Episode #315: Don't Fear Failure

For decades I drove myself hard, based on a fundamental fallacy. Fear of a future of living in a cardboard box haunted me. I pushed hard so that cardboard box and I would never become well acquainted. You see homeless people in Japan and other countries living that way and it is a reality for them, that they never chose. It happened to them anyway.

The odd part was that this was a deep seated fear within me, that I wasn't really all that conscious of. It was sort of sitting there in the background, in the inner sanctums of my mind. My father had been a big smoker (died of lung cancer at 51), big drinker (every night) and a big gambler (every Saturday at the track). If you grew up in a gambler's household, then you know what never having any money is all about. The weekly pay packet received on Friday evening is taken down to the racetrack and blown on Saturday morning. I never gamble, I never smoke and I drink very, very moderately. Hanmen Kyoshi (反面教師) it is called in Japanese – my Dad was my teacher by negative example.

So as a gambler's son, you start below the waterline and have to work hard to break the surface and make something of yourself and eventually you do. The strange part is that the fear of poverty, the fear of failing never leaves you. Somewhere in the back of your mind is the idea that success is not allowed for you. So you drive yourself hard, constantly dissatisfied with your progress. It is never big enough, never good enough, never fast enough, never safe enough. I could never answer the question of how much was enough, so I just tried to maximize it every time, in every way, in every situation. This put enormous stress and pressure on myself.

Then one day, something happens or someone says something, that makes you rock back on your heels and think hard about it. That is what happened to me. I was describing my fears of the cardboard box and my listener questioned that thesis. He said, "Greg, you have a Ph.D., you have a big job with lot's of responsibility, you have money, you have assets and investments, you have drive and energy, so why are you operating on a false premise of failure. Why can't you drive forward based on a different idea? What about the concept that you can live out of your potential, rather than your fear of failure?".

Wow. You could have knocked me down with a feather. I was stopped in my tracks by that comment. That thought of living out of my potential had never occupied my mind, not for even one nanosecond. Getting good information and doing something about it are not the same thing. I was gripped by what he said and started to ask myself whether that was actually feasible. After so many decades of living out of fear of failure, could I just switch gears completely?

Well it turns out that I could. From that moment in 2000, I forgot about a cardboard box bound future. I made the switch by starting to concentrate on what I had going for me and looked for ways to make more of that.

I made a list of all the things I thought were my strengths and I added that list to my goal setting routine, for daily review. I concentrated on the positive, not the negative. It sounds simple to say that, but this is not simple, when your whole lifetime narrative has been one of probable failed future prospects.

I changed my perspective about myself. I started by questioning my basic assumption - why I thought I would eventually fail? What was the evidence for that assumption? Was I still caught up in my father’s paradigm of self perpetuating poverty, as part of the gambler’s curse. He was a hard worker. He started work at 13 out in the bush on a sheep station in the west of Queensland. He tried many things, but he could never get ahead because of the gambling. When I analysed it, what had any of his life challenges to do with me?

I said to myself, “Hey, I don’t gamble – ever”. My real narrative should be different to my Dad’s and it should be about who I am, not who my father was. When I put it like this it sounds so obvious but it took me a long time to work that out. I was trapped in a mindset of possible total failure looming in the future.

For other fellow "fear of failure" travellers out there, hear me now - we can change gears. We can live everyday with drive and hard work based on a new premise. There is such a thing as working toward our potential, rather than trying to escape from our fear of failure. We can change our view of who we are and where we are going. We can objectively analyse our current and future prospects. We can prepare for the future without worrying about it. We can take steps to head off any possible calamities and take action now, rather than just spinning around in worry circles.

Don't be like me though and spend lost decades working this out. Don't rely on getting lucky through the most random chance of a single comment. Hear me now and hit the reset button. Decide you want to say goodbye to your cardboard box premonition or whatever fear is driving you and move to a better future based on the reality of your current strengths, experience and accomplishments.