The Myth of Invincibility: What Leaders Can Learn from CEO Gordon Lownds’ Fall and Rise

A can­did dis­cus­sion with Gor­don Lownds — for­mer CEO and author of Crack­ing Up. Part 1 of 2. Click here to watch the full inter­view or a num­ber of curat­ed clips.

When I sat down with Gor­don Lownds — the co-founder of Sleep Coun­try Cana­da and Lis­ten Up Cana­da — I already knew his sto­ry was pow­er­ful. I’d just fin­ished his book Crack­ing Up, and it doesn’t hold back. But hear­ing him walk through the rise, his spi­ral into addic­tion, and the road back — in his own words — brought a whole new lev­el of hon­esty, depth, and raw human­i­ty to the conversation.

And that’s exact­ly why this con­ver­sa­tion mat­ters for all of us.

Because behind every high-per­form­ing exec­u­tive, there’s a human being who believes or tries to believe, I can han­dle any­thing. And that belief helps us to suc­ceed and can also get us into trouble.

That’s the line that stuck with me.

Gor­don had built com­pa­nies, made mil­lions, and out­worked every­one around him. He was con­fi­dent — actu­al­ly, supreme­ly con­fi­dent, as he told me. Until he met his match when he took ​“one hit” of crack to prove a point to some­one else… and found him­self swept into a two-year spi­ral that almost killed him.

As he put it:

• He had the com­pul­sion to use.
• He lost con­trol over that compulsion.
• And he ignored the con­se­quences.

Those are the ​“three C’s” of addic­tion — and most lead­ers don’t real­ize how close they are to that line. Not because they’re weak. Because they’re wired for intensity.

I’ve said for years: many CEOs & Exec­u­tives have addic­tive per­son­al­i­ties. I sure do. Many of the peo­ple I have coached do. It’s part of what makes us great at build­ing, push­ing, and obsess­ing over goals. But it’s also what makes us vulnerable.

Addic­tion doesn’t look how you think.

We all have a pic­ture in our heads — the back alley, the nee­dle, the stereotype.

But in reality?

It’s the den­tist Gor­don met in an alley who had once run a suc­cess­ful prac­tice.
It’s the CEO drink­ing 14 cock­tails a day in his beau­ti­ful Van­cou­ver home.
It’s the exec­u­tive who ​“only” works 100 hours a week to avoid real­i­ty.
It’s the many of us get­ting high on adren­a­line, val­i­da­tion, or chaos.

Every­one suf­fers. Every­one is heal­ing from some­thing. And high-achiev­ers are often the last to admit it.

The bravest moment in Gordon’s sto­ry wasn’t get­ting clean — it was accept­ing help.

After two years of using, Gor­don took a leave of absence hop­ing he could qui­et­ly get him­self togeth­er. Instead, he spi­raled deep­er. The turn­ing point came when he final­ly called his busi­ness part­ner, Steve Gunn, and said the words he’d resist­ed for years:

And instead of anger, what he got back was compassion.

That moment — some­one reach­ing out with a lifeboat and him being will­ing to take it — saved his life.

We all need to remem­ber this: you can­not out­smart, out­per­form, or out-strate­gize addic­tion or men­tal health chal­lenges. You can only work through them, by let­ting anoth­er human or humans in to help.

The real work? Becom­ing self-aware.

When he final­ly made it to recov­ery, Gor­don con­front­ed the things he’d pushed down for decades — from a bro­ken rela­tion­ship with his father to under­ly­ing men­tal health chal­lenges such as bipo­lar ten­den­cies, nar­cis­sism, PTSD, depres­sion. Many founder-types share ver­sions of these traits (there’s great research on this). The dif­fer­ence is he final­ly had some­one who wouldn’t let him hide.

His doc­tor became the per­son who ​“called him on his BS,” as Gor­don put it, and that account­abil­i­ty changed everything.

My biggest take­away for lead­ers like us.

We all want to believe we’re bul­let­proof. We’re not. And that’s a good thing.

The real strength isn’t in being invin­ci­ble.
It’s in being hon­est.
Being con­nect­ed.
Being self-aware.
Being human.

If Gordon’s sto­ry reminds us of any­thing, it’s this:

Addic­tion can hap­pen to any­one. Recov­ery is pos­si­ble for any­one. But nei­ther hap­pen alone.

Watch my full inter­view with Gor­don below or skip to any of the iden­ti­fied chapters.

To get the full sto­ry in Gordon’s own words, I high­ly rec­om­mend pick­ing up his book Crack­ing Up — it’s a pow­er­ful, unfil­tered read.

Addi­tion­al Resources:

• Blog — How a High­ly Suc­cess­ful CEO Can Spi­ral from Peak Per­for­mance to Per­son­al Crisis
• Video — Men­tal Health Webi­nar: Build­ing Sus­tain­able Resilience
• Video — A Close Call with Men­tal Health: Inter­view with Michael Wendland
• Blog — Resilience and Relationships
• Video — Inter­view with David Greer: Fac­ing a Bru­tal Fact
• Blog — An Insight­ful Take on Trau­ma and Stress
• The Men­tal Health Con­tin­u­um to assess how you and oth­ers around you are doing

If you or some­one you know is strug­gling, please reach out. Free, con­fi­den­tial help is avail­able ²⁴⁄₇, 365 days a year, no mat­ter where you are. Trained cri­sis respon­ders will lis­ten with­out judg­ment and give you a safe place to talk.

In Cana­da and the U.S.: call 9−8−8 for imme­di­ate men­tal health or sui­cide-pre­ven­tion sup­port.
And if you or some­one else is in imme­di­ate dan­ger, go to your near­est emer­gency room — right now. Your safe­ty comes first.