Welcome to “Beyond Success”, the podcast for high-achievers seeking deeper meaning, fulfillment and purpose. Now, here's your host, world-renowned leadership coach and therapist, David Tian, PhD.
David: Welcome to Beyond Success: Psychology & Philosophy for Achievers. I'm your host, David Tian. Just in case you missed the last episode, let me give you a quick rundown.
Last time, we dove into the achievers trap. So, what's that? It's when you devote your life to chasing success, thinking that the next promotion, the next big deal, or the next win is going to finally make you happy. Spoiler alert, it doesn't. Instead, you end up burned out, disconnected from your relationships, and ultimately questioning the meaning of it.
We talked about how this trap leads to perpetual dissatisfaction. No matter how much you achieve, it's never enough. You keep raising the bar, thinking that the next accomplishment will finally do the trick, but it doesn't, and you're constantly striving and that leaves you feeling hollow inside. [01:04.4]
We also touched on how this chase can take a real toll on your physical and mental health. Burnout, stress, loneliness, it all starts to pile up. In this episode, we're going to get into what to do about it—and if you're an achiever, this is really important for you to take seriously, because high achievers tend to neglect their emotional and relational needs in their pursuit of professional success, and that leads to long-term misery, no matter how much you've achieved on the outside.
Why? Because achievers are wired to focus on goals, but that same focus on goals often blinds them to the emotional side of life. They're so laser-focused on success that they start pushing their emotions, their relationships and their inner wellbeing to the back-burner. Their thinking goes something like this: “I'll work on my relationships later,” or “I'll take care of myself after I hit this milestone.” But later never comes and the damage starts to accumulate—and here's the thing, emotional neglect isn't something you notice right away. It creeps up on you slowly. [02:09.6]
At first, you might just feel a little disconnected or a little distant from the people in your life. Maybe you're working late nights and missing family dinners, or you're too mentally exhausted to invest in friendships. But then, over time, you realize that you're not just neglecting others; you're neglecting yourself. You're ignoring your own emotional needs in the name of productivity.
Dr. Robert Waldinger and Dr. Marc Schulz, in their book The Good Life, have studied this exact problem. The research they've gathered from the Harvard Study of Adult Development, the longest running study in history, now over 80 years that now draws on data from thousands of subjects, shows that professional achievements can feel hollow if you don't have a supportive personal life, and it just makes sense. What's the point of success if you don't have anyone to share it with? If you're sacrificing your relationships for your career, you're missing out on the most important parts of life, human connection, and love. [03:08.5]
We're wired for relationships. It's how we experience belonging, love and long-term happiness. When you're constantly neglecting that aspect of yourself, you're setting yourself up for a lot of pain down the road. Professional achievements don't fill the void left by emotional neglect. In fact, they can make it worse. You start to question why your success isn't making you happy, and it leads to frustration, loneliness and depression. You've spent so much time building your career that when you finally stop to look around, you realize you've got no one that you care about to share it with, and that's a hard pill to swallow.
It's not just modern psychology that says this. Bertrand Russell, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, wrote extensively about this almost 100 years ago. He was a Nobel Prize–winning philosopher, so this guy knew what he was talking about when it comes to achieving. Russell pointed out that a purely achievement-oriented life, one that focuses only on career and external success, will lead to misery. [04:13.0]
No matter how successful you are, if you're not finding fulfillment in your personal life, you'll be left with a sense of unfulfilled ambition. It's like you're climbing a mountain, thinking the view from the top is going to be incredible, but when you finally get there, you realize the view isn't what you expected and it's empty. You're just standing there all alone with no one to share it with. That's the ultimate tragedy of the achiever’s trap. You work so hard for success, but when you get it, you realize you've been neglecting the very things that would make your life truly meaningful. [04:46.4]
So, how do we avoid this? How do we make sure that we're not falling into the trap of emotional neglect while still being able to pursue success? The answer is simple, but not easy. You have to invest in your relationships. That means taking the time to nurture your connections with the people who matter most to you, your partner, your family, your friends. It means making space in your life for emotional fulfillment, even when your career is demanding—and I'm not talking about just sending a quick text or catching up for 10 minutes on a Saturday. I mean real investment, listening, being present, making the people in your life feel valued and heard.
Here's the best part. Investing in your relationships doesn't just make your personal life better. It actually makes you more successful in the long run. Studies show that people with strong, supportive relationships are more resilient, more creative and better able to handle stress. When you have a solid emotional Foundation, you're able to better perform at work because you're not carrying around that emotional weight or burdens. You're more focused, more energized, more capable of handling whatever challenges come your way. [05:58.6]
Okay, so we're going to get a little deeper here, and I've got four key points to cover today, so let's start with the first and arguably the most important one, the primacy of relationships in your long-term wellbeing and success. If you take nothing else away from this episode, let it be this: your relationships are the most significant factor in determining your happiness, your health and your overall success in life.
This isn't just some feel-good advice. It's backed by decades of hard data. Remember, Drs. Waldinger and Schulz, who took over the Harvard Study of Adult Development, have proven this over and over again. Their research spans more than 80 years, tracking the lives of thousands of people, and it shows that the quality of your personal relationships has a bigger impact on your happiness and longevity and wellbeing than your career achievements, your bank account or your social status. [06:52.2]
Let that sink in for a second. It doesn't matter how much success you rack up if, in the end, you die early and you don't have strong intimate relationships—and by “intimate,” I don't just mean romantic. We're talking about close, meaningful connections with the people that matter most in your life. This could be your friends, of course, your family, and of course, your spouse or partner.
Without these relationships, everything else in your life starts to feel pretty empty. Why? Because relationships are the best way for finding emotional fulfillment. They give you a foundation to come home to. They reduce your stress, help you recover from setbacks, and keep you grounded when everything else in your life is chaotic. When your relationships are strong, you're more resilient. You can handle challenges better. You perform better at work because you're not constantly weighed down by loneliness or emotional turmoil.
How does this tie into your success? When you're emotionally fulfilled, your performance at work skyrockets. You're not distracted by the emotional voids or unresolved conflicts that keep so many achievers off balance. Strong relationships also help reduce stress, which is a huge factor in professional success. When you have people in your life who support you, listen to you and help you process that stress, you're able to manage it more effectively. [08:12.3]
The Harvard Study proves that people who maintain strong relationships live longer. They live healthier and they live happier lives. That's not just about living more years. It's about living more quality years. People with strong relationships are less likely to suffer from chronic illnesses, are less likely to experience burnout, and much more likely to find long-term happiness. In fact, men who have strong, close relationships, all else being equal, live 12 years longer on average.
Let's contrast this with the achiever’s trap. When you're stuck in that trap, you're sacrificing your relationships in order to achieve more. You're working those extra hours, skipping social events, pushing off quality time with your loved ones, and it's not just hurting your relationships. It's hurting you. It's hurting your mental health, your physical health, and your ability to enjoy your own success. [09:05.0]
That's why relationships are so important. No matter how much you achieve, it's all going to feel hollow if you don't have people in your life that you care about to share it with. The idea that you can be fulfilled purely by achievements is one of the biggest lies out there. Again, this isn't just some modern day psychological insight. Bertrand Russell, one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, said the same thing
In his book, The Conquest of Happiness, he writes about how a fulfilling life is dependent on meaningful relationships and emotional connections, not on the accumulation of wealth or success. Russell pointed out that people who focus solely on their careers and external success often end up miserable, even if they've achieved everything they set out to do. Why? Because they neglected the emotional side of life. They’ve spent years pursuing success only to realize that without meaningful relationships, all those achievements don't really add up to much. [10:00.7]
What Russell understood and what the Harvard Study confirms is that happiness doesn't come from achievements alone. Sure, achievements are great, don't get me wrong, but they're not the whole picture, and they're not even the majority of the picture. They simply can't fulfill your emotional needs, and they can't replace the deep sense of belonging and connection and love that comes from strong, intimate relationships.
If you're constantly putting your relationships on hold in order to focus on your career, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. You're building success on a shaky foundation. But if you invest in your relationships, not only will you be happier and healthier in the long run, but you'll also be more successful professionally, and that's the beauty of it. You can have your cake and eat it, too. When your emotional needs are met, everything else falls into place.
In the next few points, we'll explore how to start making these changes in your life and how to balance your ambition with emotional fulfillment. But remember this, your success is only as strong as the relationships that you have to support it. Relationships are not a distraction. They're the key to long-term wellbeing and professional success, and in many ways, they're the whole point of life. [11:10.6]
Let's move on now to the second point. Emotional fulfillment fuels professional success. This might sound counterintuitive at first, especially if you're someone who is used to grinding and sacrificing personal time for professional wins, but here's the truth: when your personal life is stable and fulfilling, it frees up emotional energy that can be channeled into your career.
Let me explain how this works. When you're emotionally fulfilled, you feel grounded. You're not spending mental energy worrying about things outside of work. You're not feeling that creeping sense of loneliness or that emptiness that keeps you up at night. You're not burnt out because you're not trying to carry the emotional load all by yourself. This emotional stability translates into resilience. It makes you better equipped to handle the challenges and stress that inevitably come with high-level achievement. [12:00.1]
On the flip side, when you don't have meaningful connections outside of work, when your personal life is lacking, you're constantly battling internal struggles, even if you don't realize it at first. This happens a lot with high-achievers. They're so focused on climbing the ladder or hitting that next big goal that they start to neglect their emotional needs. They push their relationships to the back-burner, thinking they'll get back to them once things calm down at work. But the truth is that never really happens.
Without emotional fulfillment, even your biggest professional wins feel empty. You might hit that promotion, get that raise, or close that huge deal, but after, there's that lingering sense of “Is this it?” You feel like something's missing and that's because you don't have anyone you love to share it with. You're not feeding the emotional side of your life, which is sort of the whole point of life, and eventually, that neglect catches up with you. It's like running on an empty tank. Yeah, you might get somewhere, but not as far as you could with a full tank. [12:59.1]
Let me share a story from a client of mine, let's call him Greg, so hopefully, this can help illustrate this. Greg was a vice president at a major tech company, and from the outside, it looked like he had everything. He was successful, he was respected in his field, and he was making more money than he ever thought possible. But despite all of that, Greg came to me feeling burned out and unfulfilled.
He had a solid track record at work, but his personal life was in shambles. He hadn't invested any time or energy in his relationships, and over the years, he had distanced himself from his family and friends. He felt lonely, even though he was surrounded by people at work all day. He was exhausted from carrying the emotional load on his own, and it was affecting his performance at work. Greg would go into meetings feeling drained. His creativity had taken a real hit. He found it harder to focus, and the things that used to excite him about his job just no longer sparked that same energy. [13:53.0]
He was in a classic state of burnout. No amount of professional accolades could fill that emotional void. He'd reached a point where success didn't mean anything to him anymore, because he wasn't fulfilled on a personal level. Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure, and Greg was a perfect example of that. He had all the external markers of success, but internally, he was struggling. He was trying to run on empty, and it wasn't working.
What Greg didn't realize was that emotional fulfillment is not a distraction from professional success. It's the key to it. When we worked together, one of the first things we did was rebuild his personal life. He started reconnecting with his family and friends. He prioritized spending time with people who mattered to him, and once he started to feel emotionally more fulfilled, everything else started to shift. His energy came back. His creativity was sparked again. He felt more motivated, more engaged and more resilient in the face of stress. [14:52.3]
Greg's career didn't suffer because he was investing time in his personal life. Quite the opposite, he started thriving at work in ways he hadn’t for years. He told me later that he had more clarity, focus and drive than he had ever had before, and it was all because he wasn't neglecting his emotional needs anymore.
This is what I want you to take away. Emotional fulfillment isn't just something nice to have. It's essential for sustainable success. When you feel whole in your personal life, that emotional energy spills over into your professional life. You show up as a better leader, a more creative thinker and a more resilient human being. If you're sacrificing your emotional wellbeing for the sake of professional success, you're setting yourself up for burnout. You might not feel it right away, but it will catch up with you eventually, and when it does, you will realize that success without fulfillment doesn't really feel like success at all. [15:48.4]
Hey, if you're an achiever who's been struggling when it comes to managing your emotions or navigating your relationships, I get it. So many high performers hit a wall when it comes to emotional mastery. Maybe you've noticed that stress, frustration or anger is seeping into your personal or professional life, or you feel disconnected from those you care about.
That's where my “Emotional Mastery” program comes in. It's based on peer-reviewed, evidence-based therapeutic methods to help you find happiness, love and real fulfillment. Learn how to break free from the emotional roller coaster and start thriving in every area of your life. You can find out more at DavidTianPhD.com/EmotionalMastery. That's D-A-V-I-D-T-I-A-N-P-H-D [dot] com [slash] emotional mastery.
Now let's move on to one of the deepest topics we're going to cover today, so this is point number three: facing existential realities are necessary for a meaningful life. Now, this might get a little heavy, but I want you to stick with me, because this is where we dig into what really gives life its meaning, and how that ties back to everything we've talked about in the achiever’s trap. [17:02.5]
Okay, first, let me give a quick shout out to Irvin Yalom. If you haven't heard of him, I mentioned him in the previous episode. He's one of the most respected voices in modern psychotherapy, particularly when it comes to existential therapy, and one of the big ideas that Yalom talks about is how facing the realities of life, like death, freedom and responsibility, can lead to a more meaningful life.
The funny thing is, we often don't want to face these things. We get so caught up in the hustle of achieving more, earning more and being more that we push away these big questions about life and death. But it's when we confront these realities head-on that we really start to understand what makes life meaningful.
Now, achievements, whether it's building a successful career, buying that dream house, or hitting that financial milestone, those are great. They feel fulfilling in the short term, but they don't offer the deeper kind of meaning that lasts. Meaning comes from connections, real, meaningful connections with other people. It comes from love, relationships, and the ability to give and receive love unconditionally, and that's where we find true, existential grounding. [18:12.1]
I know this from my own experience. I've been down that path. I've been through the achiever’s trap and I learned the hard way that achievement doesn't fill the void. Let me tell you a bit about my life real quick. There was a point in my life where, on paper, I had everything, or so I thought, or so my teenage self would have thought, more money, more success, more luxury, more women, more pleasure than I ever thought possible. I had it all I thought, and we're often taught that if we have it all, we're guaranteed to feel alive, to feel like we've made it.
But the truth? After having everything I thought I wanted, I hit rock bottom. I tried to kill myself twice. Let’s rewind for a moment. After getting married and divorced in my 20s, I threw myself into mastering the art of seduction. Back then, it was called being a pickup artist, and I studied it as seriously as I did my PhD. I read everything, I practiced everything, and I eventually became damn good at it. Soon enough, I was known as Singapore's Asian Hitch after Will Smith's character in the movie Hitch. [19:13.4]
I had the hottest dating program in the world, coaching executives on how to date, how to attract women and how to thrive in their romantic lives. I was partying with VIPs, walking red-carpet runways with celebrities, living the models and bottles lifestyle, and I thought I had everything figured out. But underneath it all, I was living a life built on a narcissistic dream. The talent I had developed for seduction, for attraction, worked against me in the long run, because it covered up my core insecurities. The better I got at the game, the more disconnected I became for my True Self.
A few years in, I was in a long-term relationship with a model and actress, the kind of woman everyone would give me props for dating. I had the career, the lifestyle, the respect of my peers. I thought I was on top of the world, but then it all came crashing down. This girlfriend cheated on me, and she didn't do it quietly. She made sure that all of her following knew it, and when that happened, my entire narcissistic world collapsed. [20:12.7]
The life I had built, the identity I had crafted, it all came crumbling down. I felt worthless, hopeless, and for the first time, I questioned whether life was really worth living at all. I had achieved everything my teenage self could have ever dreamed of, but at the peak of my success, having had it all, I found it empty, meaningless. Even climbing my way back up there seemed pointless, and I found myself standing on the 57th floor of a skyscraper, ready to jump. Luckily, a good friend of mine found me in time and pulled me off the ledge.
I wish I could say that was the end of it, but it wasn't. A few months later, I found myself ready to end it again, trying to work up the courage to end it, and this time, I was on a motorcycle way too big for me to handle, getting ready to send myself off the side of a mountain. But as I was revving the engine, working up the courage to do it, one thought kept coming back to me. I wanted to see my goddaughter grow up. [21:06.6]
She was just two years old at the time, and the thought of not being there to witness her grow up stopped me in my tracks, and that's when I realized what life is truly about. When I was at my lowest, it wasn't success or money or status that kept me going. It was love, not the conditional, transactional kind of love that so many people chase, where you do something to earn someone's affection or approval. No, I'm talking about real love, unconditional love, the kind of love I felt flowing from me for my goddaughter, the kind that doesn't need anything in return that isn't based on conditions or transactions. The moment I realized that my life started to change.
You see, the only thing that gives life true meaning is love, and I don't mean the love you think you have to earn by being successful or important. I'm talking about the love that flows naturally from within you that doesn't need anything in return. That's what makes life worth living. [22:09.8]
By facing death, I finally understood what makes life truly valuable. It's not about more achievements, more money or more pleasure. Those things aren't what we're living for. The real meaning of life is love, unconditional love, and when you experience that, when you learn to give that to others and to yourself, everything else falls into place.
The pursuit of success becomes less about proving yourself or earning approval, and more about sharing your gifts with the world. You stop chasing external validation and start living for something deeper, something real. That realization changed everything for me. It's why I got out of the dating-skills industry and turned my attention to psychology, to understanding what makes people truly happy and fulfilled. I studied love, relationships and what it means to give to another person without expecting anything in return. [23:07.0]
I stopped trying to earn love through achievements and started learning how to love myself and others unconditionally, and that's what I want you to take away from this episode. Achievements are great, but they aren't enough to make life meaningful. If you want to live a meaningful life, you have to confront the deeper existential realities of life, mortality, love, responsibility, and understand that what we're really seeking isn't success, but connection and love.
Now let's dive into the fourth and final point, the role of personal happiness in enhancing professional creativity and innovation. Here’s the thing, most people think that success leads to happiness. They believe that once they reach or hit that next goal or milestone, they'll finally feel fulfilled. But the truth is, it works the other way around. It's personal happiness that enhances your professional success. [24:03.2]
When you're happy and fulfilled in your personal life, everything else just starts to flow. Your creativity kicks into gear, your problem solving abilities sharpen, and you're better equipped to handle whatever challenges come your way. All the research backs this up, study after study show that people who are happy and fulfilled in their personal lives are not only more creative, but also more innovative. They're more likely to take risks and think outside the box, because they're not bogged down by stress, anxiety or emotional baggage. When your personal life is in a good place, your mind is free to explore new ideas and solutions. You're less focused on survival and more focused on thriving.
Now, I'm not saying you need to be over-the-top happy 24/7 in order to be successful. That's obviously not realistic or required. But when you've got a strong emotional foundation and you're fulfilled, when you're taking care of your relationships, your mental health and your overall wellbeing, you're in a much better place to tap into your creative potential. [25:04.5]
Let me give an example. I had a client, let's call him Sam. Sam was a highly successful entrepreneur in the tech industry. When Sam came to me, he was already doing great financially and his business was growing fast, but he felt stuck. His creativity had dried up, and he was constantly stressed about the next big project ordeal. He lost his edge, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to get that spark back.
The problem wasn't his work ethic. Sam worked harder than almost anyone I've ever met. He was putting in long hours, sacrificing weekends, and doing everything he thought he needed to do to push his business forward, but something wasn't clicking for him. When we started working together, it became clear that Sam's personal life was a mess. [25:50.4]
He'd been neglecting his relationships for years, thinking that once he got to a certain level of success, he'd finally have the time to focus on them. But, of course, that time never came. His marriage was hanging by a thread and his friendships had pretty much dwindled away. He was lonely, disconnected and emotionally drained, and all of that was leaking into his work.
Sam's creativity wasn't blocked because he lacked the skills or the ideas. It was blocked because his emotional tank was empty. He was so caught up in the stress of his personal life that he couldn't access the creative part of his brain that had made him so successful in the first place.
In the scientific research on the flow state, you'll often find discussion about peak states, those moments when you're operating at your best, both mentally, emotionally and physically. Emotional mastery is the key to unlocking higher professional performance. When you're in a positive emotional state, you're more resilient, more antifragile, more creative, more willing to take calculated risks. On the flip side, when you're emotionally drained, your creativity tanks, your resilience fades, and every little setback feels like a major roadblock. [27:04.8]
With Sam, we had to work on his personal happiness before we could get his creativity back. That meant rebuilding his relationships, starting with his wife. He had to learn how to invest in his marriage again, not just with time, but with emotional presence. He had to reconnect with friends, start taking care of his mental and physical health, and make space for joy and connection in his life.
It wasn't easy. At first, Sam resisted the idea that his personal life had anything to do with his professional success. He was convinced that more work was the answer, but after a few months of real effort, something shifted. As he started to feel more fulfilled and connected in his personal life, his creativity started to return. He found himself coming up with new ideas again, excited about new projects and willing to take the risks that he had been avoiding. [27:58.2]
One day, Sam told me that for the first time in years, he felt like himself again. He wasn't just grinding through the workday, counting down the hours until he could crash. He was energized, engaged, excited about what he was doing, and that spark, it translated directly into his business. His company started to see breakthroughs in areas that they had been stagnant in for months, and the team noticed it, too. Sam was more present, more open, more patient and more willing to collaborate on creative solutions.
This isn't just some feel-good story. It's reality. When your personal life is stable, fulfilling and filled with love, it creates a ripple effect that impacts everything you do professionally. Your brain isn't weighed down by stress or unresolved emotional issues, so it has a lot more space for creativity, problem solving and innovation. I've seen it happen over and over again. High achievers who are stuck, burnt out or creatively blocked, often think the solution is more work, more hours, more pressure, but the real solution is almost always found in their personal life. [29:06.6]
If your emotional foundation is cracked, no amount of professional success is going to fix that. You have to address the root issues. If you're feeling stuck right now, ask yourself this. How are your intimate relationships? How is your emotional health? Are you truly happy in your personal life, or are you neglecting the things that really matter? Because if you are, it's only a matter of time before that neglect catches up with you in your professional life, too.
When you take the time to invest in your happiness and the things that make you feel alive and connected, everything else falls into place. You start showing up differently at work, in your business and in your creative projects. You stop operating from a place of stress and survival, and you start operating from a place of possibility and expansion. [29:55.3]
Okay, so let's recap what we've covered so far. We started by talking about how emotional fulfillment fuels professional success. It's not just about achievements and milestones. It's about being happy and fulfilled in your life, which frees up emotional energy and enhances your creativity, problem solving and resilience. The research proves it, and I've seen it firsthand with clients like Sam who transformed his business by investing in his relationships and personal wellbeing.
Now let's look at what happens when you go the other way, when you sacrifice your personal relationships for the sake of professional success. This is the trap that so many high-achievers fall into. They grind away thinking that once they reach the top, everything will fall into place, but what they don't realize is that by the time they get there, they've already lost what really matters. Their relationships are broken. They're disconnected from the people they love, and emotionally, they're running on empty. [30:50.7]
Let's be real, the worst case scenario is bleak. You might achieve all the external success in the world, the money, the power, the recognition, but you feel completely hollow inside. You'll look around and realize you've got no one that you love to share it with. Loneliness and regret will creep in. You'll burn out and you won't have the emotional support system to catch you when you fall into your depression. That's the dark side of the achievers trap. You think you're chasing success, but what you're really setting yourself up for is a personal collapse.
Now let's flip that script. What happens when you prioritize your personal relationships, when you invest in your emotional wellbeing and build meaningful connections with the people who matter most to you? It's like lighting a fire inside of you. You become more creative, more resilient, more antifragile, more motivated. You stop working from a place of desperation or surviva, and you start working from a place of abundance. You're no longer weighed down by so much emotional baggage. You're free to think big, take risks and create from a space of genuine excitement. [31:56.7]
And that success in your personal life? It doesn't just make you happier. It makes you better in your professional life, too. When you're emotionally fulfilled, you can show up differently at work. You're more present, more engaged, more willing to collaborate and innovate. The energy and fulfillment that you get from your personal life fuel everything you do in your career.
That's the positive potential that we're talking about here. It's not about sacrificing one for the other. It's about making both your personal and professional lives work together in harmony to make each other stronger—and when you do that, you don't just survive. You thrive.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you have any feedback whatsoever, please send it along, leave a comment, and if this has helped you in any way, please share it with anyone else that you think could benefit from it.
Thank you so much for listening. I look forward to welcoming you to the next episode. Until then, David Tian, signing out. [32:50.5]
This is ThePodcastFactory.com
