June 25, 2025 • 11 mins
Good life events may be more traumatic than the negative ones.
Trauma comes from the conclusion you came to after the life event… Not the event itself.
In this episode, I talk about how success, advice, mentorship, winning, and other accomplishments may be more traumatic than some of the negative events that have happened in your life.
All life events have the potential to influence your belief system.
Therefore, you should make sure that your recovery plan includes examining all potentially problematic beliefs. Even if they look “good” on the surface.
I spend a good amount of time talking about trauma in my book. If you have not yet bought my book, you can download the first chapter for free here: https://successfuladdict.com/booksample
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Having a mentor tell you how to become
more successful, having a parent,
tell you to go to Harvard Medical School,
having a a childhood family friend show you
how to create passive income or invest in
the stock market. These are all potentially
traumatic events.
You are listening to the sex addiction podcast
for high achievers, business professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs.
(00:23):
This podcast is designed to apply sobriety and
recovery principles specifically to the mindset of the
high achiever. I'm your host, Roland Cochran, Cochran,
founder of the Successful Addict, a recovery group
for high achieving men struggling with sex and
porn addiction. For more information about joining our
group or attending our next retreat, visit successfuladdict.com.
And now, enjoy the rest of the episode.
(00:46):
And that is why I'm recording this episode
is too often when we talk about trauma,
everyone's head goes to these negative
experiences
that we have in our lives. Right? These
big bad things or sometimes often the big
t traumas. Right? Physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal
abuse. But the truth is trauma is anything
that alters
the natural course of the direction of your
(01:08):
life. Right? So anytime that you experience an
event, maybe you get some advice,
parenting advice, mentorship advice,
maybe you are just observing
others, other people who you respect and admire,
people you, look up to or you wanna
be more like.
All of these things have the potential to
be traumatic. And I think that is, to
(01:28):
me, one of the big hang ups with
guys kind of moving slower through their recovery
is we're constantly hunting for these negative events.
Right? But I from my experience, both personally
and, you know, with, the guys in our
groups, you know, a lot of the most
traumatic events that have happened to them are
actually positive events.
Right? Winning the national championship and receiving the
(01:50):
praise and admiration from, you know, your team
members and your parents. Right? You know, on
the surface, that looks like a really good
thing. Right? No one would call that traumatic.
Right? You work so hard to, you know,
win the state championship. How could that possibly
be a traumatic event? Well, it doesn't have
to be, but it could be. And what
I mean by that is the event happens,
you know, and this and this isn't just
specific to that that,
(02:11):
you know, winning the national championship. This could
be anything. Right? The event happens
and then there's a conclusion that we draw
from that event. Every single time there are
some varying level of conclusion. So let's say
it's something like winning the national championship,
One could draw the conclusion
that
I need to accomplish these grand gestures
(02:32):
in front of an audience
in order for them to to like me,
in order for me to matter. Right? And
and and why did the young man draw
such a conclusion? Well, let's say no one
really noticed him. No one complimented him. No
one really celebrated his life or his talents
until this victory. Right? He wins the state
championship. Let's say he's the the the star
(02:53):
quarterback for the football team. And now he's
being celebrated, he's being talked about. Right? Maybe
his his his face is in the newspaper.
Right? And so if if this feels like
a very you know, maybe the time that
this young man has felt important or celebrated.
Right? His parents are are so proud of
him. They're they're telling everybody in the community.
You know, there could be this this potential
(03:14):
conclusion that he needs to do this again
and again and again and again and again.
Now some of you might listening might say,
so? What's wrong with him, you know, accomplishing
great things, you know, athletically and non athletically?
What's wrong with that?
Well, there might not be anything wrong with
it. It just depends on what conclusion he
he comes to. You know? So let's say
that the conclusion is I need to impress
(03:37):
people. I need to I need to accomplish
hard things, and I need to accomplish as
many hard things as possible. Right? Because that's
the only way to impress people, and the
more people I impress, the, you know, better
of a person I am, the more value
I I bring. Right? The the the it
enhances my self worth. Right?
Now if that person cannot keep up with
(03:58):
the accomplishments. Right? You know, it was easy
when he was in high school. Right? But,
you know, becoming you know, winning the national
championship in collegiate football, that's that's a hard
thing to do. You know? Winning the Super
Bowl, that's even harder. Right? So let's say
that, he doesn't make the team in college.
So now he can no longer play football.
Alright. So now that is out of the
cards.
So now what's left? Right? So it depends
(04:20):
on what else he did that was impressive.
Right? So this could be, you know, maybe
he he saw some scholastic
success. Right? Maybe his grades were really good.
Okay. So that propels him for another four
years or potentially eight years. Let's say he
goes to grad school and,
gets his master's degree or his doctorate degree.
Now he has this place to practice getting
good grades.
Right? So he's he's keeping this charade up.
(04:42):
Right? He's impressing people. He's doing hard things.
He's staying in the top 1%. Okay. So
now he's out of school though. So now
what? Right? So he can't use grades. He
can't use football. So, okay, he gets a
job. Let's say he's in some sort of
a sales position. Okay? So now he has
to be in the top 1%,
if not number one,
in his in his industry for selling whatever
(05:03):
it is, the thing that is that he
sells. So he's pursuing and climbing the ladder
and trying to, set well, you know, again,
sales, you know, now this is difficult. You
know, the world's full of a lot of
other people who might be just as talented
or more talented than you. So will you
be number one every single month? Right? And
how realistic is that?
So my my point is, you know, here
was this event that one would never call
(05:24):
traumatic. Right? You know, he's worked he's worked
so hard to win the national championship in
high school.
But now look at what this did. Right?
The the event occurred. He concluded that he
needed to accomplish hard things to matter, to
be significant, for people to care about him.
And so now he's on this mission his
whole life to accomplish hard things.
(05:45):
Now, again, you still might be asking, Roland,
I'm still not seeing the trauma here. Well,
here's the trauma because the conclusion was if
the more hard things I accomplish,
the more people care about me. So here's
the opposite of that. If I'm unable to
accomplish hard things, if I'm unable to do
something rare or remarkable,
do I matter?
(06:06):
And inevitably, he is going to find himself
in some sort of position where, you know,
his industry is being taken over by AI.
So now his industry is disappearing. Right? So
this thing that he had now dedicated his
life to for ten years, it's going away.
He can't now do that anymore. So now
he has to change careers. And then maybe
AI takes over that career and so on
(06:26):
and so on and so on. So the
the the point is while it may not
look like you're very stereotypical childhood trauma, here
is this adult male
who constantly
needs to prove that he is in the
top 1% of everything that he's doing or
he is not okay. He does not feel
significant.
Right? So let's say he finds himself in
a position where maybe he's in a career
(06:47):
and he's not good at that one. Right?
He can't be 1% in the top 1%
because he's just simply not talented in that
way. So now he needs to change another
career and again and again. Now let's say
he's on his career
and he's still unable
to be in the top percent in this
in this career. That's five failed attempts.
Right now what is his story? Is he
(07:08):
telling himself the story that, oh, I'm too
old?
Right? I've lost my edge.
I don't I've I've lost my passion. I
don't I don't have the skill. And then
what's gonna happen?
Right? What's he gonna do? Is he gonna
turn to females and women? Right? He's gonna
is he gonna start getting the attention from
women to start make himself feel better?
You know, maybe maybe not. Maybe he's gonna
latch on to another addiction. Maybe it would
(07:29):
be a substance.
But I but are you seeing here how
trauma works? Right? The point is it doesn't
have to be some sort of abuse abusive
event. It could be a really positive event
that made you feel really, really great,
but the trauma is the conclusion.
It's the conclusion that you draw
from that event and the significance that that
(07:49):
has on your life, the world, how you're
seen by others.
So I I hope this helps, kind of
expand your definition of trauma. You know, a
lot of a lot of it is just
simply advice
that we got from our parents, from our
mentors, maybe something you saw on TV or
on social media. Right? All of this data
is entering your life and you're drawing conclusions
(08:10):
from all of it. Right? In order to
matter, I need to do this, this, and
this. In order to have friends, I need
to wear these certain amounts of clothes. In
order to earn the respect of the people
in my community, you know, I need to
have a house that looks like this, a
car looks look like this, I need to
be a member of this country club, my
golf game, I need to get my golf
score to this or no one's gonna take
me seriously or wanna hang out with me.
You know, who knows what the conclusions are
(08:31):
that you are drawing from these various things
happening in your life.
But, you know, again, the conclusion could be
I'm too old, I'm not skinny enough, enough,
my muscles aren't big enough, my bank account
is not big enough. Right? All of these
things enter our life and we too often
we don't look at them as traumatic.
But, you know, again, my definition of trauma,
(08:52):
and I and I think this is alignment
with a lot of definitions of, of trauma.
You know, it's these things happening. It's altering
the course of how you would have lived
your life had that event not occurred.
Right? So now that that event occurred and
you drew the conclusion that you drew from
that event,
now you are gonna live your life different.
You're gonna make different decisions. You're gonna go
into a different career path. You maybe decided
(09:12):
to have kids. Maybe you didn't decide to
have kids. Maybe you got married. Maybe you
chose not to get married. Maybe you don't
see the value in marriage because marriage looks
like an inconvenience
according to the new belief system. Right? So
the point is all these things are entering
your life and they start to alter your
decision making skills. And rather than looking inward
at how does this make me feel, what
kind of decision do I wanna make, what's
(09:32):
the right decision for me, Right? What's the
right lifestyle
for me to live? You don't do that.
Right? We start we start buying into these
conclusions that we made from these events that
happened in our life and that is trauma.
Whether it's something positive, whether it's something negative,
it doesn't matter. Anytime that something enters your
life and it convinces you to make a
different decision, a decision that you wouldn't have
(09:54):
normally made on your own, right? What what
you truly the true you, the authentic you,
the life that you really need to be
living, you might not be living that. In
fact, the more mentors and the more people
who have given you advice, you might have
listened to them and you might be living
what, you know, America would define is as
a successful existence. Right? You have the money,
(10:14):
the job, the career, the looks, the cars,
the material things, whatever,
but you might not feel fulfilled at all.
It might be a life that someone like
you was never designed to live ever.
Right? So here's all these what looks like
nice things happening to you, but your fulfillment's
lower than ever before. You know, a lot
of these people are depressed. I mean, you've
seen this. There's a lot of extremely successful,
(10:34):
you know, blessed individuals who've taken their life
because their life just feels so hollow. It
feels so unfulfilling. It feels, you know, they're
just miles away from the person that they
were meant to become.
So my goal of kind of creating this
video and then this podcast episode for you
guys was so that you can tap into
a wider variety and a bigger definition of
(10:56):
trauma.
Because again, all of these maladaptive
behaviors, addiction, compulsion,
make just just making mistakes, acting outside of
our value system, all of these things are
a result of the things that we have
learned.
And, again, some of them positive, some of
them negative. Doesn't really matter if they're perceived
as good or bad. The the point is,
how far off are you from the person
(11:17):
that you are meant to be and the
life that you are meant to live? That's
trauma.
Thanks for listening to this episode. If you
are a high achiever with a sex addiction
and you're looking for a recovery group full
of like minded men, visit successfuladdict.com.
We provide men with a recovery mastermind group
using four day retreats, weekly group calls, and
daily accountability check ins. If you wanna achieve
(11:39):
long term sobriety and save your marriage, go
to our website and fill out our application.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please pass it along to a friend in
recovery who would benefit from listening. It is
my mission to get this information out to
as many high achievers as possible, and I
can't do it without your help.
Having a mentor tell you how to become
more successful, having a parent,
tell you to go to Harvard Medical School,
having a a childhood family friend show you
how to create passive income or invest in
the stock market. These are all potentially
traumatic events.
You are listening to the sex addiction podcast
for high achievers, business professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs.
(00:23):
This podcast is designed to apply sobriety and
recovery principles specifically to the mindset of the
high achiever. I'm your host, Roland Cochran, Cochran,
founder of the Successful Addict, a recovery group
for high achieving men struggling with sex and
porn addiction. For more information about joining our
group or attending our next retreat, visit successfuladdict.com.
And now, enjoy the rest of the episode.
(00:46):
And that is why I'm recording this episode
is too often when we talk about trauma,
everyone's head goes to these negative
experiences
that we have in our lives. Right? These
big bad things or sometimes often the big
t traumas. Right? Physical abuse, sexual abuse, verbal
abuse. But the truth is trauma is anything
that alters
the natural course of the direction of your
(01:08):
life. Right? So anytime that you experience an
event, maybe you get some advice,
parenting advice, mentorship advice,
maybe you are just observing
others, other people who you respect and admire,
people you, look up to or you wanna
be more like.
All of these things have the potential to
be traumatic. And I think that is, to
(01:28):
me, one of the big hang ups with
guys kind of moving slower through their recovery
is we're constantly hunting for these negative events.
Right? But I from my experience, both personally
and, you know, with, the guys in our
groups, you know, a lot of the most
traumatic events that have happened to them are
actually positive events.
Right? Winning the national championship and receiving the
(01:50):
praise and admiration from, you know, your team
members and your parents. Right? You know, on
the surface, that looks like a really good
thing. Right? No one would call that traumatic.
Right? You work so hard to, you know,
win the state championship. How could that possibly
be a traumatic event? Well, it doesn't have
to be, but it could be. And what
I mean by that is the event happens,
you know, and this and this isn't just
specific to that that,
(02:11):
you know, winning the national championship. This could
be anything. Right? The event happens
and then there's a conclusion that we draw
from that event. Every single time there are
some varying level of conclusion. So let's say
it's something like winning the national championship,
One could draw the conclusion
that
I need to accomplish these grand gestures
(02:32):
in front of an audience
in order for them to to like me,
in order for me to matter. Right? And
and and why did the young man draw
such a conclusion? Well, let's say no one
really noticed him. No one complimented him. No
one really celebrated his life or his talents
until this victory. Right? He wins the state
championship. Let's say he's the the the star
(02:53):
quarterback for the football team. And now he's
being celebrated, he's being talked about. Right? Maybe
his his his face is in the newspaper.
Right? And so if if this feels like
a very you know, maybe the time that
this young man has felt important or celebrated.
Right? His parents are are so proud of
him. They're they're telling everybody in the community.
You know, there could be this this potential
(03:14):
conclusion that he needs to do this again
and again and again and again and again.
Now some of you might listening might say,
so? What's wrong with him, you know, accomplishing
great things, you know, athletically and non athletically?
What's wrong with that?
Well, there might not be anything wrong with
it. It just depends on what conclusion he
he comes to. You know? So let's say
that the conclusion is I need to impress
(03:37):
people. I need to I need to accomplish
hard things, and I need to accomplish as
many hard things as possible. Right? Because that's
the only way to impress people, and the
more people I impress, the, you know, better
of a person I am, the more value
I I bring. Right? The the the it
enhances my self worth. Right?
Now if that person cannot keep up with
(03:58):
the accomplishments. Right? You know, it was easy
when he was in high school. Right? But,
you know, becoming you know, winning the national
championship in collegiate football, that's that's a hard
thing to do. You know? Winning the Super
Bowl, that's even harder. Right? So let's say
that, he doesn't make the team in college.
So now he can no longer play football.
Alright. So now that is out of the
cards.
So now what's left? Right? So it depends
(04:20):
on what else he did that was impressive.
Right? So this could be, you know, maybe
he he saw some scholastic
success. Right? Maybe his grades were really good.
Okay. So that propels him for another four
years or potentially eight years. Let's say he
goes to grad school and,
gets his master's degree or his doctorate degree.
Now he has this place to practice getting
good grades.
Right? So he's he's keeping this charade up.
(04:42):
Right? He's impressing people. He's doing hard things.
He's staying in the top 1%. Okay. So
now he's out of school though. So now
what? Right? So he can't use grades. He
can't use football. So, okay, he gets a
job. Let's say he's in some sort of
a sales position. Okay? So now he has
to be in the top 1%,
if not number one,
in his in his industry for selling whatever
(05:03):
it is, the thing that is that he
sells. So he's pursuing and climbing the ladder
and trying to, set well, you know, again,
sales, you know, now this is difficult. You
know, the world's full of a lot of
other people who might be just as talented
or more talented than you. So will you
be number one every single month? Right? And
how realistic is that?
So my my point is, you know, here
was this event that one would never call
(05:24):
traumatic. Right? You know, he's worked he's worked
so hard to win the national championship in
high school.
But now look at what this did. Right?
The the event occurred. He concluded that he
needed to accomplish hard things to matter, to
be significant, for people to care about him.
And so now he's on this mission his
whole life to accomplish hard things.
(05:45):
Now, again, you still might be asking, Roland,
I'm still not seeing the trauma here. Well,
here's the trauma because the conclusion was if
the more hard things I accomplish,
the more people care about me. So here's
the opposite of that. If I'm unable to
accomplish hard things, if I'm unable to do
something rare or remarkable,
do I matter?
(06:06):
And inevitably, he is going to find himself
in some sort of position where, you know,
his industry is being taken over by AI.
So now his industry is disappearing. Right? So
this thing that he had now dedicated his
life to for ten years, it's going away.
He can't now do that anymore. So now
he has to change careers. And then maybe
AI takes over that career and so on
(06:26):
and so on and so on. So the
the the point is while it may not
look like you're very stereotypical childhood trauma, here
is this adult male
who constantly
needs to prove that he is in the
top 1% of everything that he's doing or
he is not okay. He does not feel
significant.
Right? So let's say he finds himself in
a position where maybe he's in a career
(06:47):
and he's not good at that one. Right?
He can't be 1% in the top 1%
because he's just simply not talented in that
way. So now he needs to change another
career and again and again. Now let's say
he's on his career
and he's still unable
to be in the top percent in this
in this career. That's five failed attempts.
Right now what is his story? Is he
(07:08):
telling himself the story that, oh, I'm too
old?
Right? I've lost my edge.
I don't I've I've lost my passion. I
don't I don't have the skill. And then
what's gonna happen?
Right? What's he gonna do? Is he gonna
turn to females and women? Right? He's gonna
is he gonna start getting the attention from
women to start make himself feel better?
You know, maybe maybe not. Maybe he's gonna
latch on to another addiction. Maybe it would
(07:29):
be a substance.
But I but are you seeing here how
trauma works? Right? The point is it doesn't
have to be some sort of abuse abusive
event. It could be a really positive event
that made you feel really, really great,
but the trauma is the conclusion.
It's the conclusion that you draw
from that event and the significance that that
(07:49):
has on your life, the world, how you're
seen by others.
So I I hope this helps, kind of
expand your definition of trauma. You know, a
lot of a lot of it is just
simply advice
that we got from our parents, from our
mentors, maybe something you saw on TV or
on social media. Right? All of this data
is entering your life and you're drawing conclusions
(08:10):
from all of it. Right? In order to
matter, I need to do this, this, and
this. In order to have friends, I need
to wear these certain amounts of clothes. In
order to earn the respect of the people
in my community, you know, I need to
have a house that looks like this, a
car looks look like this, I need to
be a member of this country club, my
golf game, I need to get my golf
score to this or no one's gonna take
me seriously or wanna hang out with me.
You know, who knows what the conclusions are
(08:31):
that you are drawing from these various things
happening in your life.
But, you know, again, the conclusion could be
I'm too old, I'm not skinny enough, enough,
my muscles aren't big enough, my bank account
is not big enough. Right? All of these
things enter our life and we too often
we don't look at them as traumatic.
But, you know, again, my definition of trauma,
(08:52):
and I and I think this is alignment
with a lot of definitions of, of trauma.
You know, it's these things happening. It's altering
the course of how you would have lived
your life had that event not occurred.
Right? So now that that event occurred and
you drew the conclusion that you drew from
that event,
now you are gonna live your life different.
You're gonna make different decisions. You're gonna go
into a different career path. You maybe decided
(09:12):
to have kids. Maybe you didn't decide to
have kids. Maybe you got married. Maybe you
chose not to get married. Maybe you don't
see the value in marriage because marriage looks
like an inconvenience
according to the new belief system. Right? So
the point is all these things are entering
your life and they start to alter your
decision making skills. And rather than looking inward
at how does this make me feel, what
kind of decision do I wanna make, what's
(09:32):
the right decision for me, Right? What's the
right lifestyle
for me to live? You don't do that.
Right? We start we start buying into these
conclusions that we made from these events that
happened in our life and that is trauma.
Whether it's something positive, whether it's something negative,
it doesn't matter. Anytime that something enters your
life and it convinces you to make a
different decision, a decision that you wouldn't have
(09:54):
normally made on your own, right? What what
you truly the true you, the authentic you,
the life that you really need to be
living, you might not be living that. In
fact, the more mentors and the more people
who have given you advice, you might have
listened to them and you might be living
what, you know, America would define is as
a successful existence. Right? You have the money,
(10:14):
the job, the career, the looks, the cars,
the material things, whatever,
but you might not feel fulfilled at all.
It might be a life that someone like
you was never designed to live ever.
Right? So here's all these what looks like
nice things happening to you, but your fulfillment's
lower than ever before. You know, a lot
of these people are depressed. I mean, you've
seen this. There's a lot of extremely successful,
(10:34):
you know, blessed individuals who've taken their life
because their life just feels so hollow. It
feels so unfulfilling. It feels, you know, they're
just miles away from the person that they
were meant to become.
So my goal of kind of creating this
video and then this podcast episode for you
guys was so that you can tap into
a wider variety and a bigger definition of
(10:56):
trauma.
Because again, all of these maladaptive
behaviors, addiction, compulsion,
make just just making mistakes, acting outside of
our value system, all of these things are
a result of the things that we have
learned.
And, again, some of them positive, some of
them negative. Doesn't really matter if they're perceived
as good or bad. The the point is,
how far off are you from the person
(11:17):
that you are meant to be and the
life that you are meant to live? That's
trauma.
Thanks for listening to this episode. If you
are a high achiever with a sex addiction
and you're looking for a recovery group full
of like minded men, visit successfuladdict.com.
We provide men with a recovery mastermind group
using four day retreats, weekly group calls, and
daily accountability check ins. If you wanna achieve
(11:39):
long term sobriety and save your marriage, go
to our website and fill out our application.
If you enjoyed this episode,
please pass it along to a friend in
recovery who would benefit from listening. It is
my mission to get this information out to
as many high achievers as possible, and I
can't do it without your help.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!