Episode #85
Why Success Makes You Feel Empty
Success without inner connection creates emptiness. The fix is integrating the wolf - deep self-connection - without losing the jaguar drive.
20 min
Key takeaways
- Recognize that emptiness alongside success is structural, not personal: running entirely on jaguar energy - focused drive without inner connection - produces a black hole no achievement can fill.
- Introduce the wolf deliberately. Deep connection with yourself comes first. Only from that foundation can you connect with other people, with nature, with anything outside yourself.
- Start with small things. Train yourself to feel a bite of food, a smell, a look. If the small things land, the big moments will too. Skip this and the biggest stages in the world feel like nothing.
- Hold both animals at once. The goal is not to replace ambition with stillness. It is to integrate the wolf without losing the jaguar - and to know when to deploy each one.
- Most people think gratitude. They do not feel it. The antidote to emptiness is feeling everything, not thinking the right thoughts about it.
Timestamps
00:00Success and emptiness - the opening claim
00:33From bar owner to club DJ - building the foundation
02:26Playing main rooms alongside Hardwell and Martin Garrix
03:20Mallorca 2012 - the conversation that broke through
06:362,500 people, the climax of the set, and feeling nothing
09:18The conversation with Hardwell - making the choice
11:04The jaguar and the wolf explained
17:18The practice: starting with small things
Show notes
The Core Insight
Success makes you feel empty, and the more successful you are, the more emptiness you experience. This is not a failure of ambition. It is a structural problem: the jaguar - focused, hungry, attacking - cannot fill you up on its own. The wolf, deep connection with yourself and others, is what makes life colorful again.
What This Episode Covers
- Paul's trajectory from local bar DJ in Breda to playing main rooms alongside Hardwell, Martin Garrix, Fedde Le Grand and Von Coman
- The moment in 2012 at Mallorca where a single conversation broke through 22 years of emotional shutdown
- Standing at the climax of a 2,500-person set and feeling nothing - and what that revealed
- The conversation with DJ Hardwell in 2014 that made the decision to stop easy
- Why chasing bigger experiences - planes, substances, extreme situations - is just the jaguar attacking more of life
- What the wolf actually is, and why it can feel dangerous when you are publicly known
- The mindfulness practice disguised as tactical thinking: starting with small things to rewire how you experience big ones
Key Framework
Paul describes two internal forces every high performer carries. The jaguar: singular focus, hunger, forward attack. The wolf: inner connection, depth, presence with others. Most successful people run entirely on jaguar. The antidote to emptiness is not less jaguar. It is introducing the wolf. Feeling everything - a bite of food, the eyes of your partner - without shutting it down. That is where life starts being full again.
Practical Starting Point
If you feel empty and successful at the same time, start with the smallest things. Notice what food does to your body. Pay attention to a single conversation. Let one moment actually land. You are not missing bigger experiences. You are missing depth in the ones you already have.
About Paul Veth
Paul Veth is an entrepreneur and builder. He builds technology to increase the potential of humanity across four companies: Identity First Media, Aligned, MentoSprout and Identity First Marketing. The Identity First framework - start with who you are, amplify with AI, scale without losing the person - runs through all of them.
Topics
success and emptinesshigh performer burnoutjaguar and wolfinner connectionmindfulness for entrepreneursDJ career identityPaul Veth podcastidentity firstfeeling empty despite successwolf jaguar framework
Full transcript
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0:00
0Success makes you feel empty and the more successful you are, the more emptiness you will experience. And this is pretty normal. I notice I experienced this myself and I talked to a lot of famous DJs and artists and they recognize it as well. I'm going to tell you a little bit of a backstory and then I will give you the antidote for it. I began as a DJ at the local bar when I was 18 years old.
0:33
0Pretty soon I became the manager of role and after two years I bought the place. I was a party DJ there. In the meanwhile, I started to play as a club DJ as well with Vinyl in Reda in the Lento and it was amazing. It's the same place as where DJ Tiesto started And when I had my own bar, had to quit playing in the club, but my heart always did go out to house music, tech house music and at my own bar I had to be the party DJ, so it was not right for me. So I sold the place and at that moment when I sold the place, immediately got the opportunity to have my residency at the other local club in Breda called the Spock.
1:23
0And this is amazing. That's the place where DJ Jasto played for ten years. He had his residency there and for me it gave me the opportunity to work on my foundation, to work on my skills as a DJ, but not on playing the records, but more reading the audience, playing with the music and the audience, and of course to enlarge my network because that club was connected to a lot of DJs from the Magic Store, the record store of Fiesta as well. And for me it was a great chance, great opportunity to put myself into the picture of the big programmers. So from that point on, started to be a producer as well because it became more and more important at that moment and I grew my network and got a manager and then I started playing in bigger clubs in The Netherlands.
2:26
0First in the smaller rooms, later in the main rooms. I started to play with famous DJs like Hartwell, Martin Garrix, Von Coman, Veth LeGrande, etcetera, international DJs as well. And for me it was like, let's go. But in the meanwhile I was not really happy because if people ask me, are you happy? I always gave the answer, yes, of course.
2:52
0Here I'm playing with these guys, here's a poster with my name on it. I am having a backroom talks with backstage talks with the most famous DJs of the world. I'm standing on Podia. It's amazing, but it was just only talk, not feelings. And this shifted for me in 2012.
3:20
0I was living at Mallorca, I was playing at the lounge bar and club at Kalamjord and there I met someone and this woman, she asked me, hey Paul, tell me something about your past and I was like, yeah, it was not great, but everyone else has not great stuff in their past. So how is your past? She was like, no, no, no, I want to know. And I couldn't hold it in anymore. For me it was a mask all the time, it was the the wall around my heart all the time and she got rid of it like an animal, like a butcher.
4:06
0Bam. And I started crying in front of her and suddenly I understood, okay, this is the first time I'm crying while there's someone else in twenty two years, that's not okay. And I started to feel things in my body and I was like, what? What's happening? I didn't know how that worked.
4:31
0So from that moment on I said, okay, I'm never going back being a walking head. I want to be the human being as a whole. I want to experience life with all the rich feelings, like the great happy feelings, but the sad feelings as well, because that's what life makes. What makes life very interesting and rich as an experience. But after that I agreed with that with myself, but I was like this toddler.
5:08
0Who didn't know how to cope with feelings. It was quite funny and painful at once. And I was still a DJ, I came back in The Netherlands and I had this great night here in Breda. There's this theater and I was the opening act in the main room. It was amazing.
5:29
0After that I had to jump in the car immediately to go to another club where two and a half thousand people, I had the prime time moment and two and a half thousand people were going crazy and I agreed with myself, okay, from now on every time when I have a gig and I'm standing on stage, will always one time do one step back and let the music play and let everything hit me and to I wanted to experience and feel what it did to me. And it was over there and I knew, okay, this is the biggest drop of my set because when you're playing as a DJ, you are telling a story. You have the beginning, the climax, the ending. So I knew, okay, this is going to be the climax and I was standing there and I was like, okay, let the music come, let the drop come, let the lights, there were visuals and dancers, everything, the MC, and I was like, okay, hit me. And the music dropped and what happened to me?
6:36
0Nothing. I felt nothing, only emptiness. And I was like: this it? Is this what I wanted to do all the time? This was a really great club, the visuals, sound, the place, the podium, everything was spot on.
7:00
0The audience, they were amazing, dancing, shouting, screaming, up high, jumping, everything and still nothing. And the climax is always at the end of your set. So after that I play one more record and the next DJ comes. And I gave it over to the next DJs, I went to the dressing room, changed my shirt and had to jump in my car again to go to the next gig, driving by myself way too fast on the highway to make it on time to the The next gig was like. Blurry for me and after that I still have to drive like one and a half hour back home, jumped in bed at six in the morning.
7:55
0And I was watching the ceiling and I was like. Is this what I really want? Is this what makes me happy? And at that moment I knew one thing. And it has something to do with these two animals you see in front of me, the Jaguar and the Wolf.
8:16
0I have to change something because this is not what I want to experience. Later at that moment I didn't understand this later I understood. Yeah, if you want to feel something. It has not really. Something to do with your surroundings.
8:38
0Of course, your surroundings can make what you feel more intense or less intense. If you pay attention. But it was shut down again in myself. At that moment I made the decision I didn't want to be a DJ. I talked to a famous DJ about this, DJ Hartwell, and asked him, because I was at this point in my DJ career, if I push through now I can get to another level.
9:18
0I was at that point, but I had to make the choice. So I asked DJ Hartwell, who already was famous at that moment, I'm talking about 2014, Is this worth it for me? I'm not talking about his life, not talking about what his feelings are. I'm talking talking about my feelings. Is is it worth it for me?
9:49
0And he gave me some images of the life he lived at that moment and I was like, I don't want that. I don't want that experience of life. So the choice was very easy, but it came with a cost, of course, and it helped me to see, okay, what it was for me is like being a DJ and producer for me was being a jaguar attacking. Lonely. Living my own life attacking and it was in front of me because it gave me focus, I knew what I wanted.
10:36
0I don't know why I wanted it, but I wanted it. I had this hunger, the jaguar. But what happened to me at Mallorca, that was in 2012, was the wolf entering. The wolf connecting with other people and of course with myself. And what 2012 Mallika learned me.
11:04
0Is. First of all, you have to feel a connection within yourself as deeply as possible. And if you feel deeply connected within yourself at that moment, can connect with other people on a deep level and not only with other people, also with nature and surroundings and everything that happens around you, your experience outside of yourself. But only if you feel deeply connected within yourself, you can connect yourself to these surroundings. And that's what the means for me.
11:48
0And to be honest, I still sometimes push the wolf away, because sometimes it can be scary still to connect myself with me, with all my good and bad things in myself. It's not a judgment call. I am happy with everything I am, even with the things I can call bad, but sometimes I don't feel fully connected and more of the time I don't want to connect too much with other people. I want to be the monk, the solistic, hungry creature to attack. And this is the antidote for success.
12:38
0If you only have the jaguar. You will feel empty more and more and more. You you want to. Do more crazy things for the more deeper experiences. So you start jumping out of planes or start using drugs or drink a lot or eat really spicy.
13:03
0It can be everything. You can do things that are not allowed anymore or you only can do because you have a lot of money, because you think that's what fills you up. That's what makes life rich. It's not. It's just a jaguar attacking more of life.
13:22
0And if you only have the jaguar, you feel more and more empty. It's becoming a black hole. Therefore you need to introduce your wolf, your inner connection within yourself. And if you can do this. Only then you can experience life on a deep level and only on that level it's where life really starts to be colorful and bright again.
14:02
0You feel like you are alive. It's not coming with more success. I don't say quit being successful. No, no, no, please no. I like high performers.
14:16
0I like the successful people who push through, who go hard. I like it. That's a jaguar in me, but do it together with the wolf. And then I know there is this voice in your head and that voice will say, yeah, but that's dangerous. And it is, I'm not going to say it's not dangerous, because like I said, I spoke with a lot of famous people.
14:43
0And when you are famous. Feeling deeply connected with yourself and with other people. Can be. Very good. To be attacked, so a lot of external factors, especially.
15:04
0People. Not nice people. People who are angry or negative, they can attack you when you are integrated with your wolf. There is another level above this, but then you have to go really like the Zen Buddha mode where you can integrate these two, feel everything and be okay with it. But at that moment you really have to be the the best Buddhist or the best in yoga.
15:43
0Not not the Asanas only. Really, the full philosophy of Patanjali. You have to be fully integrated with everything and almost understand that everything in life is just like a theater or like a movie played out in your head and within you. And you can understand that if something hurts you, it's because you believe something about it. It's the same with happy feelings.
16:17
0If you believe a compliment about yourself, it can can make you happy because you believe it. If you believe a hate comment about yourself, it hurts. It's just what what you believe about it. But that's the next step. First of all, you want to play the game of managing when do you introduce the jaguar in the moment and at what moments do you introduce the wolf.
16:47
0And with the wolf comes one term And I find it very amazing because you can name it tactical thinking. That sounds great. But in the end it's just mindfulness. Like I said earlier in this video, if you can experience something deeply within yourself, it doesn't matter if it's a big event or the smallest event possible. Possible.
17:18
0And that's your training. If you are successful and you want to feel more, you want to experience more of life, you have to start with the little things. You have to start being mindful when you eat, when you eat something nice like great rib eye. Take a bite and notice in your mind and in your body what it does to you. What do you feel?
17:49
0How does it smell? What do you taste? What do you think? What do you believe about it? And if you make these small things matter again.
18:05
0You will start to experience the bigger things as greater experiences as well. And when you practice this over and over again, you will notice you don't feel empty anymore. You will feel life gives you a lot. You can start to be grateful for all the things in your life again. You start to recognize the feeling of gratefulness because a lot of people say, yeah, I'm grateful for my success and my money and my experiences.
18:42
0Yeah, but most of the people think it, they don't feel it. And the antidote for emptiness is feeling everything. Integrate the wolf Without losing the Jaguar. That's what you have to do. For me, it was amazing what happened to me after I quit being a DJ and life tested me.
19:10
0Five years later, I started to play as a DJ again because it was good money and was like I like playing music. But it's. It didn't work for me. Sometimes people say, do you want to play again, Paul? I say maybe, but then only the music I love.
19:33
0But I. I'm not sure if it's good for me. Because. This will. Attract a different life to me.
19:46
0And the life that's not really good for me. The life I live right now with my family, with my son. With a lot of exercise, good food, some deep connections, not too much. That's what life gives me right now and it's amazing, it's deep, It's full full width experiences and these experiences are great and intense. But not intense like 100,000 people in front of me.
20:23
0Intense like looking into the eyes of my wife. And feel my whole body shiver. That's what. You need to do if you feel empty a lot. Start with.
20:42
0Trying to feel all the little things. And guaranteed you will start to enjoy life on a much higher level.
Frequently asked questions
Why do successful people feel empty?
Emptiness in successful people comes from running entirely on focused drive - what Paul calls the jaguar - without deep inner connection. The more you achieve without that inner layer, the wider the gap gets. No external experience fills it. That is structural, not a sign something is wrong with you personally.
What is the jaguar and wolf framework Paul talks about?
The jaguar represents singular focus, hunger and forward attack - the energy that drives achievement. The wolf represents deep inner connection with yourself and with others. Both are necessary. The jaguar without the wolf creates a black hole. The wolf without the jaguar loses the drive. The work is holding both.
How do you start feeling things again when success has made you numb?
Paul's answer is to start with the smallest things. Notice what a meal does to your body. Pay attention to a single smell or taste. Let a conversation actually land. If you train yourself to feel small things deeply, the larger experiences start to carry real weight again.
Is it dangerous to be emotionally open when you are publicly known?
Paul says yes, and he does not pretend otherwise. When you are integrated with your wolf - openly connected and feeling - you are more exposed to external attack from people who are angry or negative. Managing when to bring the jaguar forward and when to bring the wolf is the real skill.
Did Paul Veth go back to DJing after quitting?
Five years after stepping away, Paul did play again briefly - partly for the money, partly because he still loves music. But it did not work for him. The life that comes with that career pulls away from what actually gives him depth now: his family, exercise, good food and a small number of deep connections.
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The idea that success itself can be the antidote to feeling successful is a hard one to sit with. Have you ever hit a goal and felt nothing, or even worse, felt emptier than before you started? What did that moment reveal to you?
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