The Success Trap

Hello Brothers,

Some of you know that I’ve done work with a hypnotherapist to help me process some of my anger and resentment. The results were powerful and lasting. I would encourage anyone to give it a try.

Recently, I began working with another hypnotist to explore patterns that sabotage my work, particularly around creativity and procrastination. He gave me a short list of prompts to reflect on to help shift some of my beliefs about procrastination.

One morning, while writing my daily pages, something surfaced from deep within me. It felt both surprising and fundamentally true: I fear success.

Growing up, I received mixed messages about what success was supposed to look like. My father was the primary wage earner in our family. As an immigrant and a man of color living in a white-dominant culture, he quickly learned how to make money and provide for his growing family. And he did. Starting out sweeping shop floors to eventually building several successful businesses. Materially, we had everything we needed. We never had to worry about our future.

But it came at a cost.

Long hours turned into long days, weeks, and months away from home. He wasn’t much help to my mother, and he wasn’t very present for my sister or me. Smoking, drinking, the casino, and golf became his way of coping with the daily grind.

Over time, the toll became visible. His physical, mental, and spiritual health suffered. He struggled with his weight, diabetes, and impotence. He lost his hair, had a heart attack in his mid-forties, and eventually died of cancer at 65.

As many sons do, I wanted my father to be proud of me. I wanted him to see that his sacrifices had paid off.

So in my early career, I chased success. And I chased it hard.

Without realizing it, I fell into many of the same traps he had. Long hours at the office. Drinking. Smoking weed. Late nights. Eventually, it caught up with me - burnout, periods of depression, anxiety, Crohn’s disease, and divorce. Looking back, my relationship with success wasn’t healthy. I was driven by a deep fear of being seen as a failure in the eyes of my father, my family, and my peers.

In my second career, I think I may have swung too far in the other direction. I now try to take on work only when I feel I have the time and energy to do it well. But recently I’ve noticed another pattern emerging: procrastination. And that’s not very helpful when there’s work to do and bills to pay.

What I’m beginning to see is that a small, shadowy part of me still fears success because of the trappings I associate with it. I know how to work hard. I know how to get things done. But some part of me still connects success with excess, burnout, and loss.

So why am I sharing this?

Because many men of color carry a similar burden. We take pride, sometimes unhealthy pride, in being providers for our families, our workplaces, and our communities. We want the world to see that we beat the odds. That we made it. That we levelled up. But sometimes our drive is fuelled less by purpose and more by fear or shame. So we over-perform. We overdeliver. We overachieve. All in an effort to prove our worth. And the cost can be high: burnout, anxiety, depression, addictive behaviors, strained relationships, poor health.

Our soul work is learning to separate who we are from what we do. Our worth is not defined by our title, our income, or what we can provide materially for others. Success, at its healthiest, is not the reason we do great work. It’s the byproduct of doing great work that is meaningful, aligned, and grounded in who we truly are.

With love,

Charles