The Pressure You Put on Yourself Has Nothing to Do With Your Success with Boaz Gilad

He built a real estate company with 36 active construction sites across New York City. He took it public. Then, he sat across from the people who were just about to take it all away. And one of them said 2 words, game over. What happened next is not what you think. And what he learned in the weeks that followed changed how he leads, how he performs, And how he measures what actually matters. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge. I'm Claire Hayek, a neuroleadership expert, TEDx speaker, and founder of Mind Soul Purpose Team Building. I spent more than 20 years leading high-stakes projects and teams under pressure. This show is happening, is live, and it exists for the leaders who just want to understand what pressure actually does to the brain, to decisions, to teams, and to performance, and what to do about it. Here's what you are going to take away from this conversation today. One, what your brain does in the moment everything falls apart and why the clarity that follows is not a coincidence. 2, the specific mindset shift that separates leaders who rebuild from leaders who stay stuck. And finally, why the pressure you put on yourself has nothing to do with your results. My guest today is Boaz Gilad. He's a performance strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of Zenith Clubhouse. He built and took public a New York real estate company with over billion in assets. Then he lost it in a hostile takeover. But what he did next and what he figured out on the other side is what we are here to talk about today. He is also the author of The Zenith Code, a framework built on one central idea: top performance is not a mystery. It is a system. Welcome to the show, Boaz. How are you doing today?

I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited for this conversation.

Yeah, well, me too. So much to talk about. So let's dive right in. I really want to dive right into what you've built, right? I mean, you built something huge. It's significant. 36 construction sites in New York City. That's not a small feat.

At the same time. So it's 36 construction at the same time. So I had— I built many more, you know, but, but I think at the peak of the company, we were 36 construction sites at the same time.

Well, I mean, okay, so it's a public company. It was like an empire, pretty Empire, right? So, and then this happened. And take me, you know, teased it at the beginning, but take us to that room when you— when it was revealed to you, game over, exact words. What was happening inside of you in your head before, during, and after? If you can tell us that. I mean—

You're dragging me back to a very uncomfortable history, but I guess that's the whole point of the podcast, right? So No, no, but I'm happy. I'm actually— I'm really happy.

You have a very inspiring story, and this is why we're talking about it. That's far from my intention of making this painful. Yeah, yeah, I know your story is so inspiring, Boaz, and I'm so happy you're here. And that's exactly why I asked that question. I want to highlight it. So please do share whatever you're comfortable with.

For sure. No, no, it's perfect. You can ask anything and I'll share everything. So, uh, look, it didn't happen overnight. Everything Some things in life happen overnight. You don't expect it. The signs and the decline of my company cash flow-wise was there for months. But at the same time, as entrepreneurs, we always hold on to whatever the light is, whether it's in the end of the tunnel or right in front of us, or we think we're seeing a light, even if we don't have a light. So obviously, as someone who's always optimistic and built companies and ran a public company, I was sure till that moment you pointed to it. I'll talk about the moment specifically in a second. I was sure I'm going to turn it around. You know, it's kind of like you're in the ship and the storm is all around you and you hear the cracking of the wood, you know, like you're in the sail ship and you're like, look, I'm going to pass the storm. I'm going to go on the other side. I have a strong team and I'm a good captain. And then I walked into the conversation, the negotiation with those, uh, 2 funds, 3 funds that bought everything that was traded so they can kind of take over with a lack of understanding. I thought they're here to what's called opportunity funds, to make a lot of money. I walked in saying, look, I— we dealt with the major problems, uh, things I've done, mainly the market. Okay, let's work it out. If you want me to cut my salary and my abilities and my equity or whatever, we'll work it out. But with my whole attitude was about working it out with him. And I was really shocked, exactly as you pointed to in the moment when he said, game over. I really, until that moment, believed that the intention was about making more money together. And their intention was— and that's a critical moment I use often in coaching. No, your intention and my intentions are not always aligned. And one of the things I failed in is reading their intention. I think that if I read their intention, I would probably operate a little differently. Maybe it probably would have ended the same, but I would operate differently. So until that moment, I realized the game is over. I'm done. They have zero interest in working with me. You know, it didn't hit me even though it was so obvious and written on the wall, right? Because again, we grab into that 1% or 10% or whatever it is chance that things are going to turn around. And it can happen everything, whether you deal with cancer or you deal with your business or you deal with whatever you're dealing with.

We, I think, as human beings are holding on to any signs or we assume there's a sign of hope and of So the interesting part about your story, and I wouldn't compare it to a cancer because what you've revealed to me, we've obviously spoken before this, is something of a relief when that, you know, game over. It was a shock.

Yes.

And I'm sure, you know, I remember seeing so many things running through my head and going, what do you mean? You're in denial. You don't understand. You're under shock. But at the same time, it was contradictory. You want it still. Your nervous system still wants to fight, you know, and you're still kind of go, what do you mean? Were you giving up on me? But at the same time, it's like it's over.

Yes.

And some kind of relief. And I'm interested in you describing to our audience and people listening what that felt like. I can't even imagine because that's crazy when you think about it, right?

Look, it's a peace of mind. And there's, I think there's 2 elements. It's such a great question. I have not thought about it. But no, it's really wonderful because, look, it's— and I'll say something in a second. But there's a peace of mind. And peace can come from 2 places. Obviously, peace of mind is something in your mind, in your brain. It has nothing to do with the environment around you. But if you're sitting on a beach in the Bahamas holding a cocktail, there's probably more peace of mind if you're doing some very interesting— So yes, the environment around you does impact the chance for peace of mind, right? But when you fight and fight and you feel that you've done everything you can, and there's a moment where you understand that even though your intentions and commitments were fully driven and brought to that point, right, not going to turn out the way you want it. And by the way, to some degree, like, that's what I want to say is it's like cancer in a way. I know people, unfortunately, When you understand that cancer is going to win, sometimes people fight the last moment, but sometimes towards the end— when again, I'm not saying that what I went through is the same from a brain perspective.

Absolutely, yes.

It's the same experience because— so they're like, okay, I've fought, I've done it. You can always do more, but part of you understand that you've done everything you can, and then now you just say let go. And I'm telling you, the moment I let go, that moment I realized— the first thing, I was freaking— first of all, I was angry.

Of course.

I bought off, I had hundreds of million dollars under management, you know, directly to me. I had my own fortune and everything I built, like, built it by myself from nothing, could be taken away. So the first reaction is anger, frustration, anger at myself, anger at them, anger at anyone you can imagine, right? But that executive said, like, there's a moment after, like, it's the moment when you're like, wow, it just— I have to let it go. I have to sort of take care of myself, which took a while, right? Because there's nothing. I'm done. Game over.

That's it. And this is very interesting. And you mentioned something happens in the brain. And I just want to add something quick about that is when we're in the middle of uncertainty, you're just not knowing or you're really fighting, not having an answer maybe. You're just really still trying. There's a, you know, our threat detection system pretty much at a certain level, certain point runs, is running on full power. It's burning the energy. You really need to narrow your focus and focus on this thing you're trying to push, right? And so it keeps your body in a kind of an emergency state. And then it takes a toll. It takes a toll on the body. So then The certainty arrives, even if it's brutal certainty. I mean, you talked about cancer, you talked about your situation, and it is pretty brutal when somebody says 2 words and everything's over a second after that word, those 2 words were communicated. That's huge. 2 words and the whole world, your whole world.

Yeah.

Poof, all of this uncertainty disappeared. And now it's ironically a certainty that it is game over. Something in the system literally instantly stops scanning. Now we go through the transition before we realize, but it's basically your brain releasing a resource it was spending so much energy on, and eventually it just released it. And that's eventually when you feel that, okay, you know, that abandonment, or I'm gonna like, I'm letting go, you know, there's nothing there anymore. I've tried Everything.

And I'll tell you, one of the things that I think gave me perspective and peace was understanding that when someone tells you, or when life tells you, game is over, it's just one game.

Yes.

Like, one other thing I remember, I was— you're in Canada, right? So you might not get the references as well as the American audience. But I remember I was in Gettysburg, which is like the big battle in the Civil War and Lincoln and the speech of Lincoln. And I was just doing one of those tours, fascinating, with this guy who was a brilliant professor teaching about— and he was talking about the difference between a battle and a war. Look, in a war, you can lose many battles. It's actually insane of you to think that you're going to be winning every battle, but you just have to win enough battles to win the war. And there's some wars that you people— the army lost more battles and still won the war, right? So when he said game over and I kind of stepped away from it, I realized it's just one game. It's not my life.

It's not your life that's over. Yeah.

It's not even like a league if you talk like sports.

Right. The career is not over. It's just that chapter is over.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. So talking about chapters, I do want to be mindful of the time and I have so many questions for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stay tuned till the sunset.

I really need the audience to listen to this one. So, you put the keys down and walked away. And then, you did something I think is pretty much the unexpected part of your story, which really stopped me. Tell us about the cycling trip.

Oh, yeah, of course. So, look, just a little background. I haven't slept in 6 months properly. I was so stressed and I was fighting for the future of my company and my investors and my money and all that stuff, right? And it was very stressful emotionally, physically, all of it. I didn't sleep. And I couldn't get out of it. I couldn't. So, my wife said to me, why don't you do something that you always wanted and didn't? And I was like, I don't know what I want to do.

I like what I do.

And I said, you know what? I always wanted to cycle, cycle really far because I like cycling. And so, I couldn't do the very, very long trip, but I decided to cycle from New York City where I live To the Florida Keys, which is the islands in the bottom of Florida, kind of almost Cuba. And that's what I did. So I literally, like, I think a week after maybe of that—

2,400 kilometers, right? If I remember.

Yes, exactly. 2,400 kilometers.

3 weeks, was it? How long did it take you?

It took me 3 weeks and I cycled by myself and I put like a Forrest Gump, you know, like he, he, he keep on running. Basically you wake up and whatever keeps you down, you're climbing over. Exactly. Exactly. But, you wake up somewhere in a cheap hotel and you eat breakfast or 2 or 3 breakfasts because you burn so many calories. And, you just get back on the bike and you put your headset on. And, it gave me an amazing— gave me a lot of insights and I'm happy to share them. But, one thing also, look, all you do is you listen to music, you listen to podcasts, you meet people on the way, and you ride. You ride 6, 8, sometimes 10 hours a day. It was phenomenal. I think the reason it's so out of the ordinary is not because I rode 2,400 kilometers, which is wonderful and great. I really fell in love with it. And I do more of those kinds of trips since then. I've done a bunch of them. It's because it gave me perspective.

Hmm.

It gave me ability to disconnect emotionally a little bit, or I would say, I don't want to give myself too much credit, to start the process of healing. Because one of the amazing things, you know, you ride a lot, right? You are right between, in kilometers, between probably 80 to 150 kilometers a day.

It's a lot.

And, and you're exhausted. You burn all those calories. And so I was, I assumed I'll sleep very well at night because, you know, I work so much during the day. And because now that's one of the reasons I did that trip. I'm like, I haven't slept properly in 6 months. The amazing thing is it didn't happen because at night, all the nightmares from the collapse of my company came back.

Right.

So, I thought I'll be able to mentally, intellectually, I kind of like move, realize I got to move to the next game, to the next, or whatever it is. But my body wasn't ready to it. So, even though I was riding and burning all these calories and heat and in the rain and whatever it was my way, I still at night woke up many times with nightmares about what I was dealing with because it wasn't done until I had to go through the— take the company through bankruptcy, the whole thing. So it took years actually to really resolve the whole issue. But, um, but I think the beginning of healing was in disconnecting myself emotionally. And the other thing that I got that was fundamental, I really— for me, it shifted the way I see the world. Uh, not to be dramatic, but I think I was in And it was good news. It was good news because 2 reasons. One, it was a reality check and gave me an opportunity to start falling in love with, again, with the complexity and the size of the world, of the universe. I am so not important. And I'm saying it in the most freeing way. I'm just, look, I really like, we're going to die and the world's going to move on. And it's not like I was dying, but I was like, I realized how not important I am. So all of that— Perspective gives you perspective.

That perspective.

Exactly.

Absolutely.

All the weight I was carrying on my shoulder was—

I mean, there's— this is so important because there's something specific happening, uh, in what you described. And I, I don't, I don't want to pass this over too fast because, you know, when you are inside a high-pressure identity, when you've been the person on the cover— I know you've been a person on the COVID of the New York Times business section, which is not a small feat, ladies and gentlemen listening. When you are the CEO of a public company, I mean, your brain is linking self-worth to a certain extent to the role. And that status is your survival pattern. So, you know, and the nervous system is going to protect that as much as possible. So losing the role feels like a— could feel like a biological threat. However, when what happened in that gas station, yes, in South Carolina, not in a fancy temple somewhere, and that no one cares. What you've experienced was literally a neurological reframe that some people could spend years in therapy trying to reach. And you reached it that instant. That's that the self disconnected from the achievement, the self-worth that is recognized at that moment and the perspective and how small we are, you know, in the universe. And it really, it was a positive thing. And it sounds like a, you know, it was just such an enlightening moment. That is just such a great, uh, um, as small and simple, that was such a great gift that you were given that day. But you had to make that trip, I think. Exactly.

The killing of the ego. Because, you know, one of the things that happened when you're very successful is 2 things, I think. First of all, we say you, you drink your own Kool-Aid. You know, like, you sort of believe the things that people say about you, also for negative perspective. Often we deal with people saying very negative things about us and we sort of believe it, right? But when you are When you are surrounded by an environment that keeps on boosting your ego, whether it's a cover of a business section, whether it's lectures, where is the nice car I was driving, all that stuff. And I'm not saying like, I still like very— I still like nice cars, you know, but you keep on collecting evidence about how important you are. And then you sort of kind of like, you, you are high on your own ego. And it was such a— first of all, the collapse of the company, but also that moment In that gas station was such a blow to my ego.

Yes.

It was such a great beginning.

Yes. It was a reset in itself.

Yeah, reset. And understanding that I'm not the sum of the collected titles I am, which was the next level of understanding. I was like, wow, not only that I'm not important, I'm also— all I've done in the last 20 years was 20 years when I, like, from a small real estate, starting my career all the way to the, the peak, um, I collected evidence that I'm something, right?

Yes.

Much more than that.

Yes.

And many other colors, whether I'm a husband or a father or a businessman or a teacher or whatever it is. And I, one of them called businessman, currently going through the bottom of a valley. But I'm many other colors, and I can not only nurture the other colors, also understand that you're going through a period and you might come back up. And that was, for me, very insightful and very—

And this brings me to the next question that, you know, you said something about the pressure we put on ourselves has nothing to do with the results, with the success, you know, that self-imposed pressure, right, versus actual performance and how we get to be successful. Tell me a little bit more about this quickly about this one because I still have another question for you before we—

Again, I can talk forever. So, you know, I'll make it as quickly as possible. So, the bottom line is, you know, as a performance coach, I work with very, very successful people and can be successful in sport or music and business, whatever it is, right? And it is insane, the disconnect between how much pressure there's on them and the reality and the results they accomplish.

Right.

Actually, some of them, and that's a key to a top performer, is They generate pressure for no reason, you know, which makes them actually very successful. So I'm not saying pressure is a bad thing, right? But at the same time—

To a certain extent, yes.

Exactly, exactly. So some— it's the beginning. It's kind of like the kickstart of the results is pressure. You put pressure. If you have no drive, you don't put any pressure on yourself. Therefore, you cannot mold the different behavior, right? It's kind of like, you know, put pressure on water, it becomes, you know, something else. Like, you know, it's the same thing.

Or you can work with pressure. Pressure is not the bad guy. You can work with pressure. But when you're relying on pressure to drive and, you know, basically push and get to certain results, that's a whole different addiction that is not really sustainable. But yes, pressure, we can work with pressure. It doesn't have to be such a bad thing.

But at the same time, it's completely disconnected from reality. Reality is the result. So, you know, one of the things that methodologies are used very often It's, you know, life is a game. We play games, right? So when I look at the scoreboard, a scoreboard is independent. You know, you and I play sport and there's a scoreboard says Claire 20, Boaz 11. You're winning, I'm losing, right? It's not how much I— how I feel about it, right? It's objective.

Yeah.

Pressure is subjective. Pressure has nothing to do with what's happening around you. Pressure is something you put on yourself, which sometimes helps, like you and I said, but many times, it disconnects you from the thinking, the actions you need to take to win. So, instead of being busy with being pressured, being busy with how are you going to win this game, which is a lot of people get confused. They think that if they put more pressure on themselves, on the environment, or their team, they're going to win the game versus pausing or looking and saying, what are the actions and the tools we need to bring in To win the game.

I could not have said this better. I do want to mention later, I'll talk about this, that I'm releasing a book. It's exactly what you just said. And it's elaborated a bit more with more than 60 actual C-suite and executive leaders around the world that I interviewed and that understood a thing or two about pressure. And you said it beautifully. Thank you for sharing that. I think it's very important. I really wanted to make sure that we get to that question and we get to you explaining this. From your perspective. Now, let's move on to the rapid fire. I have one question for you. What do you know now that you wish you had known at the height of it all? Rapid fire, quick answer. Okay. Well, I'm not making it easy, am I?

Yeah, exactly. Rapid fire. I thought you're gonna ask me what my favorite hotspots are. But something I know now is that there's a million ways To be happy, it doesn't have to look a particular way.

And what is it now for you?

For me, it's making a difference with others right now. It's really impacting other people's life.

Beautiful, beautiful. Before we wrap this up, I do have a few things for the people listening. If you are leading a team and you want to see exactly where pressure, talking about pressure, is costing you right now, go to clairehayek.com/pp- Scorecard. It's a free 4-minute diagnostic. You will know immediately what's going on, how pressure-proof your leadership is, and how pressure-proof your team is. And as I already mentioned, I'm writing a book. It's called The Leadership Skill Nobody Taught You: Calm Under Fire in the Age of Disruption. And it's coming out September 9th, 2026. If you're interested in joining the early readers group, would love to have you. And you'll get exclusive access to the book before it launches. Go to clairehayek.com/book to sign up. And finally, please subscribe to the NeuroLeadership Edge. Every single subscriber helps the show grow, reach further, and bring you the caliber of guests and conversations that are at the level that we're having today, right? And that really actually move the needle. So please do take the time to subscribe and follow. Last words, what do you want to leave with every leader listening to this right now?

I just want people to live to their full commitment. I think that's it. Like, you know, whatever the commitment is, I'm not saying there's a particular way that life should look. But I just want all of us, when the time is done, to look back and say, I've played a great game. I've left nothing on— I put everything on the— you know, I put out all this and I've done all and I've succeeded in making the biggest impact, whatever the impact that you want to make within your family, on your health, and business, etc. So that's it.

Thank you for sharing that. I did mention that Boaz has a book, The Zenith Code. We will put the links in the description. I would really encourage you to go get it. And how do we reach you? How do we get ahold of you?

I have a weekly article on Substack talking about performance. So I give tips and tools and exercises every week in some elements of performance. So people can follow me on a weekly basis. And I'm always— I make myself available. So you send me a message on my website or on social media or LinkedIn, I'll get back to you, I promise.

All right, this is great. Please, I'm gonna go ahead and follow you on Substack and follow me. I actually just joined.

Yeah, we'll do it. Yeah, it's wonderful.

Would love to read your articles and your insights. So everyone, you've heard it. We will put the links also in the description. If you're listening to this and you're driving, please do not write anything down. You can have this, that will be ready for you and it will live on the podcast page. And finally, lead boldly, stay human, and turn every challenge into a gift. And see you all next week. Thank you so much. Thank you.