Why Leaders Struggle with Emotional Depth (And How to Fix It) | Adam Dorsay

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Self, Others, Purpose: The Four Pillars of True Connection

Dr. Adam Dorsay, psychologist, TEDx speaker, and author, explores the power of human connection—how we engage with ourselves, others, and the world around us. He shares insights from his work with high-level executives, his journey overcoming dyslexia and ADHD, and the lessons behind his book Super Psyched. From digital distractions to emotional intelligence, Adam reveals how intentional living can transform relationships, leadership, and personal fulfillment.

Are you truly connected—to yourself, to others, to your purpose?

Dr. Adam Dorsay, psychologist, TEDx speaker, and author, joins me for a deep conversation on how connection shapes our lives. From working with Silicon Valley execs to writing his new book Super Psyched, Adam explores the ways we build (or neglect) meaningful connections.

We dive into the challenges of self-awareness, the dangers of distraction, and why so many high-achievers struggle with emotional depth. Adam shares powerful insights on how small, intentional shifts can lead to richer relationships, greater resilience, and a more fulfilling life.

He also opens up about his own journey—overcoming dyslexia and ADHD, reinventing himself in midlife, and learning to communicate his ideas in a way that truly resonates. Whether you’re a leader, creator, or someone seeking more meaning, this episode will inspire you to rethink how you engage with the world around you.

And if you’ve ever struggled to finish a book, Adam has some surprising lessons on what it really takes to turn big ideas into something lasting.

Tune in to rethink connection, intention, and what it means to be truly alive.

Three Key Takeaways

Connection Starts with You – Many people look outward when they feel disconnected, blaming relationships, work, or circumstances. But real, lasting connection begins with self-awareness and intentionality. If you don’t connect with yourself first, every other connection will suffer.

Distraction is the Enemy of Meaningful Relationships – Social media, endless to-do lists, and digital distractions are stealing our ability to be present. Small, intentional actions—like sending a thoughtful voice message or truly listening in a conversation—can transform our personal and professional relationships.

Intentional Living Requires Effort – Most people let life happen to them rather than actively shaping their experiences. Taking time to reflect on what truly brings joy and fulfillment can help avoid the regret of “love left on the table.” Thought leaders must apply the same strategic thinking to their personal lives as they do to their work.

Adam explores the critical role of self-awareness and intentionality in building meaningful connections. In this short video, Peter highlights how a lack of self-awareness can unknowingly lead to self-sabotage.

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Transcript

Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage. And you’re joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Dr. Adam Dorsey, and I’ll give you his quick bio because it’s pretty cool. He’s a licensed psychologist as opposed to an unlicensed psychologist, one licensed one. He’s got a really cool podcast called Super Psyched. He’s written a bunch of books and he speaks and he does lots of interesting and cool things. So welcome aboard today, Adam.

Adam Dorsay How are you? Thank you so much. It’s great to be with you, Peter. Unfortunately, I’ve only written one book to date, but that is been a fabulous journey. I loved every second of it except for the fact that often I was tearing out my hair and hair because it is so frustrating but really glad it’s out. As Leonardo da Vinci once said, Art is never finished, only abandoned. And so that I finished it. And it is. It is. It’s looking good.

Peter Winick Well, I use the plural because I suggest people read it twice. It was that good.

Adam Dorsay That’s fantastic.

Peter Winick So tell us a little bit about your journey and what you know, You’ve got the TEDx talk and just tell us your journey as a thought leader, because it’s a bit unusual. I would say.

Adam Dorsay You would be 100% correct. I started out kind of in special education in grade school. I showed no signs of ever doing really anything.

Peter Winick And just to clarify that, not as a teacher, but as a I just want to make sure that we clarify.

Adam Dorsay What the student.

Peter Winick In grade school meant.

Adam Dorsay Right? So for those who remember Welcome Back Kotter, I was one of those students and it was not looking super bright. And over time I came to realize I had dyslexia and ADHD and I was able to actually name it and like deal with it, right? And I put myself through my own self-imposed what I called my own Navy SEALs buds training. Of course, it was nothing like Navy SEALs, a major respect for them, but I just really try to make it hard so that I could become a father, so that I could become a psychologist. And that’s what I did. I worked in the corporate sphere for a long time in Japan, in the United States, and then ultimately earned my doctorate late in life. Got those hours, made $10 an hour, no benefits for a few years. You know, every woman’s dream come true with my wife was so cool about it. She never once gave me an ounce of trouble for what I was doing. She knew that it was going to be good for us. She wanted a happy husband.

Peter Winick That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. Yeah. So what is it that you do and for whom? Give us a sense of what sort of the portfolio of Adam World looks like.

Adam Dorsay You bet. So I do individual psychotherapy, and sometimes couples work in my office in Frankfurt, in Silicon Valley. I work with a lot of the kind of the sea level folks that you might have heard of. Oftentimes, oftentimes they come in a little bit skeptical about therapy. You know, I’m here because my wife said I should know. I’m here because one of my colleagues said, you know, I could use a place to talk. And they come in oftentimes saying some theme or variation in the first session of, hey, man, you got 50 minutes, show me what you got. And you know, by around minute 47, I check in and they are I don’t remember the last time somebody was not in. And I love what I do, so I do that. I also do resiliency training for high tech companies. For four years, I worked at Facebook with their counterterrorism and child safety teams. They dealt with a lot of vicarious trauma. I brought in thought leaders with whom I would coordinate a program based on a topic. I called it dark or light. In some cases, we’d talk about dark stuff like psychopathy or terrorism. At other times we talk about light stuff like positive psychology and things like self-forgiveness and self-compassion. I got a podcast I love. It’s an award winner. It’s nearly at its 250th episode. All kinds of thought leaders have been on it. Steve Kerr from the Golden State Warriors. Yeah, Temple Grandin from Temple Grandin. A whole bunch of great people. Lori Gottlieb’s been on it and it’s one of the most fun things I do. So in that and most recently, just coming out with a book has been great. So it’s called Super Psyched. It’s about the four ways we connect. I really wanted to look at connection through four different lenses, how we connect to ourselves, how we connect to others, how we connect to the world and how we connect to something greater. And I guess last but not least, you mentioned a couple of Ted talks. I got one on Men and Emotions. I love it. It’s called The Emotions, The Data Men Myths, and another one about friendship in adulthood, a topic I really care about a lot.

Peter Winick I was going to say the Men and the Emotions is on the Ted 60s series because that’s usually not something that are into jokes. That’s one of their their nano jobs. Right?

Adam Dorsay Really funny that I’ve not heard that one. That’s pretty good.

Peter Winick Yeah. Yeah. So how does it Because, you know, on the one hand, it seems like, wow, there’s lots of different stuff and then it makes sense. Here’s this guy, right? That’s got a whole bunch of different thoughts and interests bouncing around. But then there’s connective tissue, like, what’s the through line across all the different things that you do other than you.

Adam Dorsay That’s really good. So the through line it’s funny, I was thinking about connection actually, as a common denominator unto itself. I had done nearly 20,000 hours of psychotherapy with individuals and couples. I’d done almost 250 episodes of my podcast. I had read a ton of books just like you. And the common thread. The common denominator was this nebulous term connection. Connection is what we want. But no book was really just talking about connection in its largest form in terms of like their books about connecting to partners, connecting people at work. But what about connecting to yourself as a primary tool and then moving outward from there? It’s almost like ripples in a pond. I see the center ripple as being ourselves the most important connection. If we don’t connect there, other connections will be profoundly impaired.

Peter Winick Do most people look elsewhere? Because if the connection to self isn’t there and we say it’s them, it’s the relationship, it’s my relationship with dot, dot, dot. It’s the way that whatever, without having the courage to be more introspective or grounded or pick a word, is that kind of the common one of the common things you see?

Adam Dorsay Yeah. And I would say that they want to feel more alive. Like, have you ever been at a party and someone shakes your hand? It’s just this limp handshake and I’m just like, Dude, what?

Peter Winick Yeah.

Adam Dorsay It’s not very attractive. Sometimes we are like that with ourselves. There’s kind of a limp existence when we’re really doing stuff. We’re not really alive while we are alive. And this book is really aiming to help people be truly alive during that dash between their birth and death dates. What a tragedy it is right to die without that.

Peter Winick Well. And then there’s different cycles in life, middle age and this and that, where it feels like that might be a luxury when you’re drowning in responsibility to others. Mortgages, college too, you know, blah, blah, blah. All the stuff you say, geez, I’ll get to me later. Right. And later isn’t always come.

Adam Dorsay Later doesn’t always come. And if we actually look at our day, if we were followed around like Michael Scott from the office with a camera and we saw how we used our time, we would be at home. We are busy, we are really busy. But we could still leave a voice text to a dear friend and say, Hey, Peter, it’s been like a minute. It’s been six months since we last talked. Just want to let you know I’ve been thinking about you. Let’s find a time to hook up and talk. Person. The zoom phone. I don’t care. You’re really important to me. Send Bill.

Peter Winick So stay there a minute. Because that text or some variation on that text. Actually serves two, right? So when you send it, you feel good to say, I remember some good memories with my cousin Sheila I haven’t talked to in a long time. It got me thinking, good thing. And I should reach out and then obviously the receiver. So there’s something selfish and selfless in that sense.

Adam Dorsay Right? Right. It’s what I call enlightened self-interest. Yeah. It’s like it feels good for me and it’s good for the other person. But one of the ways that we can also connect with ourselves as we look on our Saturday schedule, Saturday rolls around, ruin some tea on the Netflix binge watching something. I’m folding the laundry and putting the dog, and I’m responding to texts and emails and scrolling while I’m doing all of these things. You know, I’m doing none of these things. And then Sunday rolls around and it’s like 8 p.m. and we ask ourselves, What did I do with my weekend? Yeah, I need to be more intentional. And one of the things that we need is almost a reminder of these are the things I’m into doing. These are the things like if I’ve got 30 minutes and I do a cold plunge and I go into the sauna, I’m going to feel better about myself, right? I can make that time instead of dilly dallying on the only telling. That’s not a word I use, but goofing off.

Peter Winick If you actually just you’re dilly and I.

Adam Dorsay Just did it. All right? And Adam, first God knows how long. Sound like. Like a second grade teacher from the 70s. Dilly dallying. But. But we can if we’re more intentional with our time and if we know what we want and we write down like, these are the list of things almost like an old fashioned Netflix queue and they used to deliver DVDs. If we can be reminded, these are the things that actually give me an ROI.

Peter Winick But, but stay there for a minute because it is harder and harder to day not to state what your intentions are. We probably know what they are. If somebody said, Hey, write down your things you’d like to be intentional about, that’s probably not the challenge. But everything is fighting us for our attention, right? So easy to doom scroll or that 90s between when you’re online at Starbucks in the hand do your latte. God forbid you just taken a breath and look around you and take in the world right now you’ve got an email or this to do but staying focused and finding the time to be intentional because if you don’t, the next thing you know, you’re on the couch with a book, with a bowl of chips and Netflix and, you know, something not particularly interesting.

Adam Dorsay 100%. We’ve always struggled to be intentional, I think, on some level. But as soon as 2007 rolled around and that iPhone was introduced, that blue light in our pocket saying, feed me, feed me that the problem is we do not use social media. Social media uses us.

Peter Winick Right.

Adam Dorsay And the goal, whether it’s AI, social media or something else, they’re all important. They’re good technologies. I’m not banging on them. I think that they’re really potentially fantastic. But like a knife is potentially used for surgery or to cut meat if or dinners, but it could also be used to harm someone. Similarly, social media, technology, it’s just it’s a neutral thing. It’s a question of what our brain does when it’s on that substance. And if I can be really thoughtful about how we use it and also make sure that we allocate time for the stuff that’s going to give us a huge ROI in terms of a connection to ourselves. Everybody’s got a different connection formula. I know the guy down the street who runs really, really fast. He’s got to do that every morning. I would not do that every morning. I would not do that any morning. My body’s not built for that. My father goes to the opera. I find it a very expensive place to sleep. So he needs he needs his connection to the opera. I need my connection to my pets. He doesn’t care about pets. So we have a unique formula. And one of the things this book does is helps us really, really procure conscientiously our own connection formula. We figure out, these are the things that will give me a sense of being a good.

Peter Winick If you’re enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you’d like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a five star review at ratethispodcast.com/ltl and share it with your friends. We’re available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps as well as at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com/ podcast.

Peter Winick So I want to segue a little bit to the sort of the book journey for you. So now the book is out, but go back to what was the spark, What sort of got you going? You say, Yeah, you know what, I’m going to do this. And then what’s the gap between how you thought the process would be and what it’s been? Because this is where I think a lot of people, they’re not on the other side yet and they have delusions of grandeur and you know all that. You don’t have patches on your jacket or a. Hype. You know, words matter. And I’ll call myself an author and all of a sudden I’ll look like, you know, Mark Twain or something. But. Tell us about your book Journey.

Adam Dorsay I’d be happy to. You know, I did my doctoral dissertation very fast, and I thought I’d be able to write this book very fast. Turns out, no. Could not do that. That’s all, by the way. I used no air for this book. This was all from Adam. Intelligence or Adam. Non intelligence, whatever. But. So it was really hard.

Peter Winick I think we should market the book as organic then. If it’s no use.

Adam Dorsay In the beginning section.

Peter Winick Yeah, it would be.

Adam Dorsay Great for sure.

Peter Winick Hahah

Adam Dorsay It was really, really hard. But the funny thing is I started a bunch of other books, but no other book captured my attention. I finished none of them, by the way. But this book I knew I had to see to the end. And it was really interesting. I kind of plowed for a many months for about 12 months, and I had the book. It seemed to be finished in January, except I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the words I was using just didn’t feel right. And it was really funny. My wife said, let me let me hear it. Let’s hear what you got. And so I start reading it to her and she’s like, I see why you don’t like it. Like, that’s. That’s how you write. That’s not how you talk. And she’s been listening to me for 20 plus years, and she was able to tune the book and say, this is how you would say it.

Peter Winick You see, there are kind of I think a lot of people you know, you mentioned your Ph.D.. If you use the language structure, whatever. That one writes a really good nonfiction book for your Ph.D., they would have, you know, Red Circle with an F, right? So those two ways of writing, you know, need to be tweaked. So if you’re trying to write a book that connects with humans to get ideas in their head, not seven academics that will read your 100%.

Adam Dorsay Yep.

Peter Winick Yeah. And in different ways. So I love that your wife picked up on it that says, Well, that sounds like Ph.D. Adam, but not sort of Adam around the house or real Adam or whatever.

Adam Dorsay You totally like. This is Adam trying to sound smart and yeah, it wasn’t quite it wasn’t hitting. And she was able to really call almost like a piano tuner tunes a piano. She took the book and I said, my God. Like, it was so funny to be in the process with her. She’s my best friend. She’s the person I’m in love with. Every day I look at her, I’m just like, my gosh, I can’t believe I got you. And she’s really, really wicked smart, which is amazing. And she was able to see it and hear it and say, Yeah, that’s not how you’d say it. We went through the entire book. The content was not changed per se, except for the fact the way I phrased the content was changed much more dramatically so that it sounded like me. And I’m so grateful to her for sitting with me for all of those seemingly endless hours.

Peter Winick So what this.

Adam Dorsay Was done, it just wasn’t it just wasn’t one that I would stand by at the time. Now I love it.

Peter Winick Right. So besides the tone and the language, what were the other things that were surprising to you in terms of expectations you might have had around the process or the launch or the whatever, whatever, and what’s actually happened?

Adam Dorsay Well, certainly writing 86,000 words is insane. And there are so many places where there could be an error. It’s just it’s such a massive volume. I’d never written something of that enormous size. The idea of trying to promote it, you know, I’m not really naturally built for that. I’ve not really, really done a good job on the socials. I really don’t know how to even use Instagram as evidenced by my interest entirely bad following. I’m good on LinkedIn for some reason. I think it’s really more geared to someone in my stage of life, but using the other socials that my kids can use just like that. Yeah, so great. But it’s also been really pleasurable. I’ve been interviewed by people like you. I mean, I’ve seen you everywhere, Peter, and I’ve been longing to actually get to hang with you because. Yeah, Peter Winick is kind of the common denominator on LinkedIn. You seem to know everybody and you seem like a really fascinating person. So I get to meet people like you and that’s ridiculously fun. Different questions are thrown my way so I could think about the book a little differently. So this has been actually a very pleasurable experience. And no two interviews are alike. Yeah, this is totally this is us. This is you and me hanging.

Peter Winick Well, I like that because I think that. There are two ways folks go about sort of doing the tour, if you will. One is it’s kind of like the old days when somebody was launching a movie and then you show them one night on Johnny Carson or Letterman and they hit the same three bullet points and it’s like, God, win them up and do the, you know, do their shtick and whatever. And the other is to just let it go and. Right. And give the. Trust to whoever is interviewing you because they might come up with something that you never thought of or a connection that you never thought of in the book. And if you’re to in your head about, I’ve got to get these are the three things that my people told me are the most important in the book. Who cares? Like, just let it go. Right. Like, just have a conversation around whatever it’s going to be and then see how you can weave that in. That’s a harder challenge, I would say. You know, it’s more improv-esque, if you will.

Adam Dorsay In some ways, what we’re doing is just it’s so much more real. Like rather than me coming in with three talking points. I remember there was a Coca-Cola campaign back in the early 2000s and they had to use the word refresh. And for some reason, these execs were on these news programs talking about this new, you know, Coke thing. And they kept on using the word refresh and it was kind of yucky. I didn’t want to hear that.

Peter Winick I wanted to take a marketing poll. And that was the word that bubbled up to the top.

Adam Dorsay Exactly. It’s like this is what’s going to sell. And what’s so much fun about talking to you is, yeah, you give me unique probes, you bring in your, you know, Peter Winick style. And without that, this would not be as much fun. You would not have the numbers that you have. You are crushing it.

Peter Winick Right? Thank you. So it’s a year from now. Let’s make it like a fantasy date for one year from now. And all your wildest dreams have come true relative to the book. And we’re doing the follow up. Right? So what is it that you’re going to tell me is different than where we’re sitting today?

Adam Dorsay Yeah. So there’s things I’d.

Peter Winick Like other than, you know, Joe Rogan or something far more.

Adam Dorsay So the things I’d like for the reader and they’re things I’d like for me. Yeah, let’s start with the reader, because the reader comes first. I really hope that people find themselves using their time more intentionally, that they feel more connected to the important things that they do and far more importantly, to the people in their lives. The biggest regret that people have at the end of their lives is love left on the table. My hope is that people will summon up the courage to be vulnerable with the people they love so that. I hate to go super, super morbid here, but I’m gonna. At funerals. I’m sure you’ve heard somebody say, I wish I’d told this person how much I love them. Right. Right. And I want people to do this while they’re alive. I want them to feel more alive while they’re alive. I want to get emails saying, wow, you know what? I’ve been putting 1 or 2 things and I’m not expecting them to do like all of the things. But yeah, they put 1 or 2 things into play and have derived great joy and vitality from it. The second thing I’d like is for me, I’d love to be able to do keynotes at various places and spread the word. I love the idea of this becoming a bestselling book, and that would be so fun to be a part of that.

Peter Winick So as you’re saying that one thing that struck me is, you know, one of the greatest gifts that an author, a thought leader, can give to folks is language frameworks, models, etc.. And I’m just thinking around like it would be really cool to be able to have an intention conversation, like not some manufactured like whatever. You got to be at a certain level of report. It’s not like cheesy first aid stuff like what are your intentions? You know, the next year with regards to your health or your spirituality or your profession or your whatever, and then if you open with that, someone would sort of reciprocate with that level of vulnerability. That could be an interesting thing to play with maybe.

Adam Dorsay 100% in when you’re engaging in something that Kaleena Silverman, who showed up on my podcast, would talk about it. She has these cards called Big talk cards. Yeah. And obviously, you can’t just meet somebody in a grocery line and just like, bust out, you know, an initial of like, Hey, what do you plan to do for the rest of your life? Or what do you hope to do before you die? That’s a that’s a big question.

Peter Winick All I wanted to do is check out and pay for my plums. Thank you, sir. You’re going there, right? Exactly.

Adam Dorsay I really just wanted to see Mr. Hooper on Sesame Street and buy a couple of plums. I really don’t want to have a big existential conversation, but humans do crave bigger talk than small talk. Of course, you got to start with small talk before you get to the big talk. As you said, you need rapport. But it would be really interesting to talk about people’s intentions in their books. And I’ve.

Peter Winick Not had that.

Adam Dorsay Question. And I love that you asked it.

Peter Winick Cool. Why, thank you. Well, this has been awesome. You’re one of the few people I get to meet that. It’s like instant fun, instant early relationship, cool stuff. But I wish you the best. And this has been a lot of fun. And thank you.

Adam Dorsay Peter. It’s been a blast. So glad to know you.

Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. To reach me directly. Feel free to email me at Peter at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.