What if you achieved what you thought you wanted and you felt hollow inside?

I watched an interview with Madonna around the time of the Ray of Light album. She described growing up, her parents divorce, looking for love and seeking fame as its proxy.

She then described various peaks of her success and playing in front of more than 100 000 people for the first time. She described that moment of all of those adoring fans as the pinnacle of her loneliness. Adoration from so many who actually didn’t even know her.

I think Madonna is a smart woman – and one who has consciously manipulated the various aspects of her commercial success.

In that interview I think she shared a vulnerability that is part of the human condition.

If we consciously or unconsciously seek fulfillment to try and be happier, we are in danger of the hollowness that results from the proxy.

The hole we are trying to fill can be from our past, trauma, denial, repression. It can be conscious or unconscious.

We are surrounded by those who collect the trophies of “success” – wives, husbands, top jobs, cars, houses – and then divorce, unhappiness, mid life crises. We often see the former on social media but seldom the latter.

Where we are unaware of the holes we are trying to fill, of the patterns engrained in our behaviors, self discovery and awareness remain the basis for change and improvement. Where we are aware – and chase the same toxic relationships, people, promotions and rewards, desire to change and a conscious process is required.

Both Jung and Freud drew attention to the dangers of ignored repression.

Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.
Carl Jung

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
Sigmund Freud

I believe I am fairly self aware. I was very lucky to be thrust into the habits of feedback, coaching and its good psychological underpinnings during my time with Gemini Consulting. I think this prepared me to confront some of my own demons in my late twenties. I have sought out feedback and tried to embed it, coaching and counseling support in how I have built Global Advisors.

Despite this, I confront day-to-day challenges and a current rebuild of my team (partially due to some family circumstances out of my control). Much of my conscious effort has failed and so I am challenged to again confront my own patterns and seek an even heightened level of self awareness. Devining my own vs others roles in my situation will surely be part of my gained wisdom. Great reads like Ryan Holiday’s “The Obstacle is The Way” indicate that finding opportunities in even crushing failures is a true marker of success and greatness.

Those friends who are able to combine listening with honest challenge in a way that we are equipped to hear and embrace are very rare and crucial to my progress.

Moving on from those friends, relationships, colleagues, etc who are not willing to pursue their own self development and inject their ugly resulting chaos into your life is also part of the deal. And perhaps as hard as confronting inner demons.

Happiness, I believe, is a result of true fulfillment – as opposed to the contrary. Chasing happiness is likely an indication of a deeper unmet need.