The applause fades faster than we expect
The ballroom shimmered with light. Cameras clicked, champagne glasses clinked, and the audience rose to applaud the CEO of the Year. Hours later, in her hotel suite, she sat alone, staring at the trophy on the table. Her phone buzzed with congratulatory messages, yet she felt a hollow quietness inside.
That moment captures what I call the emotional hangover of achievement. It is a quiet, confusing dip that often follows success. It’s the uneasy stillness after the spotlight, the whisper that asks, “Is this all there is?”
In my years coaching executives and public leaders across Africa and beyond, I’ve learned that success has a shadow. We prepare leaders to recover from failure, but rarely from victory. We train them to climb, but not to land.
When Success Stops Feeling Like Success
Achievement should feel fulfilling. Yet many high performers admit that the moments after their biggest wins often feel strangely anticlimactic.
Why? Because behind every milestone lies an invisible invoice. The emotional debt accumulated from pressure, isolation, and unrelenting performance expectations.
That demand often comes quietly through fatigue that no amount of sleep can fix, or through anxiety that surfaces in the calm after the storm.
The Paradox of Applause
The higher a leader rises, the fewer people can understand their fatigue. Applause, while affirming, also isolates. Everyone celebrates the achievement; few understand the emotional price.
One senior executive once told me, “Dr. Abiola, the applause used to energize me. Now it scares me because it means I have to maintain a version of myself that people expect, not who I really am.”
That’s the paradox of applause. It validates you publicly but can detach you privately. You become an icon to others and a stranger to yourself.
The Illusion of Arrival
We grow up believing happiness lives on the other side of success. We think when we get the promotion, when we publish the book, when the valuation crosses a billion. But success is not a destination; it is a transition point.
The danger of the arrival illusion is that once we get there, we expect perpetual joy. Instead, we often meet silence and that silence can feel like failure.
As I wrote in TITLE:
“Leadership is an emotional marathon disguised as a professional role.”
Every finish line simply reveals another stretch of road. Without emotional recalibration, that motion leads to internal depletion.
The Hidden Emotions Behind High Performance
When success begins to sting, it doesn’t always show up dramatically. It appears subtly:
•Irritation at small issues that never used to bother you.
•A strange numbness after major wins.
•Difficulty sleeping despite being celebrated.
•Guilt for feeling ungrateful.
•Fear that your best days are already behind you.
These are not signs of weakness. They are signals of an internal imbalance with your nervous system trying to process an adrenaline withdrawal after prolonged performance pressure.
Neuroscientists call it an emotional hangover. It is a residual psychological and physiological state that lingers after intense experiences. Dopamine, the brain’s reward chemical spikes during achievement pursuits, then drops sharply once the goal is reached. The resulting void can feel like emptiness.
An Invitation to the CEO Forum
If this resonates with you.If you’ve ever felt the quiet cost of success that no one talks about, then the CEO Forum during TPP Fest 2025 is a room you belong in.
It’s a confidential, high-trust space where top executives gather to explore what I call the emotional economics of leadership where we obtain insights on how to lead powerfully without losing peace, how to sustain success without sacrificing self, and how to transform expectation into alignment.
At the Forum, we don’t just talk about profits and performance. We talk about the people behind them, the humans wearing the titles, carrying the weight, and taming the invisible toll of leadership every day.
Join us. Let’s continue this conversation face-to-face in a place where authenticity meets strategy, and where great leaders come not to perform, but to recharge.
Truth be told, you can’t lead the world effectively if you’ve lost yourself internally. Reach out to my team to reserve your seat and bring your Csuite Leaders along.
Next week on Taming the Emotional Hangover of Achievement
In Part 2 — The Science and Psychology of Success Fatigue, we’ll dive deeper into why this crash happens. We will explore the biological, psychological, and emotional patterns that turn achievement into anxiety.
Because the truth is, the same system that fuels your climb can sabotage your calm.
And until leaders learn to manage the inner aftermath of winning, even the best external success will feel incomplete.
Visit www.tppafrica.com for the full article
About Dr. Abiola Salami
Dr. Abiola Salami is the Convener of Dr Abiola Salami International Leadership Bootcamp ; The Peak PerformerTM FestivalMade4More Accelerator Program and The New Year Kickoff Summit. He is the Principal Performance Strategist at CHAMP – a full scale professional services firm trusted by high performing business leaders for providing Executive Coaching, Workforce Development & Advisory Services to improve performance. You can reach his team on [email protected] and connect with him @abiolachamp on all social media platforms.
