastered on a smile and waved at the audience, but my heart was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t leave the stage fast enough.
That moment should have been a victory. By every measure, I was winning. But instead, I felt empty.
That was September of 2012. I was in Kansas City for a speaking gig. After years of struggle, my career as a professional speaker was finally taking off. Every week, I was paid to deliver keynotes at top universities and leading corporations.
I sold out tour dates in multiple countries. I flew first class and got picked up in black cars. I stayed in hotel suites that were literally bigger than my apartment. I’d made it.
But offstage, I was falling apart. During a tour stop in Florida I burst into tears right before sound check. My hotel rooms were littered with discarded pizza boxes and empty beer cans. There was always a bottle of Jack Daniels on my nightstand. I felt lost, empty, and intensely lonely.
The work no longer inspired me. The weight of my emotional pain was starting to break me. It was onstage that night in Kansas City, while the audience was standing up and clapping, that it hit me: No amount of success or external validation—not the growing crowds, not their applause—was going to heal the pain I was carrying.
When I got back to the hotel room, I collapsed onto the floor, curled myself into the fetal position, clutched a warm beer to my chest, and texted a friend. As the minutes passed with no response, I had a horrifying realization: I’ve been here before. This pattern of seeking success to heal an inner ache started when I was much younger.
When I was a teenager, I toured the country as a professional magician and competed in elite magic competitions. I remember looking at my friends and being deeply disoriented. How could they be so much happier than me, despite not having any sort of success or public recognition? I was so confused that I Googled “Successful but miserable.” I found nothing that helped.
I was certain that success and recognition would bring me happiness. But they never did. Not as a magician, not as a student with a near-perfect GPA, and not as a professional speaker at the top of my market.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from what I now call the Success Wound. It’s the learned (and often unconscious) belief that your worth depends on achievement. This belief drives relentless external success while quietly starving your capacity for connection, rest, and joy.
That night on the hotel carpet was my breaking point.
I spent years optimizing my outer life and my career, hoping that the pain would go away. But it didn’t. Lying on that carpet, I finally accepted that the success was only making things worse. I needed to figure out what was wrong with me.
So I did the thing I had been avoiding for years. I called a therapist. But not the traditional type, who talks to you about your problems for an hour, hoping that conversation will fix them. My intuition led me to therapists who were outside the mainstream, using entirely different techniques, and reliably helping their clients heal. They used trauma-informed methods that engage the body, the mind, and the therapeutic relationship all at once.
As I did the work, things started to shift.
I woke up happy. My relationships improved. Life felt good. Really good.
After five years of inner work, I realized that I didn’t want to keep touring as a speaker. I found a way out of the maze, and I wanted to share it. I closed my speaking business, enrolled in grad school, and became a licensed therapist.
Today, my life looks entirely different than it did in Kansas City.
I still work hard; that part of me hasn’t changed. But I no longer use work to avoid my feelings. I can relax without feeling guilty or needing to be productive. I can receive a compliment without immediately deflecting it. I can have a difficult conversation without shutting down or blowing up.
The emptiness is gone too. Not because I’ve achieved more but because I finally stopped running from myself and dealt with my shit.
Instead of hollowness, I feel a stable sense of appreciation and wonder. I wake up genuinely happy. Not in a manic, forced-gratitude way, but in a quiet, settled way. My relationships are deeper. My work is focused. When something difficult happens, I don’t spiral for weeks. I let myself process it and move forward.
This isn’t a miracle, and it’s not luck. It’s what happens when you stop treating your inner life like an afterthought.
I wrote When Success Isn’t Enough because I spent years trying to figure out what to do when you’re successful but miserable. What I needed didn’t exist in any cohesive way. I needed to piece it together, first for myself, then for my clients, and now as a book.
The book maps the exact psychological mechanics behind why high achievers feel empty, and more importantly, what to do about it. It covers everything from understanding the Success Wound and the syntonic defense, to recovering from burnout, repairing relationships, and creating the kind of fulfillment that doesn’t depend on your next achievement.
It’s the book I needed when I was collapsed on the hotel carpet in Kansas City. I hope it saves years of heartache and disorientation for its readers.
When Success Isn’t Enough comes out June 16th. If you’ve had your own version of being collapsed on the hotel carpet (or is it just me?), this book is for you.