Watch a rocket launch into space. As it climbs higher, it sheds its boosters one by one. Each stage falls away, spent and burnt out, while the payload continues its journey to the stars.
This is the secret behind many celebrated stories of extraordinary success.
The tech gods. The kingmakers. The master capitalists. The breakout founders. Look closely at their stories, and you'll notice a pattern that few discuss: They're usually divorced.
It's a detail we tend to skip over, treating it as an unremarkable footnote in their journey to greatness. Instead we look to them for insights and mental models. We focus on their morning routines and habits. No one cares about the broken bonds left in their wake.
It's something I've spent a lot of time thinking about, as the stories get closer to home. I see the pattern infect my role models, friends, and even rear its head in my own life.
The cost of greatness
Is this just the cost of doing business? Is this just 'what it takes'? What can we learn from sifting through the rubble? I don't have a firm answer yet, but there are three models for why the pattern plays out so consistently:
First, you could consider it a negative externality - divorce, fractured relationships; perhaps you accept that these are the inevitable byproduct of achievement at scale. Just as you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, perhaps you can't build an empire without burning through your closest relationships.
Second, you could consider it a selection effect - perhaps the kind of person willing to sacrifice everything for success, is the same kind of person who cannot maintain healthy relationships. So it's not that success causes the breakdown; it's that there's something about the drive itself that both propels certain people to the top and ensures their personal life pays the price.
Third, you might consider the element of identity. Many of us tie our identity to our relationships, and when those bonds are severed, the old self is free to morph into a pure vehicle for ambition. It makes you wonder what you might be able to accomplish if you weren't worried about sustaining certain relationships.
The secret fourth answer is you could reject the premise entirely. Perhaps you can have it all, as long as you're willing to carefully define what 'all' means to you.
It's one thing to look blindly at the success of others and the choices they've made. It's one thing to idolise vainly and try to replicate their results. But the context of those achievements makes all the difference.
The happiest people I've known are often those who chose not to optimise for success above all else. They drew a line in the sand and said "this is enough." They built a box around their lives and learned to find joy within it, rather than constantly reaching outside for more.
This isn't an argument against ambition. It's a call for honest accounting. Every throne has its price. Every crown has its weight. The question isn't whether you can have it all - the mounting evidence suggests you cannot. The question is whether 'all' is worth having, and what you're willing to trade for the things you want most.
We rarely talk about this aspect of success because it contradicts our favourite narratives.
We want to believe that with enough hustle, enough optimisation, enough clever thinking, we can transcend the fundamental tradeoffs of life. That we can be the exception to the rule.
But what if the most important mental model isn't about how to succeed, but about how to choose what success means to you?
The happiest and most fulfilled people are the people who choose not to optimise for success over everything else. Those who draw a line in the sand and say "this is what I'm happy with".
