Why is It’s lonely at the top?
It’s lonely at the top. You have probably heard someone say in a movie, interview, motivational speech, or social conversation that the price of success is loneliness. But for the vast majority of people struggling to attain financial freedom, this statement sounds like one of those things people say to make less successful people feel better about their situation.
Well, the truth is that’s not made up. Many successful people are often lonely.
Why are successful people lonely?
Why is that? let’s begin
- 1. Most Successful People Are Often Misunderstood by the Majority
Imagine enjoying a lovely evening with a few close friends and you decide to share your plan to quit your well-paying job to open an online clothing store, for example.
What do you think would be everyone’s reaction?
One or two friends may voice half-hearted support. The majority will probably give you the “Are you crazy?” look. And then there’s that one friend who isn’t shy to voicing their opinion and who will laugh it off as a joke coupled with a “That’s insane!” comment. The point? Not many people will see the vision as clearly as you.
And definitely, most won’t support it. The traditional 9–5 is considered acceptable and assured. So, many people wouldn’t understand why you would want to step from the point of financial security to the unknown.
If you remain passionate about pursuing your dream, you may need to alienate yourself from people because they may not understand what you see or may underestimate your capabilities.
Most successful people have confessed to being discouraged by friends and even family. And so they learned to look up to themselves and pursue their dreams on their own.
- 2. It Takes a Lot of Time to Build Something Successful
If you’re employed, there’s probably been a morning—or a couple—you wish you owned the company you worked for so that you wouldn’t have to wake up early every day. But if you were to switch places with your boss, you would quickly discover that is hardly the reality on the ground.
Ask any person who has both been employed and ran their venture when they worked hardest in their life, and they will tell you it’s when they worked for themselves. When you work for someone else, you have a specific set of responsibilities and working hours. You don’t usually concern yourself with your colleagues’ tasks. And even if you’re a manager, you only supervise your department or team.
However, when you’re a business owner, everything that happens in the business at all levels concerns you. The failure or success of your company falls on your shoulders. And that means you have to wear several hats, especially when you’re starting, to survive.
Suddenly, you realize that owning a business is not as easy or ‘cool’ as social media portrays. It comes with a sacrifice. So, expect to have a lot of early mornings and late nights brainstorming ideas to help your business get to the next level. Expect to cancel gatherings and dinners with friends, miss moments with family, and most things you used to do for fun in favor of establishing your business.
When you’re working 70, sometimes 80, hours a week, you have no time to form friendships or nurture the ones you already have.
- 3. Successful People Often Choose a Path of Solitude to Develop Ideas
When is the best time to brainstorm and develop great ideas?
If we’re talking in the literal sense, the answer would be in the morning, just when you wake up. But then, that only works when you’re in the right atmosphere. To achieve true alignment with your vision and develop ideas that will see you succeed, you need to be in solitude.
Many wealthy people who have been asked whether they prefer spending time with friends or family have answered, “I prefer to be alone.” Spending time alone is a well-known millionaire habit. So, does this mean some successful people choose to be lonely?
Well, while many self-made rich individuals do spend time with family, they have more moments in their day when they just want to be alone. They use these moments as “thinking time.”
This thinking time is very important when you have a dream you want to achieve. By spending most of your free time on social media, outings with people, streaming, and so on, you’re giving your energy to other people. In the end, you have nothing left to dedicate to chasing your vision.
So, instead of spending their time on other people, successful individuals spend their time developing solutions to their business problems and building their future. It could be through reading, creating goals, or refining ideas.
So, how much time do you dedicate to your dreams?
- 4. Success Comes with Understanding How Much Your Circle defines Who You Are
The most important life principles are not taught in school. And the importance of who you surround yourself with—that is, your inner circle—is one of those principles. As you start your journey to success, a lot of people won’t be pleased with it.
Most people are okay with being friends when you’re either on the same level or below their level. Once you start rising, envy and jealousy quickly set in. These negative feelings will often manifest as discouraging feedback, comments undermining your accomplishments, or cold reception.
You begin to realize that you don’t have as many friends as you thought you had. And, with this realization, you don’t feel sad about letting go of your long list of friends. The majority of successful people learned early on to have a small, genuine circle and be okay with being or feeling alone most of the time.
- 5. Once Successful, Most People Struggle to Find Common Ground with Others
Another reason successful people are often lonely is that they live an atypical lifestyle, at least by regular people’s standards. Ordinary people live a more or less conventional lifestyle. For instance, if you’re employed, your routine is probably quite similar to the next person’s; you wake up, get to work by 8 or 9, get off at probably 5, and spend your evenings at home with family or at your favorite spot with friends.
On the weekends, you spend time doing stuff you like. Compare that to the life of an entrepreneur. They probably get home after dinner, are up before anyone else, and spend the majority of weekends at the office. The same goes for social conversations. While most people probably talk about how their job or boss sucks, trending topics, or other accepted social conversations, successful people usually enjoy insightful and thought-provoking discussions.
And frankly, going on about your business and the ideas you think will make it more successful, even if well-intended, can make you sound boastful and self-absorbed in regular social circles. All these factors, in combination, make it hard for successful people to find common ground and build genuine relationships with others.
And even if you were to find a friend, they’d probably put you on a pedestal instead of viewing you as their equal. That’s why you will find the rich hanging out among themselves in golf clubs and other exclusive establishments.
- 6. Being a Master of Something Means Sacrificing Most Things
Remember the famous quote, “A jack of all trades but a master of none?”
Well, that applies to most success stories. To be successful in any industry and join the 1% of the population, you have to be nothing short of exceptional. In most cases, that means putting everything else aside to focus on your career.
To successful people, achieving their dreams is all that matters, and everything else comes second to that. Living a healthy, balanced lifestyle is the exact opposite of that. You spread out your time between work, nurturing a family, and enjoying your hobbies or time with friends. With this kind of plan, you can’t compete with a successful person.
You can say that loneliness is the price of success. But does being alone mean being lonely?
Pro Tip: Be Comfortable with Being Alone
Being alone doesn’t always mean that you should be lonely. If you truly want to be successful, be prepared to spend a lot of time by yourself, creating and developing ideas for your future. If you learn to be comfortable with your own company, you’ll rarely feel lonely. And you’ll be wiser with the company you keep, as you’ll not be in desperate need of surrounding yourself with people.
You’ll discover that those moments you spend alone give you the most clarity. But even with this, loneliness can sometimes creep up on you. In this case, lean into the few close people you have in your life.
So, do you think success is worth the loneliness it may come with?
It also comes with discipline Best way to Build Self-discipline: By Stoic Philosophy
It doesn’t have to be lonely at the top
But I have another perspective about it If you don’t want to be alone, then try these three pro tips. It doesn’t have to be lonely at the top. Although sometimes it can feel right,?
So I want you to know that there are three ways that I recommend for you to be able to get out of that sort of rut. It’s the kind of thing that Jim Rohn talks about when he quotes
“You are the average of the five people you have around you.”
So when it comes to leaders, who are your five? And if you’re not happy with those 5 or you think you could expand it and start to take on more peers and mentors, then these are my Top 3 tips to get you there.
- 1. Find Mentors
So the first one is to find mentors. And when I say mentors, I mean reading books, listening to podcasts, being part of communities, like the one you’re in here with me now, and starting to listen to different people’s messages, thoughts and insights around leadership so that you can take away what resonates with you.
- 2. Get yourself a coach
The second top tip I have is to get yourself a coach. Now, coaches are valuable but there’s something that you need to know before you hire a coach. They are not your best friends. So although I am the biggest cheerleader and supporter of my clients, I’m equally tough on them. I challenge them. I get them out of their comfort zone so that they can grow. And that’s what a great coach does.
But you’ve got to remember, it’s not just anybody. You’ve got to have somebody that you’re working with with whom there’s a high level of trust, because it can be quite vulnerable to being in a coaching position. So make sure that you’re a match. And make sure that they’re not just your best friend.
- 3. Surround yourself with the same Mindset people
And then the third way that I see that you could help yourself to be surrounded by other like-minded peers is to find a way to connect. They could open up, they could speak about what’s going on in their worlds and they could help each other and learn from each other.
So that’s it. I hope you like the message How has your journey toward chasing your dreams been so far?
Share your insights with us in the comments.
