3min chapter

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475: How to heal your trauma & achieve greatness | NYT bestselling author Lewis Howes

The mindbodygreen Podcast

CHAPTER

Are You Afraid of Failure?

Fear of failure is one of the things that holds people back from taking action on what they want. Fear of success makes a lot of sense, but self doubt doesn't make as much sense to me. There's also an amazing documentary you would love called the weight of gold. It's about Olympic gold medalists who commit suicide within a year after they win or go over it's credit.

00:00
Speaker 2
You know, self doubt to me makes a lot of sense. Fear of failure makes a lot of sense. But you also talk about the book fear of success. To me, that one doesn't make as much sense. Talk about that. It didn't
Speaker 1
make sense to me growing up because that's always what I wanted. I was like, I'm driven by success. This is what I want. But as I started to go around and kind of study these three fears over the last 10 years and start asking all these individuals on my show about these things. And as I started to go around and speak about it, I would ask people in rooms, you know, say there's 500 people in a room, I would say how many people here have ever been afraid of failure? A lot of people raise their hand. And it's one of the things that causes them that holds them back from taking action on what they want the fear of failure. And I'd say, how many people here are afraid of success? Almost as many people were afraid of success. And I didn't understand it. And I started to ask them questions. Why? This was probably out of the seven, eight years ago when I started to ask in public about this. And so many people would say, well, you know, there's a whole thing of like, I can't remember the stat, it's like 78% of like NFL players go bankrupt like four years after they retire or something like that, right? It's like, a lot of people aren't taught how to manage success. And if we use that scenario, that kind of small industry of once they're successful, they end up spending their money on all their friends. And now there's people coming out of the woodworks and asking for things. And now you don't know who your friends really are, because do they want to be around you for your money, for your success, because you have access to things because they can help you more. But would they be your friend if you didn't have that money or success? And so I think it's the the pressure and the weight of success and the responsibility. Well, okay, I got to the top, can I stay at the top? And what happens if I fall, then is anyone going to accept me and love me? Then it all goes away. So it's that fear that started to make sense to me after I understood it. There's also an amazing documentary you would love called the weight of gold. It's actually kind of sad, but it's a powerful documentary because it's about Olympic gold medalists who commit suicide within a year after they win or go over it's credit. I mean, it's sad, but it's a powerful documentary. They overdosed. They, not all of them, but some of them that weren't able to manage or navigate the pressure. And it's also like, I had the greatest moments of my life. Will I ever experience this feeling ever again? That's why a lot of people are afraid of it.

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