When the Prince Becomes King

Author: Majken Lorelei Matzau

Earlier this year, I received an enquiry about Executive Coaching from a man in his late fifties who had created and sold numerous highly successful businesses. Today he sits on many boards, invests in startups, and continues to establish new ventures.

In other words – a man with a strong winner mentality who throughout a long life had created success after success.

He is happily married with well-functioning adult children, his wealth is enormous, and he both lives and leads a life with impact, purpose and meaning.

Yet he does not thrive.

The reason he contacted me was that he had lost his energy but could not understand why. "I can no longer feel the spark," he said.

And like many of the action-oriented and successful professionals I meet in my practice, he was searching for the spark where he had repeatedly found it earlier in life – namely in his achievements.

The Heliotropic Perspective

It is natural that we as human beings pursue the strategies and behaviors that have created success and recognition in our surroundings. Within psychology, we have long worked with recognition as a development tool, based on the principle that we humans – like a potted plant turning its flower head toward the light – also seek toward light, and move fastest when there is hope, success and positive expectations ahead.

And I have met many capable, professional and engaged people in my practice who – precisely because they have been so skilled and successful throughout life – repeatedly seek to recreate this very particular energy that can be felt when reaching a major goal or creating business success.

A Question of Self-Worth?

To the psychologist's eye, it may appear that a man as described here perhaps lost energy due to the downsides of his strong winner mentality. One could also assume he developed ultra-high self-confidence – a reactive sense of self based on success and performance in the external world – at the expense of self-worth: a sense of self solidly anchored in the psyche's deeper layers, independent of external performance. One could thus choose to work therapeutically with the client's self-worth, which is not necessarily a bad idea.

But my experience is that both the cause and the solution are often far simpler. It concerns how one's skill and great success leads one to continually chase the same spark, doing "more of the same," whereby true life development does not become dominant.

The Prince, the King, and the Wise Man

We move through some overarching life phases in our professional lives, which I like to describe as the prince, king, and wise man phases.

I apologise for this non-woke gender narrative – but it makes no sense, regardless of which gender one identifies with, to use "princess phase" as a metaphor here. A princess in fairy tales is a virtuous and beautiful young girl sitting in her castle waiting for the prince on the white horse.

The prince, by contrast, is a young man who must overcome many hardships and pass a series of tests to prove to both himself and the world that he is brave, refined and noble – and thus one day become worthy and earn the gold: the crown.

The prince phase – which we all move through in our youth – is characterized by a high level of energy and driving forces that primarily center on proving oneself, overcoming, conquering, winning and earning worthiness.

When the kingdom (or queendom) must go to battle, it is the prince who, on his white steed, gallops around the army and delivers the thundering speech.

The king (or queen), by contrast, is far from the battle – in safety and elevated on a clifftop. And when the king (or queen) gives the signal to attack, it is the prince who rides ahead into battle – where he may or may not distinguish himself by his bravery and military prowess, and thus move a step closer to the gold and the throne. If he survives.

The king's (or queen's) life is far too important to be risked. The king (or queen) has far more influence, power and authority than the prince. The king, unlike the prince, has "arrived." He no longer needs to "earn" either the title or the power – he simply is it. He is the gold.

And this is a position that holds a completely different energy, power and security than the prince, who must fight to be recognized.

From Prince Phase to King Phase

The prince phase typically lasts from our early twenties to mid-forties and is characterized by high drive toward achievement and recognition. It is in this long phase that we must create an identity and claim a place in the world, and it is also during this period that we start families and build our nests.

In this phase one can – and will – make extra effort and work hard for many hours, and one can also get away with missing a couple of hours of sleep.

The king phase, by contrast, contains far greater calm and a deeper, more authentic authority that flows from the psyche's deeper layers and matches the elevated position of king (or queen).

Let me be clear: the king phase does not necessarily concern a hard-won external position as a top leader, but rather an inner position where one has fought one's way forward, developed and found oneself. It is an institute for inner rather than outer career we are discussing.

But where a king can move kingdoms with a stroke of the pen, a prince must first earn the right to even be considered and allowed to participate where decisions are made.

The Unrecognized King

The point here is that if a king still feels driven by the prince's motives and exhibits a high level of prince behavior, it causes setback. The king loses authority, status and energy by continuing to chase recognition and needing to "earn worthiness."

It is thus impossible to imagine Queen Margrethe galloping around the castle serving everyone else to convince them she is good enough and worthy of being queen. The queen simply is. She does not need to prove herself or earn the crown.

And I have met many kings in my practice who have long entered the king phase but – precisely because they were so skilled and successful in the prince phase – continue doing and seeking more of the same that filled them with purpose and energy back then.

They have thus not recognized that they are already kings, and can no longer find either purpose, meaning or energy in chasing external recognition.

The Way Home

"The liberating moment in conversations with such a king often comes with this reflection: that he has long entered the king phase, and therefore can no longer find either spark or energy in the old prince behavior that created the success and recognition which brought him to the throne and placed the crown on his head."

And it is in this liberating recognition that consciousness and psychological driving forces shift – and the unrecognized king can find his way home to his power, his calm and his greatness as a man and a human being who has arrived, rather than galloping eternally on the road without ever reaching the end.

Stay tuned.

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