Why it's so hard to stay on top?

I have found a disturbing phenomena that pervades human beings.

When you have no success, the goal is to simply succeed, once.  Really not much thought is given to what happens after you succeed.  Since most people have never really succeeded even once in their lives (in a big way), it's safe to say very little people give much thought to what happens after you make it big.

It's quite simple really.  After you succeed, you change.  It's inevitable really.  The fame, money, respect that people shower upon you is intoxicating.  Only the Dalai Lama could stay indifferent to all this drug-like ego massaging that is bestowed upon you.

Just because you are humble now, and believe you have always been humble, does not mean you will stay humble after succeeding.  It's like saying, I've never done drugs up until now, so even if I did heroin or crack I'd be able to stop anytime.

It's so intoxicating, that like drugs, it also has the power to rewire your brain in many ways.  I actually feel that people are biochemically altered after their first success.  They had a little too much dopamine in too short of a time, and that can potentially fuck up their thinking in many ways.  They get big-headed, they get arrogant, they have superiority complexes, they have persecution complexes, they feel paranoid and insecure, they feel like they don't have to put up with any shit from society anymore.  None of these are really game-changing in of themselves, but bundle them up all into a single package, and it's something that can really fuck you up.

When you've never tasted success, when you're a virgin, you have nothing to lose and none of this emotional baggage.  You're less afraid to take risks, to be different, to do something your own way.

Once you've gotten success, and are so afraid to lose it - thinking becomes more short-term - you need easy ways to maintain the status quo, easy ways to boost revenue.  Creativity takes a dive.  You start delegating more often, because you've upgraded your social status and don't need to put up with everyday life shit anymore.

Artists tend to suffer the most from this kind of phenomena.  Just look at George Lucas, and how he screwed up the Star Wars prequels in such a big way.  All the inside scoop videos tell the story of how even his staff were objecting to Jar Jar Binks, but he wouldn't have it any other way.

Natural born leaders however, can probably take this opportunity to expand aggressively, hire good employees, and start a company.  But it would take miraculous qualities such as those found in Steve Jobs to continue producing game-changing stuff.  And I have no doubt that it just gets harder and harder as time goes by.

There is a certain lightness, purity, innocence of never having made it big - that can never be reclaimed once you do.  How much that lightness, purity, and innocence contributed to your first success, is also the reduction in chance that you'll make a second success.