Why Successful Men Always Self-Destruct - Connor Beaton - 1039

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Why do so many high-functioning men self-destruct in private?

**Connor Beaton** (0:06)
It's like you're describing my clients. Oh boy. I think there's a number of different reasons. There's trying to maintain this image externally, and part of that image is the perfectionist. So there's never any room for downfall. There's never any room for weakness. There's never any room for problems or issues. And so for a lot of men, that becomes, it becomes something that they start to medicate. And usually that has rooting in childhood, right? That they had to be a certain way in order to garner love, to garner attention. So for a lot of super high-performing men, they're, you know, they grew up in an environment where they kind of had to be perfect. And if they were perfect enough, then they would get affection. Then they would get love. They would get praise. They would get validation. And so for a lot of young guys, it's like a lot of men in general, it's if I can be perfect enough and I can perform well enough, then everything will be okay. But if that starts to falter just a little bit, then it says something about me personally. It means that something's wrong with me. And then shame starts to creep in and they don't want anybody to know that that's happening. And so slowly over time, because they can't admit that there's something wrong, they can admit that there's an issue, they can't sort of vocalize it, they start to medicate that shame or they start to medicate the perceived weakness, the insecurity, the anxiety with booze or weed or women or hookers or whatever it is, right? Whatever their sort of drug choices could be gambling or whatever. And slowly over time, that becomes the method that they need in order to just maintain homeostasis. And it's almost like there's a debt building in the background that's building over time. Every little mess up, every little screw up is just sort of accruing this massive debt inside of them, and eventually it just craters. And so, you know, in a lot of ways, they need to be able to bring forward some of those weaknesses or insecurities or anxieties or, you know, the trauma that they've just been holding on for fucking decades, you know. So I think that's a huge part of it.
And I think for a lot of men, it's correlated to how, it's correlated to their sense of masculinity and their sense of manhood. So it's like, well, if I admit this weakness, if I admit that I'm struggling, then it means that there's something wrong with me as a man, that I'm less masculine. And I don't think that that's necessarily something that we think about top of mind. It's more performance at all costs. And so I don't want to admit that there's something going on behind the scenes.

**Chris Williamson** (2:56)
As you're saying that, I don't know why, but the word toxic masculinity came up. This actually feels like a kind of place that it suits in a bizarre sort of way.
That it's taking traits of masculinity and making them a performance, forcing yourself to perform. And it's a way, not that masculinity itself is toxic, which is what the current version of that is, that this is a way to turn your masculinity into something which becomes like a prison guard in a way that sort of locked you in jail for doing the non-masculine thing. And if you try, you can't necessarily break out of that. So the high-functioning guys are what the world rewards them for in public. They struggle with in private.

**Connor Beaton** (3:41)
Correct.

**Chris Williamson** (3:41)
High standards, hypervigilance, neuroticism, obsession, drive, desire for conquer and mastery, lots of competition, lots of comparison between myself and other people.
That is a type of pressure. And that pressure causes them to set very high standards. And if they ever fall short of those standards, that causes pain. I am not enough because I have these high standards. These high standards are why I've managed to become so high-functioning in the real world and a hard-charging sort of dude. But as fears about not being able to keep up with this work rate that I've already established for myself, my comparison group is getting better and more successful. I'm finding it hard. Like my physiology just can't keep up with the burnouts level that I'm requiring of myself. All of these things build up, build up, build up. And there needs to be some sort of a release valve. One of the release valves could be learning self-love, self-compassion, having somebody that you can speak to about this, a supportive partner who makes you feel safe and secure in your vulnerabilities. But if you aren't prepared to do that or you don't have access to that, you turn to something else, which is also like a pressure release valve. Is that a fair?