You know it when you see it.
Whitney Houston holding that final note in “I Will Always Love You,” her voice climbing somewhere beyond human capability, somewhere that makes your chest tighten and your eyes blur. Usain Bolt leaning into the finish line, not because he needs to, but because he can; his body doing things that physics says shouldn’t be possible. Michael Jackson moonwalking backwards while the whole world collectively forgot how to breathe.
Michael Jackson would have people collapsing during his performance.
That’s God Mode. That’s what it looks like when someone operates at a level the rest of us can only watch from the cheap seats, mouths hanging open, twitter opened, wondering what it must feel like to be that good at something.
Some call it talent. Some call it genius. Some call it a gift.
But what if I told you it’s also a curse?
When The Gift Becomes The Master
I knew someone once. Could sing and make angels jealous. Not just church-choir good stop-traffic-in-the-street good. The kind of voice that made producers lean forward in their chairs and say “where have you been hiding?”
They won a major national competition. Had the trophy and street cred to prove it as it was televised. Every performance was fire, you could feel the room shift when they opened their mouth, feel the audience collectively hold its breath.
Then came the record deal. The studio time. The marketing push. The moment they’d been building toward their entire life.
The album dropped.
Crickets.
Not even crickets. Crickets would’ve been noise. This was silence so complete you could hear their dreams cracking.
I saw them years later. Still had the voice you don’t lose a gift like that. But the light behind their eyes? Gone. They’d been validated by major competitions, every judge, every standing ovation. The one thing they couldn’t be validated by was sales(money money money) . Success. The actual prize that all that God Mode was supposed to deliver.
“People meet me and expect the celebrity life,” they said, “But I’m just… here. Same as everyone else. Except everyone else didn’t spend their whole life building toward something that didn’t happen.”
The gift that was supposed to save them? It just made the fall hurt more. The same gift a lot of wish for.
The Price Tag Nobody Mentions
People who go on to do great things rarely have easy childhoods. Even as adults, the great must continue taking risks and are often misunderstood and criticized by others. They face frequent setbacks even when success and acclaim finally rain on their heads. Constantly trying to live up to growing expectations can wear down even the toughest person.
That’s from a psychology study on the burden of talent. Read that again: the burden of talent.
We don’t talk about it like that, do we? We talk about talent like it’s winning the genetic lottery. Like being exceptional is all upside, no downside. Like God Mode comes with a manual and a customer service hotline.
But here’s what the research shows: one in five high performers experience some form of mental well-being challenge. They are more likely to take on more work, chase promotions and work overtime. And it gets darker: 53% of high performers were experiencing burnout.
Think about that. More than half of the people operating in God Mode are burning out. They’re not thriving they’re surviving. Barely.
The constant pursuit of perfection can result in chronic dissatisfaction, anxiety, and an inability to celebrate achievements. The fear of failure can be paralyzing for high achievers. You’d think being exceptional would feel good. Instead, it becomes a treadmill you can never step off. The minute you’re not killing it, it’s like you’ve failed. And if you’re used to being untouchable, failure hits deep like an identity crisis.
Icons and Their Invisible Chains
Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson. Two names that still make people stop and pay attention. Both were pioneers who broke open racial barriers, both died young, crippled by addiction and the burdens of fame.
Whitney—nicknamed “The Voice”—sold over 200 million records. Michael Jackson named Houston as one of his musical inspirations, calling her a “wonderful singer, real stylist. You hear one line, and you know who it is.” She had everything someone in God Mode is supposed to have: the talent, the success, the validation, the legacy.
She also had the drugs. The destructive marriage. In the 2000s, her drug use and tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown often overshadowed her acting and singing career. The slow, public unraveling of someone who was supposed to be untouchable.
In February 2012, Houston was found dead in a bathtub at a Beverly Hills hotel. A coroner’s report stated that the cause of death was accidental drowning, with heart disease and cocaine use listed as contributing factors.
God Mode didn’t save her. If anything, it made the pressure unbearable.
Michael Jackson? Similar story, different details. The pressure. The isolation. The need to keep performing, keep innovating, keep being Michael Jackson every single day. Because when you’re operating at that level, you don’t get to have an off day. You don’t get to be human. You’re the icon. The standard. The impossible benchmark everyone else measures themselves against.
And that weight? It’s crushing.
The Business Leaders Nobody Sees Struggling
It’s not just entertainers. Walk into any boardroom and you’ll find people operating in their version of God Mode. The CEO who turned around three failing companies, the Elon Musk who started Tesla. The entrepreneur who built an empire from a garage. The executive whose strategic vision reshaped an entire industry.
From the outside, they look invincible. Sharp suits, confident handshakes, decisions made with the kind of clarity that seems almost superhuman.
But high achievers may see their value in their achievements, not who they are as a person. Their identity becomes that of a “high-achiever.” Some may focus on their arena of achievement to the exclusion of relationships, creating chronic loneliness.
I’ve watched leaders at the top of their game come into Monday morning meetings looking like they’re held together with caffeine and sheer will. Eyes that don’t quite focus. Hands that shake when they think nobody’s watching. The fake laugh that comes too quickly at jokes that aren’t funny.
God Mode in business means you’re always on. Always performing. Always one bad quarter away from being yesterday’s genius. The money is real, sure. The power is real. But so is the insomnia, headaches, exhaustion, digestive issues that come with chronic, unrelenting pressure.
One executive I know brilliant and successful told me once: “Even when I win, I’m already thinking about how I could lose it all tomorrow.”
God Mode. With a prescription bottle by the bedside and a therapist on speed dial.
The Everyday Gods Among Us
But here’s what really gets me: it’s not just the famous ones. It’s not just the CEOs and the chart-toppers.
It’s the surgeon whose hands can do things that save lives but whose marriage is falling apart because they’re never home. It’s the teacher who transforms struggling kids into scholars but can’t remember the last time they took a day off without guilt. It’s the software engineer who can solve problems nobody else can touch but who sits alone at lunch because they’ve forgotten how to connect with people who don’t speak in code.
High performers are often high performers in their private lives. Rest always comes second. High performers are more likely to feel a need to prove themselves.
We’re all around you. Operating in God Mode in our little corners of the world. Doing the impossible. Making it look easy. Slowly imploding from the pressure of maintaining the illusion that we have it all together.
Because here’s the secret nobody tells you about God Mode: it doesn’t have an off switch. Once people know what you’re capable of, they expect it. Every time. Forever. And the worst part? You expect it from yourself most of all.
The Cost Nobody Wants To Calculate
So what’s the price?
Sometimes it’s substances the pills to sleep, the drinks to unwind, the harder stuff to silence the voice that says you’re not enough. Sometimes it’s relationships; marriages that crumble under the weight of neglect, kids who grow up with an icon instead of a parent, friendships that fade because you’re always “too busy.”
Sometimes it’s your health; the stress that manifests in chest pains, the anxiety that makes breathing feel like work, the depression that settles in like fog when you realize that even achieving everything you wanted doesn’t fill the hole inside.
And sometimes? Sometimes it’s your life. Whitney. Michael. Prince. The list of people who operated in God Mode and didn’t survive it is longer than we want to admit.
Maybe talent doesn’t always come with a touch of madness, but perhaps it is the unsought penalty of the creative mind.
Read that again: the unsought penalty.
Nobody asks for this. Nobody chooses to be exceptional and then also chooses the suffering that comes with it. But they’re a package deal. You don’t get to pick and choose. God Mode probably comes with terms and conditions nobody reads until it’s too late.
So What Now?
I’m not saying we should stop celebrating excellence. I’m not saying talent is bad or success is wrong or that we should all aim for mediocrity.
I’m saying we need to stop pretending that God Mode is all glory and no cost. We need to acknowledge that the people operating at the highest levels are also the ones most likely to be struggling in silence. We need to create space for the icons to be human, for the high performers to rest, for the exceptional to admit they’re exhausted.
Because right now? We’re burning through our best people like they’re disposable. Like they’re video game characters that can just respawn after they crash. But they can’t. They’re human. Fragile. Finite.
And maybe, just maybe, we need to redefine what God Mode actually means. Not someone who can do the impossible without breaking. But someone who can do extraordinary things while still taking care of themselves. While still sleeping at night. While still having relationships that matter and moments that aren’t about performance.
Real God Mode isn’t being invincible. It’s being human while doing the exceptional.
It’s being excellent without being consumed by it.
It’s having a gift without letting the gift have you.
Your turn. What’s your God Mode? That thing you do better than anyone else? And more importantly what’s it costing you? Drop your honest answer in the comments. Let’s stop pretending it’s all easy and start talking about what it really takes.