Nobody warns you that the higher you climb the lonelier the view gets

Three years into building something real I had a conversation with a founder that stopped me in my tracks.

His company was flourishing.

He said something I haven't stopped thinking about since;

" The better things go the less anyone asks if I'm okay. They just assume I've figured it out."

And he had mostly. But figuring it out and being okay are not the same thing.

Here's what nobody tells you about sustained success;

The competence people see in you becomes a barrier between you and any honest conversation about what is actually costing you.

Your peers and investors need you to be calibrated so you perform steadily.

Your family sees the wins so they assume you're fine.

And somewhere in the middle of all that performing you lose track of where the performance ends and where you actually begin.

The loneliness at the top isn't about being surrounded by fewer people. Most successful founders are surrounded by more people than ever.

It's about having fewer people who can meet you where you actually are, not the fake version of you that has all the answers and holds it together.

The version of you that closes the laptop at night and just sits with the weight of it all.

That version almost never gets to speak and the longer it goes unspoken the heavier it gets.

I'm curious what your version of that looks like right now?