Fear of Success is Fear of Failure

Fear of success is not actually a real thing.  

Now I know somebody's going to argue with me: "no, I've had fear of success." Well, what you've actually had is fear of failure, but it goes something like this. A lot of times when somebody says they have fear of success, what they have is fear of being found out. So they say, "if I give a speech at this convention, or I do this presentation, or I sell this thing, or if I do this podcast, what if somebody finds out I was actually wrong about a little bit of that? What if I get a fact wrong, or what if it turns out that they know more about it than I do, and then they tell everybody about it and then everybody thinks I'm an idiot?"  

Fearing success is not helpful to you. Believing things that are not true about yourself is not helpful to you. 

Now, sometimes you need some help to find and fix these harmful beliefs or patterns. That's what I do for a living. Maybe you and I should talk sometime. Go to my website at https://natewalkercoaching.com, click on the contact link, and tell me how I can help you. We'll have a conversation, and I don't charge for those. I talk to people all day long. I know how to help you figure out what those things are that are really stopping you, and it's not really fear of success. 

Don't let others' judgment of you, or your fear about your own lack of ability or lack of preparation, or your fear of the unknown, stop you. They will if you allow it. But if you learn how to get past it, your life will never, ever, be the same. As George Eliot so wisely put it: "It's never too late to be who you might have been."  

Please share this podcast with all who might benefit from it.

Transcript

Podcast 60 - Fear of Success is Fear of Failure 

Hello my friends. I'm going to mess with your heads a little bit. It seems to be a theme for some reason, but for the last week or so, several people have said to me, "well, maybe my problem is fear of success." Here's the deal. Fear of success is not actually a real thing.  

Now I know somebody's going to argue with me: "no, I've had fear of success." Well, what you've actually had is fear of failure, but it goes something like this. A lot of times when somebody says they have fear of success, what they have is fear of being found out. So they say, "if I give a speech at this convention, or I do this presentation, or I sell this thing, or if I do this podcast, what if somebody finds out I was actually wrong about a little bit of that? What if I get a fact wrong, or what if it turns out that they know more about it than I do, and then they tell everybody about it and then everybody thinks I'm an idiot?"  

That's not fear of success. That's fear of judgment from someone else. That's fear of finding out that you are not actually perfect. Well, neither is anybody else, so you can probably deal with that.  

Another example of so-called fear of success is when somebody says, "well, I don't want to be too successful because then I know I'll spend all my time at the office and I'll never see my family." That's not fear of success. That's fear of not being able to wisely manage your time or your resources, or of not learning how to scale your business and trust other people to do some of the things that you might be able to do better, but at least they can get them done! Those are time and resource management problems, and those are things that can be learned and overcome. The success is not the problem.  

Other people say, "well, I'm afraid of success because others might judge me because my house is big and my car is paid for, and we have a pool, and they might think that I've abandoned my principles and I'm just living off the backs of the poor and all that kind of stuff, and I don't want to deal with it." 

Well, again, that's ridiculous. I know it may feel very real to you. You're talking about what other people may think about you. Is another's opinion of you how you're going to judge your own value? Is it how you will judge your own virtue, your own commitment to service and love and helping other people? Putting too much weight on what other people think is not helpful or healthy. 

You've got to be honest enough with yourself to say, "okay. Here's what my values are. Here's what I stand for, here's what I'm trying to accomplish, and even if I may do it imperfectly, I'm still doing it."  

Another thing that happens when people say, "well, I'm a little bit afraid of success," is that they're actually afraid of their own power. They might be afraid that they'll figure out that they're more powerful than they ever even imagined; that all of the capability they needed was always there the whole time. They're afraid that they'll find out that they could have done what they are doing a long time ago. They were just afraid to start. 

This happens much more often than you might think, and when people finally embrace the idea that they can and should be successful, and act accordingly, the success often comes very quickly. A friend of mine is working with a family that started a business that brought in just a little over 2 million dollars two years ago, and last year they brought in 25 million. They're not even sure what to do about that. They didn't expect it at all. Well, rapid success can happen.  

Another so-called fear of success is when people say, "well, if I get there and then I have all this money and I invest all this time, and then I build this business, then I build this thing to where I have offices in other places and I've got a lot of people working for me and relying on me and a lot of people depending on me, what if the economy collapses?" Well, so what if it does? Is keeping yourself from being successful going to save the economy? No. Is keeping yourself from being successful, employing other people, investing in offices or real estate—is that going to help make sure that the economy is stable, and that neither you nor anyone you employ or love ever bears the risk of losing any money? No.

Is your failure to be successful helping you or anyone else in any way? 

Even fear of success is not fear of success. It's fear of losing the success that you might have. Sadly, for that reason, some just avoid it altogether. "Well, I'm a little afraid of the risk. I'm afraid it could go bad. I'm afraid I might be seen as an imposter. I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of this." 

It's not the success that you're afraid of. It's what failures could occur on your way to success, or after you achieve it. Really, it's fear of the unknown.  

There are things that keep us from being successful that are really based on our own misguided thinking. A double bind is just such an idea; believing two things that are in conflict with each other. 

Let me give you an example. You may have grown up as I did, thinking that poor people were the salt of the earth. They were the ones you should emulate. They're the ones that have their priorities in order. They put their families first. They put their God first. They put their country first. These are "the people," and the rich people are spiritually suspect, morally deficient, and motivated by selfishness. 

That's belief number one.  

Belief number two might be that providing a stable financial, physical, and spiritual place for my family to grow and prosper will require that I seek career success, nurture a good work ethic, and plan for the future. 

The bind in the double bind is this: "if I rise to greater prominence and financial success, I will be one of those selfish, unworthy, rich people, and if I remain one of the poor salt of the earth, I'll never be able to provide food, housing, education, and opportunity for my children." This results in dangerous dream killing self-sabotage. 

That is where fear of success actually lives.  

How many really unsuccessful, un-influential, holier-than-thou, financially destitute people do you know that have changed the world for the better, lifted others out of poverty, inspired people to noble action, or created something that changed the way that you and I live and work? 

Now, you might say, "well, my grandpa didn't have a lot of money, and he was successful because he raised a great family and they all love each other." That is a beautiful tribute to a noble man. In that thing, he was in fact successful, but it wasn't because he had no money! Success can be measured in a variety of ways, but it is indeed difficult for you or me to bless the lives of our families, or hundreds, or even thousands, when we're worried about our next meal. 

Another common reason that people don't achieve success, or don't reach the goals they thought they chose, is that they think they are unworthy of them. If you're observant, you'll see this all the time. You'll watch people who start to find good jobs, get good salaries, start being able to pay off their debts—they start getting a little better prepared for retirement, and things seem to be going pretty well, at least in that part of their life. And then you'll watch them kill it. You'll watch people that you love sabotage their own jobs, their own positions, their own capabilities, their own opportunities, and their own self-respect, because they are afraid they are unworthy of that thing. Man, if I were the devil himself, I couldn't come up with a better one than that! Another toxic double bind.  

Here's the deal. If you are unworthy of success, or unqualified, how did you get to where you were in the first place, and second—would God himself wish you to make yourself less influential, less capable, less powerful, less helpful, less of a servant, just so you could stay in the worthiness category that you think you deserve? It is not your job to punish yourself into the category that you believe God would put you in. It's your job to become the best you you can become. 

If you are a Christian and believe that you are a child of God, or you believe that you are a child of the universe, or connected to a deity in any way, would that God, that force, that universe, that deity desire you to be less than you were created to be? That denies the very purpose of creation itself. 

Your worthiness should not be the standard by which you judge whether or not you should be successful. Many of us get the wrong message from some of the things that we learn.  

When you get on an airplane, you'll hear them say, "if the cabin loses pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling. Please place your own mask on first," and then they explain that's when you help others around you, including your children. Your death from a lack of oxygen does not save your children. Your lack of success in any area of your life does not bless other people. You can't help people when you can't even help yourself. You're not doing a good and noble thing by judging your own worthiness and deciding which category you belong in. 

You are not God. 

Those who believe that success is something that they're afraid of may fall prey to the belief that successful people are essentially predatory. This is something that's shouted from the rooftops right now, especially on social media. There are those who would remove your freedoms and control you by convincing you that successful people, wealthy people, influential people, people that really get heard, are evil, if there's profit or growth involved. Those who pedal this lie vaunt themselves as somehow virtuous and noble. They then promise to take your problems away from you, and all it will cost is your vote, your money, taxes, influence, likes, etc. We live in a society that is in large part convinced that anyone who is wealthy or successful, or has started a successful enterprise, is essentially a predator, taking from the poor for their own gain. Fear of success eventually robs you and everyone else of their freedom.  

Do you somehow think that the world is a scarce place—that you're taking from someone else when you do something good? Scarcity mentality is a dangerous poison. Scarcity mentality says the world is a giant pie. If you take a big piece, nobody else has enough to eat. But that is completely false. People who are truly successful make more pie. There is unlimited, infinite pie. We're never going to run out. There is plenty. There is enough, and to spare.  

How many people do you know who are living along the banks of a river in Delhi, in a cardboard shack, or in a slum in Madagascar? How many of them are employing thousands and giving them the ability to feed and clothe their families? Any?  

I know several successful people who have blessed the lives of thousands in a variety of ways. These are people I know very, very well. I am intimately acquainted with successful people who have a tremendous amount of influence. Most of them are beautiful examples of self-discipline, generosity, love, and faith. Their motive is to make the world better, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and ease the suffering of the afflicted. The very things that Jesus himself said were an act of service to him, are the things on which they spend their time and energy. Would you have them be different? Would their failure, or yours, bless the lives of others? Does your timidity make you more powerful? Does your self-condemnation make life worthwhile? 

Benjamin Franklin said, "Hide not your talents. They, for use, were made. What's a sundial in the shade?" He was a smart guy. Your ability to utilize your own gifts for the perpetuation of your own success and the blessing of others is the very thing you were created to do. Those of you who are familiar with the parable of the talents will see this writ large in the pages of the Bible. 

Each of you has unique skills, unique talents, unique abilities, and unique opportunities. Use them. Make the world better. Do something good. That idea that came to you in the middle of the night—do you think that was from you? Or might there have been some voice whispering to you, "this will change your life. This will bless somebody else. This will make the world a better place"?  

There is plenty of pie. There's unlimited pie. Self-limitation, at least where success is concerned, is not a virtue. It's not a blessing. It's not a way to keep yourself safe. Not everybody's going to like you. Not everybody is going to think you're the smartest person in the room. Not everybody is going to think that they need what you have or what you create or what you say or what you do, but you were put here because you are completely unique. There's not another person on this planet like you. 

Why not do the things for which you were made? Why not become more than you thought you could become? Why not let the power that is in you come out in a way that blesses the lives of others, even millions? It's happened before. I can think of a preacher from Nazareth who did it. I can think of bicycle mechanics from Ohio that did it, and many more. 

The norm is successful people who quietly go around doing good. They love other people. They teach other people. They bless other people, and they help them grow.  

I'm acquainted with a group that helps wealthy multimillionaires find ways to use the money that they have amassed in a way that blesses others without doing harm. One of them asked, for example, "what can I do to leave an inheritance to my children, but make sure that they're not entitled jerks?" That's a pretty good question. Others say, "what can I do to best help the poor? What can I do to lift my community? How can I leave a legacy of faith, love, service, and self-reliance." Those are good questions. Those are questions that successful people ask. I hope you have a problem like that right now. If you don't, I hope you arrive at that problem when the time is right.  

Fearing success is not helpful to you. Believing things that are not true about yourself is not helpful to you. 

Now, sometimes you need some help to find and fix these harmful beliefs or patterns. That's what I do for a living. Maybe you and I should talk sometime. Go to my website at https://natewalkercoaching.com, click on the contact link, and tell me how I can help you. We'll have a conversation, and I don't charge for those. I talk to people all day long. I know how to help you figure out what those things are that are really stopping you, and it's not really fear of success. 

Don't let others' judgment of you, or your fear about your own lack of ability or lack of preparation, or your fear of the unknown, stop you. They will if you allow it. But if you learn how to get past it, your life will never, ever, be the same. As George Eliot so wisely put it: "It's never too late to be who you might have been."  

We'll talk again soon.