The most successful people have one thing in common. They’re comfortable with suffering. But everyone has a Suffer Ceiling.

It goes like this. You imagine a big dream. You decide to change paths to go chase the dream. You just know that somewhere down this new road there’s a reward waiting for you, so big that it will make it all worth it. You can see that reward, you can almost taste it.

It’s right there. Only a few years of hard work between you and that glorious day that will come.

Then, things get difficult. Most people give up quickly because the pressure and uncertainty is too much. Those people don’t change the world. But a few keep going.

For the people who keep going, the pressure grows and now instead of tending to a dream they’re tending to something real that they created and that they’re emotionally intertwined with. Hope and excitement to create new things begin to shift toward fear and anxiety to lose the things that have been created. It doesn’t feel great.

The sacrifices it took to get here only pile on the pressure. People around them are impressed because they see the success, not the suffering. Only they can feel the impacts that all the pressure is having on them internally.

And inside their head a little voice says… wouldn’t it be a shame if I messed it all up now? After everything I gave up to get here. After everything everyone around me gave up because I chased this dream.

I told them I could do it. But can I really pull this off?

It’s in this moment, the first moment you realize you‘ve built something you’re afraid to lose, that your acceptance of the suffering begins. It used to feel like a necessary evil of progress. Now it feels like an obligation. An obligation to your former suffering. The pain it took to get here.

And it’s strong. It compels you to go on.

At this moment, you face a fork in the road. I call it Suffer Junction.

And most will choose the wrong path, the path that eventually leads to limited performance and burnout and increases suffering endlessly and needlessly as a result.

The wrong path starts when you choose to believe that suffering is the cost you pay for greatness and specifically, that the more successful you are, the more you will have to suffer. Suffering comes from success, you tell yourself. I want more success. So I’m willing to accept more suffering.

Looking back at the day you chose to chase something great in your life, you looked ahead and imagined a few months of suffering to get it launched, and then some solid hard work to get the whole thing over the finish line. You imagined suffering that would rise and fall and then produce a great reward.

But now you’ve resigned yourself to accept suffering that will increase and increase forever until you achieve your reward. You’re trapped. To stop moving forward at this point would be self-sabotage. But, at the same time, to keep moving forward is a guarantee of greater suffering.

Everyone has what I call a Suffer Ceiling. It’s the maximum amount they can suffer while still being on the shortest and most likely path to achieving their dreams.

When you first started, your Suffer Ceiling was at a reasonable height, a level that ensured you could perform at a high level every day. You had good intuition for where that ceiling was and you were determined not to break it.

So now, with so much to lose and so much suffering invested to get here, you make a pact with yourself.

I will exceed my Suffer Ceiling, and suffer just a bit more to get to that next milestone, you say.

You’ve already missed sleep, missed important moments in relationships, lost a bit of your edge, and gained a few pounds that seemed to sneak up from nowhere.

And in this fragile moment, you break your last rule of self-preservation and you begin a new pattern of exceeding your Suffer Ceiling that will never stop until you either suffer deeply enough to achieve your goals, while everyone suffers around you, or you collapse and burn out while trying.

You’ve chosen success over performance at all costs. You’ve disrespected yourself so deeply that your mind won’t let you forget it. You’ll continue to remind yourself that the mission is greater than yourself and your health and your performance.

In fact you’re not a leader. You’re a martyr, you tell yourself. You didn’t choose this life. You were chosen for this life. Ooh that feels powerful. The belief sinks in more deeply.

You have just accepted, and specifically appointed, a lower performing version of yourself as the new leader of your life. The primary person responsible for executing on the mission to build great things and become great yourself. All your bets now rely on the half-powered you.

And off you go. At the next milestone or miss, the pattern continues and you exceed your Suffer Ceiling even farther and double down.

The obligation to your past suffering is even greater now. Clearly you should suffer even more deeply in tribute to the investments you’ve already made, you think.

And now you’re backing the quarter-powered version of yourself. Appointing them commander-in-chief of your dreams, and defining a new level of suffering and poor-performance you’re willing to accept in your life, and that you’re willing to drag the people around you through too.

Oh no, don’t be confused, this is not a solo journey. This is not a solo choice. You’re part of a team and everyone around you is coming along for this ride.

The cycle continues. The next milestone passes. You raise your Suffering Ceiling and double down again. The pattern goes on and your performance falls farther. Strap up. Put the load on. We’re going down together.

Eventually you’ve stacked all your chips behind a version of yourself that can barely perform at all. And you’re absolutely miserable.

The people around you can see it. You can feel it. You’re frustrated beyond belief. And your mind is screaming at you not to proceed any farther. It’s just too dangerous.

I’m just weak, you tell yourself. Somebody stronger could keep going. You hate yourself for wanting to give up.

So here you are. Ineffective, frustrated and miserable. Not where you were expecting to be after all this progress.

The problem isn’t the fact that the journey was longer than you hoped it would be.

The problem isn’t that you don’t have the capacity or the ability to do great things.

And the problem isn’t the angry client or the unexpected software glitch that keeps assaulting you every day.

The problem is that you exceeded your Suffer Ceiling.

‍You tried to buy success with suffering. You overlooked performance for the sake of progress. And that made everything so much harder and slower than it needed to be.

You probably would have already achieved all your goals if you’d stayed the course and worked right up to, but not exceeded, your Suffer Ceiling this whole time.

It’s a brutal realization when it hits you.

For the last ten years I’ve studied high-pressure high-achievers as they push their limits, subjecting themselves to high-importance, high-complexity, and highly urgent situations every single day. Relentless pressure that will eventually break even the most brilliant of brains.

Executives and entrepreneurs arrive on my doorstep when their lives have ground to a halt, or are grinding to a halt. Some have already burned out and are trying to understand how it happened. Others have seen people around them burn out and are afraid that the same fate is coming for them.

A CEO came to me last summer after building a $5 million annual revenue business in New York City.

He had pushed himself so hard he was having panic attacks every time he got on the subway going in the direction of his office. He literally couldn’t go be with his team anymore. His mind was revolting. He was completely burned out.

A CEO came to me this Fall after building a $10 million annual revenue business in Los Angeles.

She and her business partner had pushed themselves so hard that the business partner’s spouse demanded that the partner quit the business and go get a regular job. She saw the impact it was having on him and their family. The remaining CEO was now carrying all the pressure on his own. He wondered what might happen to him next.

Over a decade of studying high-achievers across seven groundbreaking studies, 10,000+ participants and 50 million datapoints, I’ve developed a scientifically validated toolset that measures exactly where your Suffer Ceiling is, and how far you’ve already exceeded it.

The toolset is called the Optimal Pace Protocol and it allows anyone to commit to return to their Suffer Ceiling, so they can maximize their performance, never burn out, and stay in the game long enough to see their wildest dreams come true.

If this resonates, here are three things I know to be true about you:

You have what it takes to keep going even when the road goes on forever.

You have the capacity and the ability to achieve great things.

And you can learn to thrive through anything and everything that stands in your way.

Today, I run Dory, a community of over 10,000 high-pressure high-achievers who run their lives together on the Optimal Pace Protocol.

We offer memberships for every stage of the journey. Whether you're just starting out, are deep in the trenches, or on the verge of burning out and giving up, this community is here for you.