When Success Hurts

Successful business people often find that their work isn't just a good thing -- it's the only thing.

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Many successful business peole suffer from what might be called, paradoxically, the "crisis of success." Being wrapped up almost totally in the excitement and challenge of work has made all other usual forms of gratification -- their families, vacations, reading, the theater, even sex -- seem inconsequential. Pleasure for the sake of pleasure, outside the realm of work, is a bewildering and alien experience.

Not all people who "get high" on work and success are neurotic, of course. Power, accomplishment, prestige, recognition, and money are very real sources of gratification. A yearning for them doesn't necessarily signal an underlying problem. But uneasiness about leisure and unstructured time not spent "productively" can signal a need to reassess one's relationship to life outside work.

Take the case of a friend of mine who recently came to seek my advice. By age 46, he had created and was chairman of a very successful computer electronics company. His organization now operated smoothly under the direction of a new chief executive officer and my friend's daily presence was no longer essential. Twelve years after he met his first payroll, he could afford to take some time to enjoy the pleasures success allowed.

But he couldn't relex. "Instead of feeling liberated from 14-hour days, I feel restless and depressed," he told me. "I miss being the scrappy underdog." He talked ambivalently about his options. His thoughts are similar to those of other successful business people who have come to see me at this stage in their careers:

"I could start over again and buy a young company -- or I could hold off plowing all my energies back into a new career. I'm almost 50 and it may be too late, but I really want to learn to appreciate things outside work."

Because of the primacy of work in his life, his wife and children had become little more than strangers. "Even my country house, on 20 acres of gorgeous mountainside, has become just an encumbrance," he confessed.

But as my friend knew, making a switch in concentration from work -- with its emphasis on achievement, results, and competition -- to leisure and love isn't easy. Many compulsive workers avoid dealing with the problem altogether until a personal crisis arises that's too big to ignore. It may be as simple as a doctor's warning to slow down or as dramatic as a frustrated spouse's threat to leave. One highly successful man came to me after his 17-year-old son attempted suicide.

This man was a work-addicted Wall Street broker. For years he had resisted vacations with his family for fear that he would miss a chance to make a killing in the market. But after the son's suicide attempt, which the father realized was a desperate try at getting through to him the broker changed his compulsive habits. First, he began to take short vacations with his family, staying away from the phone. Then he bought a farm in Vermont and began to spend most weekends there.

"I never thought I'd be able to get pleasure from milking a cow or planting corn with my kids," he told me. "I still enjoy the market, but I finally realized that I had a share in other people's egos, not just my own." He now describes his former single-minded devotion to work as being like an addiction. "I used to think there was no happiness except the thrill of turning big profits on a stock deal. I was wrong." While the case is extreme, the lesson is universal. To strike a balance between work and achievement on the one hand and love and leisure on the other, a major reorientation may be necessary. In some cases, therapy can help a person recognize the reasons behind his addiction. For example, it may be to create outlets from aggression or to bolster self-esteem. "I realized that the only time my father ever said to me, 'That's good,' was when I built something,' an entrepreneur told me. "I just went from erector sets to building companies."

But many people who want to modify their relationship to work, to be able to enjoy leisure or family, do not need therapy. Simply recognizing that an imbalance exists and being willing to change are the most important steps a person can take. Then other measures can follow.

For one person, it may be reading a novel for the first time in years; for another, taking the time to walk on the beach with a friend, coaching Little League, or jogging. These activities may sound like fun to a lot of people, but to the compulsive worker, they can be difficult and frustrating first steps.