failure — What's Stopping You?

fear.less is a new online magazine that tells stories of people who overcame their fears and wound up victorious. Seth Godin has an article in this month's edition with some remarkable insights on fear. Real fear is when you're in the desert and there's no water. Real fear is when you're in the woods and run into a bear. Real fear is primal. The fear that you and I experience isn't really fear. It's anxiety. Why do we worry so much? Why are we afraid? What's the worst that can happen? Maybe we'll succeed. I think that's it. We're afraid of success. If I fail, I'm not going to starve and I can certainly pick myself up off the ground and get back to life, but if I succeed then what happens to me? That's really what's driving our anxiety. If I give a customer great service they're going to call me more often. If I make an extra sales call I'm not going to have time to enter my contracts. I have a great idea to pitch, but what happens if they really like it? If we double revenues over 3 years we'll have to add a large amount of staff and all those people and our investors will be looking to me for direction. Wow! Success can be scary. The thing is, if we can get past our anxiety, and do something meaningful it's bound to be exhilarating.

Don't be afraid of the things you have to do. Simplify; clarify; focus. Put your anxiety behind you. Accomplish great things. There's nothing holding you back.

Today my ten year old son was on a learning website called Study Island. He's a smart kid who's heading into fifth grade and had straight A's in fourth. On Study Island, which is only accessible through schools, he has the high score in the state for one game and several other top 5 scores in other games. Today as he was showing off to me he gave me a disturbing answer to one of my questions. I asked him, "Why don't you start trying out the fifth grade games?" His answer, "Because my teacher told us not to." Wow! Is that what what the public schools are teaching our kids? Don't take initiative. Don't try something that might be difficult. Fear failure. Obey orders. The way I see it our schools are ancient institutions. They were designed to turn people into cogs. If you do what you're told you'll get a good, steady job. The problem is the good, steady jobs are not the same as they were 30, 40 years ago. We don't churn out machinery, parts and other factory items anymore. To succeed today you need to be able to stand out - not blend in. As a manager I will never tell you what not to do. The best people I've worked with always want more. They look for the next challenge and rise above it. If they fail it doesn't stop them. It only makes them want more. Don't be a cog in the system. Be a Linchpin. Stand out!