When Our Drive Breaks Us: Lessons from Sleep Country CEO Gordon Lownds

A can­did dis­cus­sion with Gor­don Lownds — for­mer CEO and author of Crack­ing Up. Part 2 of 2. (See Part 1 here)

Entre­pre­neurs love ori­gin sto­ries. And Gor­don Lownds has a great one: a teenage carny who learned human psy­chol­o­gy on the Mid­way at the CNE, went on to co-found Sleep Coun­try Cana­da, and built mul­ti­ple suc­cess­ful companies.

But what struck me most in our con­ver­sa­tion wasn’t the rise or the fall — it was the self-aware­ness he gained after every­thing went side­ways and he almost died. Most lead­ers are great at exe­cu­tion. Far few­er are great at under­stand­ing themselves.

The carny les­son every CEO should learn

The car­ni­val didn’t just give Gor­don a job; it gave him an ear­ly edu­ca­tion in human behav­iour. He learned to read peo­ple instant­ly — what they want­ed, feared, or react­ed to. That skill became foun­da­tion­al in his busi­ness career.

It also con­tributed to the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that lat­er pulled him off track. The same instincts that fuel entre­pre­neurs can expose them to the wrong peo­ple, envi­ron­ments, and escapes.

The traits that build com­pa­nies can also break the peo­ple build­ing them

Gor­don described him­self as fierce­ly inde­pen­dent, high­ly dri­ven, con­fi­dent, aller­gic to author­i­ty, and unwill­ing to show weak­ness. That’s a résumé for a high-per­form­ing founder — and a recipe for trou­ble when things start to slip.

You don’t need drugs for this to mat­ter. The ​“sub­stance” might be work, adren­a­line, con­trol, per­fec­tion­ism, alco­hol, or val­i­da­tion. The pat­terns are the same: the strengths that pow­er growth can qui­et­ly become blind spots.

The turn­ing point wasn’t rehab — it was connection

Even at his low­est point, Gor­don tried to fix every­thing him­self. It wasn’t until he picked up the phone and told his busi­ness part­ner the truth that things final­ly shifted.

He expect­ed judg­ment. He got com­pas­sion. And that opened the door to real recovery.

Lead­ers excel at solv­ing prob­lems. We some­times strug­gle to admit when we are the prob­lem. But Gordon’s sto­ry rein­forces this truth:

You can’t build a com­pa­ny alone.
You can’t climb out of a cri­sis alone.

The real trans­for­ma­tion came from emo­tion­al intelligence

What actu­al­ly changed Gor­don wasn’t willpow­er — it was learn­ing how he worked on the inside. Recov­ery forced him to con­front his moti­va­tions, reac­tions, fears, and blind spots. That’s lead­er­ship devel­op­ment at its deep­est lev­el, and most lead­ers avoid it until life push­es them into it.

Long-term resilience came from two sim­ple habits

When I asked Gor­don what keeps him ground­ed today, he didn’t offer rou­tines or sys­tems. What he shared was much more per­son­al — and direct­ly from his own experience:

1. Grat­i­tude — remem­ber­ing how bad things once were

Gor­don said one of the biggest changes in his life has been stay­ing ground­ed in grat­i­tude. As he put it:

It’s sim­ple, but it’s pow­er­ful — and it keeps him con­nect­ed to the per­spec­tive that helped pull him out in the first place.

2. Say­ing yes when some­one reach­es out for help

Gor­don also made it clear that he nev­er refus­es some­one who asks him for help. In his words:

For him, being use­ful to oth­ers isn’t a strat­e­gy — it’s a com­mit­ment. And it comes direct­ly from what he learned in recov­ery: con­nec­tion saves lives, and show­ing up for oth­ers keeps him ground­ed in a mean­ing­ful way.

The lead­er­ship les­son we can’t ignore

Gordon’s sto­ry is more than a cau­tion­ary tale; it’s a reminder that:

• Dri­ve isn’t enough
• Intel­li­gence isn’t enough
• Suc­cess def­i­nite­ly isn’t enough

In the long game of lead­er­ship, self-aware­ness becomes the real com­pet­i­tive advan­tage — under­stand­ing what fuels you, what can derail you, and who you can be tru­ly hon­est with.

Gor­don faced that reck­on­ing. Many do. Some don’t. But his sto­ry shows there’s always a way back, if you’re will­ing to reach for the hand that’s already there.

Below is my full inter­view with Gor­don or skip to any of the iden­ti­fied clips.

For the full sto­ry read Gor­don ​’s book, Crack­ing Up.

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.