Fear of Success
You’re going to have an awesome year. I know it.
The Impactmaker Movement is into its third calendar year. This is quite an accomplishment.
I’m afraid though.
Criticism
I welcome dissenting opinions to what I do but I would be lying if I said that I appreciate all criticism.
It is human nature to seek acceptance and agreement. We ALL want people to support what we believe.
We’ve considered on multiple occasions that doing positive things brings a lot of negativity.
“Bob, what are you talking about?”
I mean that when you are honest with a given situation that needs to get better, you are opening yourself up to some pretty hard discussions.
War
Positivity is constantly in a war with negativity. There is no neutral in my opinion.
I expect there to be naysayers to our efforts. Otherwise, we’d have no work to do.
The world will NEVER be perfect. If you’ve been following E-Impact for a while, you know that I am faithful guy and I believe that the only perfect place is heaven. With that being said, we must make the best of what we’ve been entrusted with here on this side of eternity.
Fight the good fight.
Success
The self help industry is popular because we all want to feel successful. The problem is that most of us don’t define our success internally.
We measure our lives by what external sources indicate is important.
Here are some of the sources that come to mind:
Does your computer tell you what’s most important?
-employers
-spouses or other family members
-social media feeds (Facebook, Tik-Tok)
-big brands (Nike, Lululemon, Mercedes-Benz)
-actors/actresses
-athletes
-musicians/singers
-traditional media
These things raise the question, “Why do we accept those sources as the standard?”.
It’s because it’s common ground. That’s it.
The only reason why you think it’s important to keep with what they indicate as important is because they are generally accepted as a credible source.
This is not to say that all big brands or sources of media act with mal-intent (or any on those platforms). It simply means that it is easy for us all to communicate with primary sources of information. This is why many people learn English in addition to their native tongue. It’s just easier when there is a universal language. In fact, most would agree that English is a rather complex language.
Your success should be defined by YOU and you alone.
Hold Up
Before you underestimate what it takes to be successful, consider what success is.
I can’t tell you the finer details of your unique success.
But, I can tell you exactly what it’s not.
Success is NOT easy. It’s not a celebration. It’s not nice things. It’s not loving your lot in life and it’s certainly not glamorous.
I know this is hard to acknowledge. All of the top people at your company are not necessarily successful. The CEO of your organization isn’t either. Your high school acquaintance that has one hundred thousand Instagram followers isn’t. Your favorite movie start isn’t.
All of those people might in fact be successful but it’s not their status that makes them.
So, hold up before you crown them.
Two Essentials
Their success has two foundational components. It is essential that you consider them in the evaluation of the above people but most important in your own definition of success (DOS).
The first is a purpose. It answers the question, “What are you trying to do?”.
Purpose is covered in depth in Speaking of Impact episodes 14, 32, and 69 and the November 24, 2020 E-Impact Blog entry.
You have to have a reason for doing what you do or else you’ll never be successful.
The second item, and perhaps the most important, is the actions.
I believe the reason that most people don’t feel successful is because they do not know the EXACT actions that need to be done to be successful. They know the goal but they don’t know how to get there.
Success is a verb in this context. It’s a group of things that need to be done.
How Did They Do It?
The CEOs and professional athletes that make it to the pinnacle of their professions have to work for decades to reach their peak.
Cliche alert: there are no overnight success.
This is because success takes time. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
I am writing this in the car in Arizona after a morning jog. Yes, a jog. I hate jogging but this was the first time I was able to do it since breaking my clavicle exactly a month ago (December 1, 2021).
I was so inspired by the words of Warrick Dunn, whom I was listening to on my run, that I had to record a video to put out on social media (Hopefully, the posts were more aligned with the definition of success that I am supporting in this entry).
Check out Warrick Dunn Charities. They do awesome work.
My desire is to sprint; literally and figuratively. I appreciate high intensity exercise most. I also wish that my business and The Impactmaker Movement would hurry up and change the world - the whole world. This is foolish.
The best of the best have turned a borderline obsession in to success. They are able to do this (whether they know it or not) by simplifying what seems to be complicated into our two essentials; purpose and action.
Their purpose is a specific achievement (Super Bowl, Hall of Fame, Grammy, President of a company, Olympic Medal) and their action is all of the things that it takes to reach it.
The best know what to do and why they do it.
Self-Collaboration
I made up a new term. Regardless if it catches on, a solid DOS (I guess I made up the acronym too), will enable you to collaborate with yourself fearlessly.
I appreciated my conversation with HR Heidi Torres on Speaking of Impact Episode 77 because she made networking seem much easier than it normally feels.
We all have some healthy fear when put in a new situation with new people.
Have you even been given an assignment at work or in school where you have to collaborate with other people?
Remember that awkward first discussion where everyone was getting comfortable? Or, maybe no one ever got comfortable.
The reason for that discomfort is fear - on multiple levels. People are afraid of making mistakes or seeming ignorant. They are also afraid of failing at work or school. They are afraid of letting others down and there’s probably a many other things.
Our fear of success is directly related to the above type of fear.
It’s really just a fear of collaborating with oneself.
You don’t want to come up with a strong purpose because what may happen if you don’t fulfill it.
You don’t want to chase your purpose because of what might happen if you fail.
You don’t want to take action because it might hurt or take too long.
You don’t want to do the things that you know are essential because of what you will have to sacrifice in order to do them.
Collaborate with yourself. Use your DOS and your two essentials to work together.
Self-Motivation
I am going to venture a guess and say that self-collaboration will not catch on and the reason is it’s really just self-motivation.
There’s no better motivation than purpose.
Your purpose will motivate you to take action and your actions will keep you focused on your purpose. It’s a tremendous habit loop.
I just saw a social media post (There’s the perpetrator again!) from James Clear, the author of “Atomic Habits”.
There’s good reason that James’ book is quoted in my book, “Personal Finance in a Public World” and many E-Impact entries and episodes of Speaking of Impact. He does a great job of explaining how the brain works to help us improve our mental processes.
James’ post stated how he had the number one selling book (overall, all categories) on Amazon in 2021. This is an amazing accomplishment and you might think based on his humility that it just happened. However, closer examination will show you that he had a specific purpose for the book and knew the actions it would take to accomplish what he did.
James was self-motivated despite having the help of a publisher and people working for him.
Your self-motivation (collaboration) is no different.
Fear is a Liar
I am pretty sure that this has been a subtitle of ours before. I urge you to consider it strongly in 2022.
The fear of success that you have holding you back can and must be overcome. This is a firm reality.
Great news! We have a simple formula defined above.
Your DOS is not scary. The fear you feel is of something different, some thing defined by the world. It lies.
We must collaborate with others and take on some fear to make a positive impact in the world. But, we must collaborate with fearlessly with ourselves first.
This is why fear is a liar. It tells us that the irrelevant is important.
Now we know the truth.
Tools for Your Definition of Success
I must be clear that your DOS should be very simple. Though, it must be powerful. Therefore, here’s a couple things you can do to generate powerful simplicity.
Write it down - one of my favorite practices for a lot of things.
Use “I” in your statements - written or verbal
Use one and exactly one verb in your purpose - one great thing at a time
Have one subject of your purpose (direct object or the sentaence for grammatical purposes) - again, one great thing at a time.
List your actions in order of priority - the first one must be done or the others can’t be
Include no nuance or approximations - completion should be determined by a “yes” or “no”
Use chronological and numerical clarifiers as much as possible- know how often and how much
Here’s my purpose as an example:
I present fulfillment to purpose driven people.
An alternate display of my purpose:
My purpose is to present fulfillment to purpose driven people.
Actions:
Identify people who are not familiar with fulfillment
Ask, “What matters most to you?”, to said people
Broadcast 1 episode of Speaking of Impact weekly
Publish 1 E-Impact Blog entry weekly
Run Initiate Impact daily
Post 1 piece of original social media content that promotes positive impact daily
Follow up with EVERYONE whom I have asked the above question at least once
Note that the language might feel as if there is a hint of arrogance. The purpose statement can be shared as I have done for illustrative purposes but they are for you only. Soft skills in execution are essential. Actions, in this case, speak clearer than words.
I trust that you will embrace success in its toughest forms this year.
Go get ‘em!