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David Tian, Ph.D., is a private adviser to founders and senior leaders on the bigger questions behind what they’re building.
Ph.D., University of Michigan, specializing in moral psychology and Asian philosophy. Certified IFS Therapy Practitioner (Level 3). Brown University Certified Leadership Coach. Former university professor of philosophy. Helping founders and high achievers work through the bigger questions behind what they’re building, through Asian philosophy, psychological insight, and relational depth.
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How Past Success Can Cost You Your Future: The Identity Trap | (#112) Beyond Success: Psychology & Philosophy for Achievers, with David Tian, Ph.D.
Over the years, you became someone who adapted to the circumstances back then, and now you feel compelled to keep being that person. This old identity is a big reason for your success. But it also imprisons and restricts your future.
You feel neurotically compelled to defend this old identity, even when your circumstances have dramatically shifted. It stuffs you in a box where you’re unable to grow. You dismiss information, advice, or possibilities because accepting them would challenge who you believe you are.
It actively prevents you from building a more fulfilling life. And it’s terribly hard to even notice when your old identity takes over, let alone create a newer, more flexible, and less rigid one.
You’re Successful, So Why Don’t You Feel Good Enough? | (#111) Beyond Success: Psychology & Philosophy for Achievers, with David Tian, Ph.D.
Have you achieved success only to be met with a background anxiety that’s slowly poisoning your enjoyment of life? Do you feel like an imposter who always has to stay “on guard” to prevent the mask from falling?
When you know how much of your success you owe to luck, you can’t honestly use it as proof that you’re better than other people.
If you persist in looking down on them as less than, then you’re just lying to yourself.
You can fool other people. But you still have to live with what you know is the truth. And until your conscience is clear, no amount of success will allow you to enjoy your life in peace.
This is why billionaires are sometimes the unhappiest people even despite their incredible wealth. And, bizarrely enough, it’s also the reason white supremacists are so unhappy too.
But here’s the good news…
Why You Don’t Feel Loved By People Who Think They Love You | (#110) Beyond Success: Psychology & Philosophy for Achievers, with David Tian, Ph.D.
You’ve thought the decision through and had good reasons for making it. But now you’re living with the results, and you keep wondering whether you chose wrong.
Maybe you ended a relationship and miss the person. Or you declined an opportunity and can’t stop thinking about what you gave up.
But if you take the painful consequences as proof of a bad decision, then you end up returning to the same toxic relationship, or restoring the original unresolved problem, or spending another year going back in circles. Or keep flip-flopping until you no longer trust yourself to make a good decision and follow through.
Yet, you can’t simply ignore your gut feelings, either. Sometimes they reveal a problem you overlooked.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is David Tian?
David Tian, Ph.D., is a private adviser to founders and high achievers on the bigger questions behind what they're building. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, specializing in Asian philosophy and moral psychology, and was a tenure-track professor of philosophy at the National University of Singapore. He is a Certified IFS Therapy Practitioner (Level 3) and a Brown University Certified Coach.
What is a private adviser to founders and high achievers?
A private adviser works one to one, and in select groups, with a small number of clients on the deeper questions behind their success: what they're building, what it's ultimately for, and what they want a life to add up to. The work is not strategy or performance consulting, though it might include elements of these. Its focus instead is confidential counsel on the person behind the achievement, drawing on philosophy and psychology rather than tactics.
How is private advisory different from coaching, consulting, or psychotherapy?
Coaching optimizes toward a goal. Consulting advises on the business. Psychotherapy heals what is broken. Private advisory is not contained by any of these. Instead, it is a thinking partnership for people who are already successful and are asking what the success was actually for. The subject is always the person, not only the company: their values, motives, relationships, and vision of a life.
Who does David Tian work with?
David works with a small number of founders, entrepreneurs, and senior operators, who have built real success and cleared the goals their younger selves set. They are intellectually rigorous and private about their inner lives. They come not because something is broken, but because the questions underlying the achievements have gotten harder to put off.
What does David Tian help with?
He helps with the bigger questions success raises but doesn't answer: what to build next and whether it's still worth it, how to choose among the options wealth opens up, what role work should play in the rest of a life, and what a person wants it all to have amounted to. His authority also covers identity beyond achievement, major life transitions, meaning, and mortality. Because these questions eventually reach the whole of a person's life, the work also covers love, trust, relationships, and family.
What makes David Tian different from other advisers to the successful?
Most advisers to the successful work on the company: strategy, operations, the next raise, the board. David works on the person behind it all. He is not a corporate strategist or an operating adviser, and the work is not coaching or therapy. His training is in philosophy and psychology, and he has spent nearly two decades helping high achievers with identity, meaning, and their relationships. He understands ambition without worshipping it or pathologizing it.