The Isolation of High Achievers: Why All Entrepreneurs Feel Lonely (And How to Fix It)

The ONE Thing

NOVA Media

Business, Careers, Entrepreneurship

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

High performers are often great at building businesses, serving clients, supporting families, and chasing big goals. But there’s one thing they tend to neglect: friendship. In this episode, Jay shares the story of a lonely night in a Nashville hotel room that became a wake-up call. He realized he had been leaning on too few people and needed to intentionally rebuild his support system. With the help of his coach, Jay began “re-engineering his village” by identifying the qualities he wanted in close friends, reaching out more often, and saying yes to the right opportunities. That journey eventually led him to a hiking trail in rural Japan with three friends, where unstructured time, meaningful conversations, and shared adventure helped create deeper bonds. If you’ve been feeling alone while carrying big responsibilities, this episode is a reminder: friendship does not happen by accident. It can be built with purpose. Challenge of the Week: Identify the three to five qualities you want in the friendships you’re building. Get clear on what you’re looking for, then start saying yes to those people, reaching out, and creating space for deeper connection. *** To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit: the1thing.com/pods. We talk about: [00:00] The Loneliness Epidemic in Business [02:52] Why High Performers Feel Alone [06:29] How Jay Fast-Tracked Friendship [12:20] The Science of Friendship [15:19] The Truth About How to Make New Friends [21:30] Your Weekly Challenge Links & Tools from This Episode: The ONE Thing Operating System Jeffrey Hall’s friendship research Free Resources Produced by NOVA

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In the summer of 2024, I had my first and only panic attack. I was in a hotel room in Nashville.
0:07.1	My heart was racing. I felt miserable. I had enormous anxiety because so much of my life was coming
0:14.1	apart. And the worst part of it is that I felt very, very alone. I was imagining that I was
0:20.3	losing relationships and that there wouldn't be
0:23.4	anybody there to help me out of this mess. And it was the loneliest I felt, and it was a very
0:29.7	long night. Two years later, I am walking on a trail in rural Japan, a trip that I never imagined
0:37.3	I would take with three
0:38.7	great new friends.
0:41.0	And what I want to talk to you about is the journey from that hotel room in Nashville to
0:45.4	the trail in Japan and how I got there and what it taught me about the one thing I believe
0:51.3	most high performers are neglecting friendship.
1:09.4	I'm Jay Papazan, and this is the One Thing, your weekly guide to the simple steps that lead to extraordinary results.
1:19.5	All right, so let's go to that hotel room and talk about what happened and how I got there.
1:23.9	I was at a mastermind for authors, really big time authors.
1:27.2	I had been invited to speak the next day, kind of impromptu. And I mean, frankly,
1:28.9	I was nervous. And I'm sure that accelerated the feeling. But I got back to my hotel room the night
1:33.6	before I was going to present. And just kind of everything started falling apart. I realized in that
1:40.7	moment when I was catastrophizing, if I'm honest. Like if you're having a panic attack,
1:45.7	it could be real or it could be imagined. And I think a lot of mine was imagined if I'm honest,
1:51.2	but I sure didn't know it then. But I was looking up and I felt like the people that I relied on
1:57.5	the most, it was too small of a number. I could really count on two people and I'd
2:02.7	been leaning on them so hard. I felt like one of them I might be pushing away. And if you've
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 22 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NOVA Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NOVA Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.