Why Successful Men Feel Empty (And What Nobody Tells You About It)

Successful men don't burn out because they worked too hard. They burn out because they've been chasing someone else's definition of success for so long they forgot their own identity and aspirations. The emptiness you feel isn't a warning sign. It's an invitation.

Why do so many successful men feel empty even when everything looks right from the outside?

When you were a teenager, you were probably told to figure out what you wanted to do with your life, and just go do it. Most likely there wasn’t much offered in the space of support, brainstorming, asking what you enjoyed doing – the conversations were probably some variation of:

a.      You can’t do that (the thing you love) because there’s no money in it.

b.     You’ll want to get married and have a house someday, make sure you have security.

c.      You should go into (computers, accounting, sales, etc) because that’s where the money is.

d.     You should get a government job. Nobody ever gets fired from those. Just ride it out and collect a paycheck.

Also like me, you probably followed at least one of these pieces of shitty advice and found yourself miserable. Interestingly, probably as miserable as the people who told it to you. Misery does love company after all.

Living by other people’s terms is the leading cause of feeling empty. What fills (or didn’t fill) their cup, most likely won’t feel fulfilling to yours. Your parents, or those other figures of authority who directed you, only knew what they knew from their life experiences.

Unfortunately, their experiences took place decades earlier, and most no longer applied to the current day.

The second leading cause of feeling empty is chasing a dream, working toward a goal, and not achieving the intended results, (sometimes ANY result). What’s the fucking point of trying if it’s not going to pay off?

While there is a truth to setting a goal, and you’ll never hit a goal you don’t set, the problem is that we become too attached to that outcome and when it doesn’t arrive as intended, we will label ourselves as failures; not realizing there were a ton of factors that were outside of our control.

As the years accumulate, as the negative experiences pile up, we’re left asking ourselves, “What happened? I did everything I was told to do…why am I not happy?”

Is this burnout -- or something deeper?

In comparison to what you’re feeling, burnout’s easy.

Burnout shows up when we run ourselves ragged chasing meaningless stuff, thinking it’s meaningful.

What you’re feeling is an existential crisis: the questions that are deep below the surface of the chase; the questions that rise when we get so tired that we can’t avoid them any longer.

Who am I?

Why am I here?

What’s my purpose in life?

In a way, you can thank your feeling of burnout here. You probably would not be asking yourself these deeper questions if things were going well. There would be no reason to look behind the mask of outward success.

When the mask stops working, stops bringing satisfaction, it begins to crack. Your sense of self that was based on the mask begins to crumble. It can feel like your life is ending.

Who are you without that mask?

What does it mean when the life you built no longer feels like you?

It’s the sign that you haven’t been building your life at all, what you’ve been putting your energy into is someone else’s definition of success.

It’s a sign that you’re evolving and growing. Maybe your priorities are changing, or you’re actually realizing that you’ve been ignoring your priorities for a long time.

It means it’s time to start asking yourself different questions and probably getting some help in finding answers.

No – NOT help from someone who will just give you more useless opinions; someone who can help you excavate your personal identity.

There is an interesting dynamic here – there’s the version of you that built the life you have, and there’s a version of you that is not satisfied with it, the one that is asking questions, the one who is looking for something else, something with meaning.

Which one is you? Really you?

If you’ve built a life to fit in, to follow the directions of those around you, to live up to the comparison model of keeping up with the Jones’, well you’re not living your life. You’ve lived the one that you thought would meet everyone else’s approval.

Hard truth: You’ll never get everyone’s approval, and most likely you’ll keep judging yourself against your perception of what they have that you don’t.

Why does achieving more make the feeling worse, not better?

Think of it like this: potato chips taste good, they’re fun to eat for a snack or as a side to a burger. They’re filling, but not ful-filling beyond a momentary gratification.

And if you eat a whole bag, let’s say the Party Size, you’ll feel like shit the next day. Maybe two.

The thing that felt good temporarily and met a need, didn’t work so well for long-term satisfaction…because it wasn’t what you TRULY craved for your well-being and happiness.

This isn’t to say you can’t have chips, I’m saying the real you is craving something more than the equivalent of a junk-food life.

What is actually missing -- and where did it go?

When did you give yourself permission to live your life? Not the one you were told to live, not the one you might have been shamed into living, not the one that you were expected to live, but the one that you were most interested in living…the one that really made you feel alive just by thinking about it?

“Do the thing you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Pair it up with, “Ya gotta pay the bills,” and the Western mindset that says if you’re not working, you’re not contributing – you’re lazy.

Yeah, I heard ‘em too.

Maybe that’s why men get so fucked up.

We’re told to be responsible for everyone else and to defer what make us feel alive so that those around us can feel comfortable and supported.

Put on the mask, put on the suit, shine the shoes, tie the tie, and go to work. Stepford-style. Like Lemmings toward the cliff.

Living a false dichotomy that says you have to sacrifice your happiness for money and a lifestyle.

The real question here isn’t ‘Where did IT go?” it’s “Where did YOU go?”

What does it look like when a man starts living from identity instead of achievement?

Right now, you may be wondering, “What does life mean if I’m not chasing what I’ve been chasing?

The mask says ‘Chase!’ Identity says, “Receive.”

The mask says, “See me! Validate me!” Identity shines for those who want to see.

The mask says, “I’m nothing without these achievements.” Identity says, “I am, and always have been more than enough.”

The mask says, “I need, I want….” Identity says, “I am grateful for everything present in my life.”

The mask says, “I’ll be happy when X happens.” Identity says, “I’m happy. That’s what will create the conditions for X to happen.”

How do you begin to close the gap between who you are and who you're living as?

The answer here is simple, and it creates deeper complexity.

Q: When you drive your car, what is the thing you need to do before changing directions?

A: Slow down, maybe even come to a complete stop.

If your car’s GPS system is spinning, you don’t keep driving mindlessly hoping it will synch. You pull over and let it calibrate from a fixed position.

You’ve been living life according to someone else’s GPS destination…to set yours you first have to stop putting energy into the wrong direction.

That’s the opposite advice of what everyone else who’s been indoctrinated to hustle culture will tell you.

Fuck ‘em. How’s that advice been working for you so far? (And, I honestly wonder how it’s working for them behind their Instagram stories.)

When you stop, there’s a good chance you’ll feel unsettled. Decades of doing come to a halt, and the adjustment takes a bit to align. After you’ve been driving at speed on the highway, doesn’t it feel different to be in the car that’s parked and idling?

Same car. Different energy.

More potential. More possibility.

This is the shift from “I’m going somewhere” to “Where do I want to go?”

When you’re no longer driving your life according to the destination of others, you can punch in your own GPS coordinates.

What do you enjoy doing? What helps you to feel more alive and fulfilled? What would you do, because you love it so much, even if you didn’t get paid for it?

Your old identity may have reacted to that last question. I’m not asking you to forego all material pleasures and live in an ashram.

I’m asking you to look within and find answers that fill you rather than actions that suck your soul dry.

How do I decide where to go next?

You just read this far. Something in here resonated beyond the surface -- deeper into the core of who you actually are – not the mask of who you’ve been, but the real you.

That's not an accident. That part of you knows there's more -- and has been waiting for permission to say so out loud. It’s been trying to tell you that life can be better. It’s been waiting for you to hear it and listen.

This is the part of you that can say, “This is Who I Am.”

Our work together is where that conversation continues. Private. Direct. Built for men who are ready to look under the hood and do the work required to arrive at their true destination.

If you're ready: www.danielolexa.com/contact