When Success Becomes the Addiction That Keeps You Stuck

Arthur Brooks, in From Strength to Strength, describes how excellence feeds success, and success releases dopamine, and dopamine creates addictions from which we struggle to escape.

Many leaders spend decades trapped in the endless loop of seeking success by doing what once worked and chasing what once felt good. The same drive that built their ministry or organization eventually becomes the thing that keeps them from growing.

When Strengths Stop Serving

Brooks believes that early effectiveness relies on what Raymond Cattell in the 1960’s (and others) identified as Fluid Intelligence such as speed, creativity, analyzing and ambition. These strengths build upon each other and lead to innovation, remarkable discoveries and accomplishments. But they peak for most of us in our mid thirties and fade slowly after that point.

A second form of intelligence is developing during this same season, which Cattell identified a Crystallized Intelligence, such as wisdom, perspective, discernment shaped by experience, and the ability to take information from one venue and apply it to another. These strengths continue to increase as long as a person remains in a learning mode and maintains cognitive functioning. For many of us, this can be well into our eighties or even for some in their nineties.

Brooks posits that as we age, mature, and grow beyond our thirties and forties we must not seek to perform out of our Fluid Intelligence, or our first curve; but rather we must learn to make the jump to the second curve of Crystallized Intelligence. If we keep running on the curve that shaped the first half of our career or success, we’ll miss the transformation that the second curve and all the benefits it has to offer.

The first curve is about achievement.

The second curve is about contribution.

The First Step in Transitioning from the First Curve to the Second Curve is to Stop Comparing Yourself

Brooks explains why people have great difficulty leaving the first curve of performance to flourish in the second curve of giving to others. One factor is objectification, which is the tendency to reduce people to one or two traits like influence, beauty, wealth, fame, talent, intelligence, or success. It’s subtle, but it shapes how we see the world. We start noticing only what can be measured or admired, and before long, we evaluate ourselves the same way. Objectification reduces life to a single dimension and life becomes shallow.

I clearly did this in my thirties by comparing my life to other leaders. I often fixated on one visible marker such as size of influence, recognition, results, while ignoring the depth of their story. Every person carries a mix of grace and struggle, strength and limitation. When we forget this, we lose sight of what actually matters.

Comparison feeds the same addiction from which drug, porn and other addictions suffer. This dopamine keeps us stuck in first curve of performance. It narrows the soul and shallows the heart. We begin living for proof instead of purpose. Remembering the complexity of our own story, and the stories of others, is one of the first steps toward freedom.

Addicted to Familiar Wins

Performance addiction doesn’t just drain energy; it resists surrender. It convinces us that our worth depends on staying productive or visible. But that mindset keeps us stuck in the first curve of performing rather than imparting, which is the second curve.

For me, the shift has meant investing my energy in writing and mentoring. For my wife, Mary Kay, it’s caring for young mothers. The form changes and the calling deepens. What once defined us becomes what we now give away. We no longer need the affirmation of direct success but find deep fulfillment in seeing others succeed.

What Growth Demands

Moving toward the second curve requires brokenness. The illusion of control has to crumble before grace can reshape it. Brokenness for Brooks is the beginning of transitioning to the second curve. Brokenness takes many forms, but it always involves acknowledging at a visceral level that there are many things in life beyond one’s control. This is what produces spiritual depth and contentment. We all know individuals who have not come to this conclusion, and therefore they are stuck on the first curve of performance, trying to prove their worth and secure their identity by what they produce, know or who they are.

Growth looks quieter in this season of brokenness. It means asking more questions than giving answers. Listening more than advising. Creating space for others to develop without needing to be the one who makes it happen.

Jesus modeled this posture through His questions. Security asks. Insecurity tells. Security encourages. Insecurity controls.

From Knowledge to Wisdom

The first half of life rewards skill and achievement. The second half demands wisdom. Knowledge solves problems and answers questions of how? Wisdom discerns meaning and understands the why.

Wisdom grows slowly, through reflection, loss, and habits of consistency. It’s measured not by what we build, but by what endures in others after we’re gone. Wisdom comes from reflecting on one’s death before the time of death is imminent. Wisdom is knowing that one will not be here forever and investing in others who can accomplish more than we can.

When our wiring, skills, and motivations align under grace, striving gives way to steadiness. Only then does the work becomes lighter because it’s no longer about control or even accomplishments.

The goal isn’t to extend the first curve, but to release it. The fruit of maturity is not more activity, it is in multiplying our lives through investing in the lives of others.

The first curve builds strength.

The second learns how to give it away.