I’m excited to share an excerpt from my new book, “When Success Isn’t Enough.” The following is an excerpt from the first chapter, “The Psychology of Success Without Happiness.” It discusses a little known psychological phenomenon called the “syntonic defense.” If your life has ever been perfect on paper, but on the inside you were struggling, there’s a good chance it’s because of the syntonic defense.
Note: Nicholas’s story is shared with permission though his identifying details have been changed to protect his privacy and our clinical work.
“When Success Isn’t Enough” is out everywhere on June 16th!
Nicholas had a secret.
To everyone around him, he had it all: a company he founded in his twenties now listed on a major stock exchange, a beautiful home, an exotic car collection, and a family that was genuinely happy.
But every night, on the way home from work, unbeknownst to his friends and family, he would make a pit stop at a small apartment he owned. For 20 minutes, he’d blast Gojira (a French heavy metal band), scream until his throat was raw and collapse into tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Then, he’d dust himself off, get back in the car, and drive home to his wife and kids as though nothing happened.
Despite all the material success in the world, Nicholas was drowning in pain. When he finally reached out to me, he got straight to the point, “I’m broken. I have no idea how to fix myself, and it’s tearing me apart. I lead a team of thousands. No one knows how much I’m struggling. I don’t think anyone would even believe me. I need help. Can we please find a time to talk?”
If you met Nicholas, you would like him immediately. I certainly did. He’s the type of person who effortlessly inspires and charms the people around him. He sends gift cards for spa days to stressed employees, built a halfpipe for his boys when they got into skateboarding, and plans regular date nights with his wife.
Nicholas had been strategic his entire life. When he was 14 he started busing tables at a local restaurant so that he could save for college. During college, while his friends were out partying, he was managing the restaurant and overseeing the daily operations to avoid college loans. After graduating, he was hired by one of the Big Three consultancies while simultaneously building his own startup.
The startup grew. And grew. Eventually, Nicholas found himself on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, ringing the bell. Gone were the days of pining for success and relentless jet setting. He was suddenly a very rich and very influential man.
But beneath the surface, something was wrong. No amount of achievement impacted the emptiness buried deep inside. Nicholas was dealing with something far more difficult than running a company. Something I’ve come to call “the Success Wound.”
The Success Wound is what happens when a person builds an extraordinary life from a place of unresolved pain. It isn’t ambition. It isn’t drive. It’s a survival mechanism wearing a designer suit.
For many top performers, success didn’t begin as inspiration. It began as protection. Somewhere early on, they learned that achievement could silence fear, earn safety, or keep feelings of rejection at bay. So they trained themselves, often unconsciously, to outrun their own insecurity. They became exceptional not because they felt whole, but because they didn’t.
The world applauded. Their résumé grew. Their bank account grew. Their reputation grew. But so did their inner wound. That original bone-deep sense of unworthiness never left.
The Success Wound is a paradox: the pain that fuels your rise becomes the exact thing that prevents you from ever arriving. Success becomes a trauma response masquerading as excellence. Every milestone proves your worth for a moment, then resets the scoreboard. Every win feels good for about 10 seconds before emptiness, anxiety, or self-doubt rushes back in. Then one day you wake up with the life you always wanted… and the haunting feeling that it’s never enough. That you’re never enough.
This paradox is the exact reason that smart, self-aware people often can’t see the Success Wound or get out from under it. Addressing the Success Wound allows you to love your life while also loving your work. Doing so begins by understanding the syntonic defense.
Understanding the Syntonic Defense
In psychology, a defense is anything that we do, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid dealing with reality. Defenses can broadly be broken into two categories: dystonic and syntonic.
Dystonic defenses are the defense structures that are obviously harmful and ineffective. Let’s say that you’re upset with your spouse and have been for a while. The tension is starting to build, so you have a few drinks and then find yourself screaming at them. This is a dystonic defense. You could work to gain control of yourself emotionally, reflect on what’s happening in the relationship, and communicate calmly. But instead, you’re acting out and making the problem worse. When the person’s defense structure is primarily dystonic, there are clear clues. The biggest one: you feel bad about it afterwards.
Syntonic defenses are much harder to spot for everyone involved. Again, let’s say you’re upset with your spouse and have been for a while. The tension is starting to build, but this time, instead of getting drunk and picking a fight, you exercise and spend a few extra hours at work. You’re still not dealing with your problems, but you are getting in shape and making more money. Now, the mind has come up with a strategy that produces a reward for avoiding reality.
This is the syntonic defense and it’s at the heart of the Success Wound.
Your success is masking your psychological pain and the more you mask it, the more success you accumulate. Since success is desirable, the person with a syntonic defense experiences confusion. They look at themselves and ask, “How can I have so much good stuff in my life and still be miserable?”
What Nicholas couldn’t see was the causal relationship between his extreme levels of hard work and his inner life falling apart. This is why he kept finding himself alone in his apartment on the way home from work. It was the only time he had to himself.
In his downtown apartment, he wasn’t running his company or tending to his family. He was alone. A deeper part of him took the opportunity to scream, “We can’t keep doing this! We are not ok!” but it was impossible for Nicholas to hear this because his success was deafening. This is the syntonic defense and it’s why success so often makes things worse.
In other words, you’re not working harder just because you’re ambitious. You’re working harder because hard work is the most socially acceptable way to avoid dealing with your pain. And the more you achieve, the more invisible your avoidance becomes.
This is why Nicholas didn’t understand what was going on with him; his success was blinding.
This is also why most conventional therapy doesn’t work for a lot of successful people. Standard approaches are designed for people whose inner strategies stop them from succeeding. Your inner strategies fuel your success. That’s a fundamentally different problem requiring a fundamentally different approach.
The good news is that this is solvable. Not by achieving more or optimizing harder, but by understanding the specific psychological mechanics that created the pattern in the first place – and using the same determination that made you successful to create genuine inner wealth.
When Success Isn’t Enough: Why High Achievers Feel Empty — And What to Do About It is available everywhere on June 16th.