A number of factors conspire to put successful executives at
special risk for depression:
Further, success primes you to feel like a has-been. "Everything is
referenced to 'look at what he did,' not 'what he is doing'," adds
Berglas, who writes about the underside of success in his book,
Reclaiming the Fire.
Entrepreneurs are almost never prepared for "the psychological
trauma that follows success," he adds. They're only happy in the
struggle. Further, the entrepreneur has the fantasy of living in a wholly
controlled universe of his own making. But "as soon as you get something,
you have to bring in accountants and managers. You can't control it all,
and the psychological high is over."
Being in the end zone of success flips the brain's emotional
switch from positive to negative. "Life is no longer based on whether
you're going to get it but on whether you're going to lose it," says
Real. No matter what drives success, those who get to the top are
governed by a fear of losing all they've won—their position, their
wealth, their viability.
Being on top makes the successful conservative and risk-averse,
says Berglas. There are economic incentives to do the same thing over and
over, resulting in lack of stimulation. "Entrepreneurs have no pain
working with no capital or support. But they have tons of anxiety when
they have to protect a lead. It's easier to climb from the bottom to the
top than to hold onto the top, because you become defensive, which
interferes with skilled behavior of any sort. It's also physiologically
depressing to have nothing to strive for."
Among the highest achievers, identity and self-esteem are
perched—almost exclusively and therefore precariously—on achievement.
What they often don't have much of is an internal sense of worth, the
capacity to hold yourself in high regard while fully recognizing your
human imperfections.
Equating one's value as a human being with achievements only makes
you as good as your last deal. "When you're no longer in the achieving
mode, and your self-worth is built on achieving, you feel worthless,"
says Berglas. He points to George Eastman, founder of Kodak. His company
was phenomenally successful, yet he ended his own life. His suicide note
said, "My work is done; why wait?"
By some psychological sleight, landing at the top can actually make
winners feel like losers. "What happens is your reference group changes,"
says Real. "You can feel like a failure because you're measuring yourself
against the CEO of a company even bigger than yours. And there's almost
always someone younger, swifter, bolder nipping at your heels. Welcome to
male privilege. CEOs with depression are men who have followed the
masculine agenda and have won, and tasted its bitter fruit."
Those most driven to succeed are propelled by dark inner forces.
Often, says Berglas, the entrepreneur is trying to disprove negative
feedback, perhaps a punitive father's reproach that 'you'll never amount
to anything'." Real sees it in the makeup of top corporate executives as
well. "Part of the drive is running from their own vulnerabilities, or
trying to compensate for them."
Scripps' Gene Ondrusek points to evidence that CEOs are
"supersurvivors." A disproportionate number of them come from
dysfunctional backgrounds; the incidence of alcoholism in their family
histories is three times that in the general population. "These people
often faced circumstances growing up that galvanized them to become
supersuccessful.
The ecology of emotions sabotages them. Those for whom
achievement becomes all-encompassing are adept at denying pain. They
commonly believe their success actually hinges on their ability to
distance themselves from their emotions. Being so unfamiliar with
feelings, they are terrified that by "giving in to them" they will be
sucked into a black hole. "You're scared you'll feel sorry for yourself,"
observes John Sage, a former CEO. "You're afraid everyone will pass you by if you're
not in action all the time."
But emotions work in exactly the opposite way. Feelings that are
never acknowledged build up force underground, consuming internal
resources, creating stress and eventually blindsiding people in the form
of crippling anxieties and panic attacks, sleeplessness and depressions,
and assorted physical ills, depending on where their system is
weakest.
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