The Hidden Cost of Being Gifted: Finding Worth Beyond Achievement with Eric Jessen

Speaker A: M When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify.

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Speaker A: And turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. M Start your free trial today. What if the very thing everyone praised you for as a child became the thing that trapped you as an adult? For years, Eric Jessen did everything he was supposed to do. He excelled. He achieved. He climbed. He became the successful gifted adult everyone expected him to be. But beneath the accomplishments was a question he couldn't shake. Why did success feel so empty? In this conversation, we explore the hidden cost of early achievement, the unwritten contract so many high performers carry, and what it takes to stop proving your worth and start living your life. Enjoy the show. Welcome to Make It a great one with Dr. Dan. This show is all about bringing hope, connection, awareness and wisdom through meaningful conversations that inspire us to be better versions of ourselves and have a positive impact on humanity. This is your space to pause, reflect, and reconnect with who you are, what you care about, and who you want to be. We have this moment, this day, and this life. Let's make it a great one. Today I am speaking with Eric Jessen. Eric is a business executive, strategist and author who spent more than three decades leading marketing, brand and creative organizations across industries from healthcare and tech to publishing and retail, working with everyone from startups to Fortune 100 companies. But the question that came to define his writing was a personal one. What happens to gifted kids who grow up, achieve the success they were promised, and still find themselves struggling. Identified as gifted at 11, Eric knows that struggle firsthand. The perfectionism, the burnout, the sense that accomplishment alone never quite resolves deeper questions of meaning and self worth. He explores all of this in his two books, the Curse of Early Success and Formerly Gifted Writing. Not as a clinician, but from lived experience. His goal isn't to hand out answers, but to help people feel less alone and build a healthier relationship with success and with themselves. Eric, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Thanks, Dr. Dan. Um, appreciate it. Glad to be here.

Speaker A: So I've read your books and so I know that you have been on a journey. I have a journey of self exploration, of discovery, um, and of making sense.

Speaker B: I have, um, you know, if someone were to ask me m 20 years ago if I was ever going to write a book, I would have laughed. Even though writing was core to what I do in marketing. It was marketing, copy, copywriting, that kind of thing, thing. Writing to convince people to buy something they don't really want. Uh, you know, that's the kind of writing I was used to. But, uh, these books, really a book. The books were a byproduct of, uh, my, um, own life and my own inner investigation of this nagging question that's, uh, been with me for a large part of my life. And the question really didn't even come to words for me until one day I read a meme about a gifted child, uh, dressing as a gifted child for Halloween. And the purpose of the costume was everyone asking, well, what are you supposed to be? And her answer was, well, I was supposed to be a lot of things. And that kind of hit me as a reality for my life. That, uh, why wasn't my life living up to the promise or almost the obligation that I had as a gifted child? M. Where was I missing it? In just my own experience with myself and more so probably my experience with others.

Speaker A: When you look back on that identification and label and what, well, what doors it open, that's an assumption. It does open doors for some people and it doesn't in other places. What did it get you back then?

Speaker B: Well, it was, it was, um, just to gap some context to this. It was 1975, and I was in Central Florida as a fifth grader. And this newfangled educational system was being introduced in my school called the gifted program. And no one knew what that was, no one ever heard of it. And there were a few children who were attacked as being, um, potentials. And back then, uh, at least my memory of it, it wasn't. You take a cognitive test and you get an IQ and then you're gifted or not gifted or whatever. It was a full day live, one on one evaluation with a child psychologist that, uh, sat with me in the school library and observed and asked questions and we did, did things. And somehow out of that I came out of it labeled as gifted. Um, I don't even know what my IQ was scored at. It wasn't even important. Um, as a fifth grader, I didn't know or care. But I was now put in this category labeled as gifted. And it does open doors in the sense that it gave a name to something that I had already experienced in life. Um, when, even at fifth grade and earlier when you tend to excel at things, when you tend to succeed at almost everything you lay your hands to, it does Open doors. You get praise from parents, praise from teachers. You get opportunities that other children don't necessarily have. I was now in special programs and special classes, um, you know, meant to encourage that label of gifted. And I find that, whether you have that label or not, I find that when, at least in me, and I've discovered in other people too, when you are praised so frequently for your ability, for your intelligence, for being ahead of the curve, for your creativity, um, over time, I think in a child, at least in me, that started to form an identity of, ah, that's who I am, that's what I am. That's not. Those aren't just abilities that I possess, those aren't just instruments at my disposal, that those are identifications. That's what I am. And there was became this unspoken contract almost with my parents, with teachers, that I, I owed the world and myself to become extraordinarily successful in some undefined greatness. Um, and it did open doors for me, but it also, as I became older and careers become more complex and relationships become more complex, I found that it was also created great limitations. The software that had worked very well for me as a child stopped working. And that, uh, started the questions that haunted me my whole life.

Speaker A: Identity is a core and key concept to what we all unknowingly come to think about ourselves and how we operate in the world. And, uh, to take a typical example is when you have someone who's worked for a very long time and they don't know who they are outside of their role. Um, which is why a lot of people have trouble when they retire. Because who am I without what I do? And to your point, when an identity is formed around achievement, around success, around awards, what we know about gifted individuals and gifted kids, it becomes an expectation, an unknowing expectation, and then over time a fear about not living up to that expectation. And the idea is, if I don't set the curve, if I don't get income in first, if I don't have a peak performance, am I still gifted? Right. It becomes who one is as opposed to attributes or characteristics that one has, as you call instruments.

Speaker B: It's, um, it's so true, and I appreciate you saying that, because it's when you live so long without any real, um, adversity or any real sense of failure, when that comes in life, which it obviously eventually comes in life, it's almost like a verdict on who you are versus just information. You know, here's information of, uh, something that went wrong. Learn from it. Start over that's how a normal person would react. But I think for me, when I would face any kind of failure, it would be a, uh, judgment of who I am as a person. Uh, and even, even it occurs to me that as I remember successes as a child, I remember more keenly the, the slight lack of success more so than the successes I remember. I entered, uh, a. I was also very creative artistically as a child and would enter art contests. And I say this with humility. I won them all. I mean, I won all of them. I was, I was just gifted that way. Um, but one, I didn't win one, I came in second place. And I remembered that to this day. And I've analyzed it so many times over and over as to why did I come in second place. I remember the name of the boy who won. This was in late elementary school. I remember the name of the boy who won and why he won and why his work was better than me. It was devastating, uh, that, you know, a second place should be a huge, uh, accolade. But for me it was a failure. And some of that's reinforced by parents and teachers and expectations. And in addition to that, and certainly there was some of that with me. Uh, but you're right, when you do, when you do face failure becomes more of a life event that makes you question your identity versus just information.

Speaker A: Mhm. I am having a memory now of giving a talk years ago at a school. The topic was giftedness. And when we got to the Q and A portion, I remember this father pleading to the educators, the parents in the room to me said, I cannot find challenge for my son. I have looked at every school regionally, I have looked at schools beyond. I have enrolled him in this and this and this. And unlike the typical situation when parents, uh, fall unfortunately into the trap of sort of praising, which we'll talk about, of, you know, all of the accolades and all of the awards. And he, um, was so fearful. Oh, I'm remembering more. He was a physician.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: And he recounted in tears at this talk about some of his fellow medical students who ended up taking their lives upon their first failure. And I just feel it as I'm saying, and he was looking for someone to help get his obviously very cognitively advanced and gifted son challenge so he could know what that felt like, so he could develop a healthy identity, develop as you write about resilience and um, this actually going back to identification, having spent a lot of years as you know, working in the field of giftedness and twice exceptionality this is that bind with identification. So there's a label and we know with labels comes lots of things regardless of the label. And the whole idea is to identify, to give appropriate differentiation and experience for that child's makeup. With a cohort similar because they often feel so different as I know that you must have um, to be accelerated because that's where they are. And yet even in these optimal circumstances there's shrapnel, there's identity that formed around this. I mean this is a very um. It's tricky.

Speaker B: Mhm. It's. I resonate with the father pleading about his children, his child and being gifted and giving him challenges. Um, that's something that uh, you know, when you spend your life with early success, the conditions around you are such that early success is praised. Early success is easy. And I've always been believer, uh, that success is a teacher. It's a very strong teacher. In fact I believe that success is a. Not that failure isn't a teacher. Failure is a teacher, but failure is a slow teacher. You have to uh, look uh, inside introspection and figure out what went wrong and learn from that and try to overcome it. Success. And I would say that failure is a better long term teacher but success is a very powerful teacher and it teaches you who you are. Um, and I can see my father asking the same kinds of questions because um, I think there was uh, I think he had an understanding somewhere in him that I needed to fail, that I needed to fail early, that I needed to experience that failure early in life. He um, would praise me when I brought him a B, um because I would mostly bring home A's. Again one of my fears in this interview and writing these books is that it sounds like a humble brag, um, not my intention at all. Um, but he would praise me when I brought him a B because it's obvious that I did not um, I didn't have that easy success that would have brought an easy A and there wasn't many of them. But when I brought him a B, he praised me because he knew that, that that caused an effort in me and some level of failure.

Speaker A: And that's, it's an important. So he was very uh, insightful, wise and this is a message to all parents listening who are um, dealing in a similar situation. And it's not even. This is, this goes beyond gifted individuals. This is, this is healthy parenting is uh, what we've known and what you write about with Carol Dweck's work, um, with a, ah, growth versus a six A fixed mindset is we want our kids to grow up wanting to learn, wanting to take chances, focusing on the process, seeing their brain as a muscle to be developed, as opposed to a fixed mindset, which at one point, Carol Dweck, uh, labeled, uh, a gifted mindset. And, um, there are a lot of people that weren't happy with that, which was the idea that, you know, you're all, you're as smart. You're basically, you're born as smart as you are. And, um, there becomes, over time, this, um, drive and fear to keep excelling at the same level, or else you will not be as smart as you once were. And therefore, you don't take risks. You have a fear of failure. Right. And so to pull it all together, your dad was spot on. And for all of us who are parenting this, it's. It's go. It's go. Such against how our culture has developed over time as such a reward, um, celebration culture, which is, I mean, there's a place for that. But when we, if we look back in time, when we went from the winning team getting a trophy to every player in the league getting a trophy, we started to go sideways on teaching kids about resilience.

Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. And I think that it's one of the. One of the things that, uh, I started to learn the hard way because failure didn't come for me. Any kind of meaningful failure. Getting a B instead of an A in a course, you call that a failure. Uh, but any kind of meaningful failure really never happened to me until I was well into my career. And there are those situations, society as it is, that reinforces and praises success to such a point that you almost think that you can't fail. You can't fail because you're not supposed to fail. And you're not supposed to fail because it's not who you are. And when the failure does happen, it becomes devastating again instead of just information. And, uh, I remember when I first recognized that myself, I realized I was in the situation I was because I was protecting my identity. I wasn't learning anymore. I had sort of ascended into an abstraction, into a leadership role, into a management role, where I could, on the surface, trust others to do the heavy lifting and the work and the learning. And I could sort of depend on my intelligence, if you will, to figure it out as I went and be able to answer hard questions and learn as I saw things happening. But to not learn publicly, and certainly to not fail publicly, um, it became a very protective mode that I tried to stay out of that limelight.

Speaker A: Mhm. Mhm. Well that would make sense, right? Because um, you're there in that role. I mean it's like another language to not hear when someone wins most of the time, scores at the highest level most of the time, gets the promotions quicker, uh, with more ease and shows more command, as I know you did. Um, that's all you know. And, and, and then what you didn't know until you did was this is who you became and who you thought you needed to be. And you, like many, didn't know how to be anything else. Like how could you know how to be? Like, it's like all of a sudden you're supposed to speak another language and have. Know the, the customs of a completely different culture. That. Which is, um, asking questions, showing vulnerability, um, um, having a setback, not being the smartest guy in the room with all the answers. Like it was. I imagine the wall was very hard when you hit

Speaker B: was in hindsight it was harder than it was at the moment because at the moment it was pure confusion. It was pure, it was, it was, it was. To your analogy, I left one tribe and was dumped into another tribe. That's our culture that spoke a completely different language all at once. And I was dumbfounded. Was probably the best, uh, description of the way I felt. Um, when I realized that, ah, gee, I didn't know the answer to these questions. I couldn't talk my way through it, I couldn't think my way through it. I plain didn't know. Uh, and in hindsight in those situations I probably should have just said, you know, I'm not sure. Let me spend some time with the data, let me look into this question. But I didn't have the uh, humility, I didn't have the um, self awareness to do that. I knew that I had to have the answer and so I just sort of fumbled through it until I got somewhere. But I knew there was a sense in the back of my mind that I'd been exposed, that the people in the room knew. They didn't say anything that would have been rude, but they knew, they knew that I didn't know and I was supposed to know. And it was very humbling experience and not the first of its kind.

Speaker A: How did you. Well, there's several things that happened, right. There was work, there was relationship. And um, something I really appreciated in your first book, the way in, in the, in the preface you say something like, you know, who this book is for, who this book is maybe not for, you know, like this might not be for you. And for those of you who, um, basically, you're basically saying those who have social and emotional intelligence. I'm really paraphrasing now and think that it's obvious and that. That this is, like, basic. This probably isn't for you. And. And like, um, you should be really grateful to have these abilities. Right? So I guess all of these abilities that you and other gifted individuals have, which come so naturally for so many, there is what we call the developmental asynchrony or the lacking development of these other, what are often called M. Soft skills. Right, but they're not soft. They're very important. And so those were the ones that you had to develop. This has been part of your process. What M was it like to realize those actually were things that needed developing?

Speaker B: M. That's a great question. The, uh, simple answer to that is I bristled at even thinking that I needed to develop those skills because, um, again, this is born out of ignorance and at the time, some arrogance that I didn't like to experience my own bad feelings. Why do I want to experience someone else's bad feelings? Empathy, you know, why do I want to have emotional intelligence when to me, that was almost a coddling at the time of, uh, people's emotions when we're trying to make a decision? Uh, I bristled the thought of even needing those types of skills. But as I tended to experience the same experiences with people and how people experienced me, uh, unintentionally, I realized that I was lacking in those skills. And those are real skills. And yes, they're called the soft skills, but in reality, they are the skills that grease relationships. They're the skills that grease business. It is the. The people to people relationships that make work happen, that make results happen. Yes, you have to have intelligence and performance and ability and deliverability and all of those things that, um, I have learned to excel at. But none of that mattered if you unintentionally made everybody in the room feel small. None of that mattered if you unintentionally made them feel like they were behind. It didn't matter if you were thinking 10 steps ahead and didn't come back to where they were in the process and really try to help answer the questions they were having. Uh, but I did. I had to learn to very consciously. And I. And I still, late in my life, I'm still learning those skills today, learning those softer skills today. Um, but I recognize them for what they are. And again, calling them soft skills, people understand what that means. But it's really a terrible name for it because they're such critical skills to have.

Speaker A: I'm reminded of a profound experience during a talk on this topic. Uh, one of my first gifted conferences years ago. I was listening to a psychiatrist, Dr. Gerald Grobman. He's um, in New York and he is a, uh, one of the few, if only psychiatrists who specialize in giftedness and, and does therapy too, psychotherapy. So he's really rare. And what I really appreciated about him is he said, I want to, to uh, explain. It was, it was, it was talking about therapeutic processes with gifted individuals. And he said, I want to tell you about a mistake I made. He said, because he works with these prolific individuals, he's. I was, he says, I was sitting across a world class ballerina who was depressed, empty, anxious, and I had learned about her and I knew of her abilities and skills. And I said to her, you must be so impressed with the way that you can dance. And she said, she looked right back at me and said, are you impressed with the way you can breathe?

Speaker B: Wow. And what that. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker A: No, please.

Speaker B: No, it is, um, that's very insightful. It causes me pause to even hear that answer because it's so, um, it's so raw and honest, uh, and, and really truthful because I've been asked a similar question about artistic skill and just doing well in school and uh, and doing well in my early career. I, I was, you know, when I was, before I was 30 years old, I was running multimillion dollar companies. Um, again, I'm not saying that as a humble brag, I'm just saying that's just where I found myself. It was just the natural course that I was in. And people would ask me, gosh, are you impressed by your ability to draw or paint or um, whatever. It's like I don't even think about it that way. It's like breathing. It's like who I've become, who I am again. I think that goes back to. It had become an identity instead of a set of instruments to use. And somewhere along the way in writing these books, I've realized I sort of made the analogy that it's almost like um, there was a contract, an unwritten contract written when I was a child that I didn't even know that I signed. That obligated me to be this way. That obligated me to a level of, um, success and skill that I had to constantly live up to. And you know, do you ever question breathing? Well, sometimes breathing is hard Sometimes breathing, it does come naturally. But something. When it's constantly, you have to grow and there's constantly another goal or another achievement ahead. That doesn't mean that it's always easy. Um, that doesn't mean that it doesn't cause exhaustion. And I think in that ballerina's case, she, you said she was exhausted and depressed and all of those things. Um, I think it's constantly the. How difficult it was for her to breathe in that analogy.

Speaker A: And the word that I think of hearing you say that back was, um, that a recall is empty. And that relates to what you have written about and what you've described and what so many experience is the lack of, like, fulfillment, the lack of meaning and, and the achievements and the, the titles and even the, um, you know, increased pay. It doesn't fill, it doesn't fill the emptiness. Uh, and then, and then, right, to say, wait a second, I was promised that if I keep doing this, I'll get this. And not everyone gets this, but even those many that do, wait, this is it. Like, it doesn't mean anything. And then one struggles existentially with, who am I? Why am I here? What's the point? And, um. And it can go to some dark places.

Speaker B: Yeah, it certainly can. And I, I always thought, as you described, that, gee, there's another promotion, there's another level that will give me a level of satisfaction, um, that I will have achieved, I will have reached, I will have paid off that, ah, unwritten and unsigned contract that I had with. I don't know who that had expectations in me that if I get to that level, I will have achieved that thing, that, that expectation. And yes, with that came more success, more material success, more accolades, more recognition. And the further I got into that, the less comfortable I felt in my own skin. Um, because again, for me, the way that I hid, um, my protection of my identity was ascending into abstraction. I think some people retreat into narrower roles where they are very comfortable and it's very well defined and they can continue to be perfectionists, um, and they stay at a certain level and never ascend. For me, it was ascending into leadership roles where I could hide in, in some ways and protect my identity. Um, but it never did. It never was the, the money. Um, you know, only, only I've heard it said that only rich people say that money doesn't buy happiness. But, uh, in reality, you know, money doesn't by happiness. Happiness comes from a lot of different sources and it's rarely money. Money buys opportunity and some ease in Life, but it certainly doesn't buy happiness. And I did still experience that uh, emptiness. I think it's because I never lived up to an identity that was impossible to live up to. There was a contract written to live up to be uh, what I was supposed to be. Instead of comparing myself to reality, my success, uh, or my life. I had a good marriage, family, job, income, all of that. But instead of comparing myself to reality, I compared myself to a really undefined level of expectation that uh, would have never been met. It didn't matter what I would have gotten to because I didn't see my life in the relationship of reality. I saw it in a relationship of an expectation that even I couldn't define.

Speaker A: It makes me think of um, Dan Sullivan of well known executive coach, particularly entrepreneurs talks um, about the difference between the gap and the gain and the difference between the people who excel and are successful and fulfilled. So many look for um, the gap. And the gap is what they haven't yet accomplished, which is akin to looking at the horizon. And the closer we get to the horizon it, it never gets any closer.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Those who focus on the gain, they look back about where they've been in the last five years, one year, three. Like they see their movement. And I think what you're pointing out is so many people who are high achievers and successful um, and bright and awarded are always, that's just the baseline. So there always needs to be more. It's never looking at a comp, like it's never really internalizing accomplishment. It's like externalizing accomplishments so it doesn't become fulfilling in any way, shape or form.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like how you said that became, I think he says like that's the baseline, uh, and that's the way it felt. It felt like I was accomplishing only that which was expected. I was accomplishing only that uh, which was where I was supposed to be. Not, it wasn't anything, um, again, comparing myself to peers or comparing myself against reality. I was comparing myself against um, a goal that was really unachievable and really was, was not even defined. It was just some unwritten goal of success or achievement that uh, would go beyond what felt like baseline where much of my career just felt like well these are the next logical steps that I should be taking. Of course I should be taking this because this is the road that I'm set on. This is the road that I um, inherited that I should be on. And all I'm doing is walking down the road. There is no joy in the success Is there joy in breathing? To use a ballerina's example, Is there joy in breathing? No, it's just something that you do and who you are. Uh, and I found it hard to find joy and the successes I had because I didn't feel like successes.

Speaker A: So we've been painting the picture, um, that I believe many who are listening are identifying with.

Speaker B: I hope so.

Speaker A: And this isn't the end. This is. This is the beginning of what comes next. And, um, you wanted to share your experiences, not only because you were learning that so many others, uh, resonated with them, but also to inspire, to share your own experiences of what it was like to recover and as you talk about, recover on purpose and to. To change identity, shift identity, or put identity where it needs to be to become more fully oneself.

Speaker B: Yeah, I. And that's not an easy road for anybody who identifies with, uh, anything that I'm saying. Um, it's not something that was. Well, actually, in my case, there was a moment of an epiphany for me where really both of these books came together in my mind, at least in a moment's time, where I realized that it didn't matter what levels of success I achieved or going on to the next job, the next promotion or whatever. I carried myself with me. I carried, um, the baggage of myself with me. And that the way that people responded to me and experienced me, regardless of what my intentions might have been and the way that I experienced myself weren't going to change unless I made conscious efforts to understand myself and how I was coming across to people and understand myself for myself. Um, it was only. It was only then that I realized I had real shortcomings and that a, uh, lot of things that I had sort of blamed on politics or jealousy, and certainly those are all part of a life. Um, but it really took a failed marriage and really serious, uh, consequences that I had to really look inward to myself to say, I need to fix some things about myself. I need to be more honest. I need to, uh, learn to fail again. I need to put myself in situations that I have no idea what's going on and be public about that. Situations where I can be vulnerable and can share. I can tell you, in writing my books, I share a few personal stories that are 100% true that happened that terrified me to put on paper because it was a level of vulnerability and failure that I'd experienced that was very real. I didn't want anybody to know about that. I didn't want anybody to, uh, experience that, understand that Experience. There's certainly people that probably might read that were sitting in that room, um, and talk about open the kimono and expose myself here. That's the way it felt. But there were conscious efforts that I realized that I needed to do to be more vulnerable, to learn in public, to not be a perfectionist. Um, I even use the example of one of my books, which I won't say which of the two, uh, shipped the typo in it. And it drove me insane. You know what? I haven't gone back and corrected it. I just left it there.

Speaker A: Oh, that's.

Speaker B: Because that's. And it really was big. It sounds so minor to probably some people. Uh, but it was major. But I've just. I'm not going to correct it. I'm just going to leave it there. And, you know, some people may catch it, some people may not. I certainly didn't catch it, and I certainly haven't gone back to fix it. But they're just very little things, conscious efforts to put myself out into situations that I don't know what I'm doing, that I have to learn publicly, that I have to have small failures publicly. And to me, it's not a matter of burning down your entire life to fix it. It is just reinventing yourself and realizing that the software that worked so well early in life, that served you so well early in life, just is not the full package. And it doesn't make you whole as a person. And you just have to reinvent that software. You have to put that software aside and learn the things that created identity, ability, creativity, intelligence, um, performance. That those are not who I am, that I'm a broader person. I need to be a broader person, a more integrated person. Those are simply tools that I can use their instruments. And once they're demoted from identity to instrument, then you can fail. You can fail using those tools because they're just tools. They're not who I am. And who I am is largely a broken person who's trying to learn to be better. And that is. And that is, um, you know, a vulnerability and a truth that I probably wouldn't have said ten years ago. Um, but it is the reality, I think who most gifted children are, who become formerly gifted adults, if you will, is they're just simply learning to be more.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: Mm.

Speaker A: This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace. Last year, I went through many different life changes. I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best Version of myself. When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere. Living a busy life, navigating a long distance relationship, becoming a first stepfather, Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office. I could speak with my therapist in the comfort of my home. I was never alone. Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code space80@talkspace.com Interesting. Before, right before you said who you are now. Um, broke, broken and growing. Something like that. I um, was going to ask you, and I still am, because I want to push you a little bit here. How would you have described who you were before this, um, awakening? I'm interested in that and I'm, I'm interested. I want to push you to um, to say another version of who you are now in comparison. Like, like there was the before and they're the after. And I appreciate the humility of your, you know, you're another broken, a uh, human in um, in, in transition and in uh, you know, under construction. Um, but also you are, you are different than you were. And I like to hear it more of an affirming way, if that makes sense.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure, of course. And I appreciate you pointing that out because that was the kind of the epiphany moment of my life, which I've gotten, uh, beyond. No, it is, there is, um. So you ah, asked what was it like before? It was a confidence that I had from, um, childhood that became a less and less durable confidence that led up to this epiphany, uh, of uh, who I was and why people responded to me in the way they did in the curse of early success. That's kind of what I talked about. And then how do I uh, relate to myself and how do I experience myself? But it wasn't an epiphany that I realized all those things about me. But then on the other side of that was not really a whole lot of work. Um, difficult decisions, difficult realizations about oneself, but not really a whole lot of work. Just to say, is it really bad to be vulnerable? Is it really bad to share who you really are? Is it really bad to Be honest about the struggles that you're having. Is it really bad to m. Admit publicly I had a failed marriage? Is it really bad? I mean, in the world of people that experience life, is it really bad just to be human and just to be. Take that mask off of success that you protect because it's your identity and learn to just say, that's not who I am. I can and should be someone much broader, someone who relates much more, much better with people. And I think on the other side of that epiphany, um, there's been a lot of learning. And one of the things I think I say in the preface to the Curse of Early Success, as you mentioned, is I didn't start out in this journey to write a book or to write any book. I started out this journey to figure out what was wrong with me, to figure out why I felt all these things, how I could figure out my own life. And it was only in looking for answers that I wrote all this down. And it became the two books that it became. And I found people who are experiencing the same things as me. But, uh, I didn't write this because I had all the answers. I wrote this because I needed the answers. I needed them for myself. And I still do, and I'm still learning from them. But it is a much more fuller sense of life and a more, um, a higher level of contentment with life. And I found that, uh, one of the highest goals that I can reach older in my life is contentment. To be content with where I'm at, to be content with what I can have, to be content with those who are in my life, and to not constantly looking for the next plateau, for the next success, for the next level. Because I'm. I'm. I am obligated to this unwritten contract that I never signed, um, that I have to get there.

Speaker A: That never ends.

Speaker B: There. There is no there. And. And there's a joy in contentment.

Speaker A: Yes. Settling in to. And accepting and embracing being, versing. Earning your place on this earth by doing Right, right, right.

Speaker B: That's a very good way of putting it. There is a striving and a exhaustion in earning. Constantly feeling like you have to perform. Because when performance becomes identity, rest becomes threatening. Um, it becomes unproductive and unproductivity becomes threatening to who you are. And so there's a constant need to, um. I had a very hard time resting and just not being productive and just relaxing. And the idea of sitting down on a Saturday afternoon and watching a game or something. You know, was, was terrifying to me because I'm not producing, I'm not doing who I am, if that makes sense. I'm not doing the things that justify my existence in life.

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker B: But I realize that's not necessary, that you don't have to do that to be a whole person.

Speaker A: No. Echoing it. No, you do not. And um, for all of us to realize we are, we have and bring value for who we are, period. You, you're not a value for what you do. What you do might be very helpful to people, whether it's your family or whether it's your clients or your customers. Um, and that's important. Um, but as Eric's saying, that's an instrument. Like you're an instrument, that's part of your instrument. Who you are, who you are at the core. And this is what we all unfortunately are programmed out of. And particularly the topic of giftedness programmed out of in specific ways. Unintentionally early is our worth becomes value based metric based on performance and performance at the nth degree, not just performance. Right. It's a gold medal or nothing. Right. It's so, um, about who we are. Right. And I, Eric, I sense that um, you ah, have become and are becoming more and more comfortable with who you are as a human being now.

Speaker B: Thank you for saying that. And um, there would, there were probably times in my life that I would say, well of course I'm comfortable with who I am, of course I am because this is who I'm supposed to be. This is what I'm supposed to be. Um, but if you dug an inch beneath that surface, it just wasn't true. It was a constant effort and a strive to become something that I knew I was supposed to become but didn't even have to have defined. Um, but as I learned to just relax and to slow down and to uh, not perform that it was okay. And it took a lot of learning, hard learning experiences in my life to get to that place. But there is a level of comfort and joy if you can just reach contentment, just contentment in your life and where you are now. There may be other plateaus maybe I mean other um, plateaus that I can reach, other summits to climb in my life. That may be true, that may not be true. And I'm happy with that either way.

Speaker A: Mhm. Your books were written, uh, without judgment. Um, they're written with um, consideration. They're written with humility. And they're written as an invitation for those who resonate, who have had this Experience, whether identified. Um, there are many people who are gifted, are achievers, um, who are not, and get a formal diagnosis. And those of you who are listening, whether you have that label as a child or not, if this resonates with you, um, I really want to highlight, um, how Eric's books lead you along in a journey that not only resonates with you, but allows you to look at yourself in a way, um, have the courage to look at yourself and to consider other possibilities for being and for living.

Speaker B: Yeah, I really wanted my books to be. For anyone who resonated with them, be permission that it's okay to get off the treadmill that you're on. It's okay to not understand the world around you. It's okay to understand that the operating system that once served you so well maybe isn't any longer. And it's okay just to stop, get off the treadmill. Ah, and be happy with where you are.

Speaker A: And those they do it does all of that. Um, well, thank you for your courage in, uh, putting your story out there, your insights out there, your journey out there. Uh, it will guide others. And, um, please tell everyone where they can find it.

Speaker B: Very good. Um, so my first book, I'll just hold it up, the Curse of Early Success, which was followed very quickly as I learned that I needed to know it was formally gifted. I literally published them within weeks of each other. Um, they can both be found on Amazon. Uh, if you just search by the title, they can both be bought in Kindle format or in paperback.

Speaker A: Go get them, everyone, and share them. Share the information with others. There are so many people who have had this experience and who feel alone and who are at the top, close to the top, feel that they need to stay at the top and go beyond the top. And, uh, Eric's message is to, you don't have to. You can stop. You can look back on your life and the reasons you got there. And there are many things you can do to not only change how you operate, but ultimately how you feel inside.

Speaker B: Sure. Thank you, Dr. Dan. Really appreciate the opportunity.

Speaker A: Eric speaks with humility and wisdom and invites us all to live deeply, to value who we are over our achievements, and to continue to grow regardless of what our prior accomplishments have been. Here are five key takeaways from this conversation. Number one. When achievement becomes identity, failure feels personal. The problem isn't failure, it's believing failure says something about your worth. Number two. Success is a powerful teacher, but it doesn't always teach the right lessons. Early success can create expectations that become difficult to escape. Number three, there's no finish line called enough. Chasing the next accomplishment rarely creates the fulfillment we think it will. Number four, vulnerability is often the skill high achievers need most. Growth begins when we stop protecting an image and start showing up as human. And number five, contentment is not settling, it's freedom. Real peace comes when we stop trying to earn our place in the world and start accepting our inherent value. There it is everyone. You are enough as you are. You are worthy and you have value for who you are, not what you achieve. We are interested in what you think about this episode, so please feel free to leave us a comment Dr. Dan Peters on Instagram or reply to any of our social posts. Please share this with anyone and everyone you think will benefit from this message. Thank you for being a part of our amazing community, your 5 star reviews and subscribing and as always, we have this moment, this day and this life. Let's Make It a Great One. This has been a Peters and Rossi production. Make it a great one with Dr. Dan is produced by Amber Miller. Our engineer is Phil Rossi. Theme music is Uplifting Folk by awesome Music Artwork by Kelly Dwyer. Follow us on social media at AH DrDan Peters. For more information, visit drdanpeters.com.

Speaker B: Every week the Snap Judgment podcast drops you inside someone's biggest decision. The kind of decision you can only make once with everything on the line. What do you believe? What do you want and what would you risk to get it? Find out. Tap to Listen now to Snap Judgment from KQED on Spotify. Ignite your taste with new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. Foot to the floor Energy with high speed tropical flavor that'll shift you and your day into top gear. So keep your foot on the gas and your hand on the NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava and get after it.