Personal Transformation; Why You Need All Three Levels to Succeed

Mistakenly substituting one level of transformation is a major cause of celebrity meltdowns and personal failure

Photo by the author and courtesy of Chuck Black Photography

Standing in the checkout aisle of the grocery store I make eye contact with a celebrity mugshot on the cover of a tabloid. It’s probably another scandal featuring a rising star who got drunk, high or both and then wrecked their expensive car on Rodeo Drive.

Wrecked by Success

These high-profile meltdowns are so common, we have a phrase to describe them as “wrecked by success.” The assumption is that that too much money and fame ruined these people. But the truth is, these people were already wrecks.

Money and fame did not ruin them, they were already flawed. All the wealth and success did was amplify who they were and made their inevitable fall all the more dramatic.

If this person never made it big, the odds are the same thing would have happened. Not with a luxury sedan in an exclusive shopping district in Beverly Hills, but with a used Chevy in a Walmart parking lot.

The real problem is not that money and fame changed these people; the real problem is that it did not change them. All their success failed to…