It makes sense to be afraid of failing. After all, what rational person wants to fail?
What is much more subtle and mysterious is the fear of success. How could anyone be afraid of success?
In today’s episode I share how a strange encounter in a second hand bookshop led to some deeper insights into how we all dear that challenges and changes that success can bring.
If you want to start uncovering the deep issues that may be holding you back then this is the episode for you.
Grab a free copy of my book Bridging the Gap here:
https://go.jonathandoyle.co/btg-pdf
Enquire about booking Jonathan to speak:
https://go.jonathandoyle.co/jd-speak-opt-in
Find out about coaching with Jonathan here:
https://go.jonathandoyle.co/coaching
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome my friends to the daily podcast.
Speaker:Really enjoying the opportunity to spend some time with you guys each day.
Speaker:I know you all listen at different times.
Speaker:I know you don't always get to every episode, but you never know
Speaker:when the good Lord, the cosmos.
Speaker:However you conceptualize things is just going to bring you an idea, a,
Speaker:a thought, an inspiration, a quote.
Speaker:That's just going to affect your day in some positive way.
Speaker:It's a great joy to do it.
Speaker:It, uh, Often the site of care and they're doing this work each day.
Speaker:Not only is hopefully a blessing to many of you guys, but also just a great chance
Speaker:for me to keep embedding the learning that I'm undertaking on this journey of life.
Speaker:There's still so much to learn.
Speaker:We are such deeply mysterious.
Speaker:Creatures living in the mysterious cosmos.
Speaker:And, uh, there were just so many opportunities before us, so much potential
Speaker:that we have, and hopefully each day, just to sharing this time with you, we get a
Speaker:chance to explore some of that together.
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Speaker:It does make a big difference.
Speaker:And if you like what you're hearing.
Speaker:Then reach out and let me know, send me an email.
Speaker:jonathan@jonathandoyle.co.com.
Speaker:Specifically, if you've got a topic you want me to cover up,
Speaker:there was an episode I did.
Speaker:Uh, about a week ago on toxic people.
Speaker:And it just took off, it had like, you know, a huge number of hits and
Speaker:listens compared to the episodes that surround that at some deeply convinced
Speaker:that listener generated content.
Speaker:Is the way to go.
Speaker:So if you find that there is something in your life that's holding you back,
Speaker:there's an issue, a challenge, a problem.
Speaker:It could be work-related relationships, health, and fitness mindset,
Speaker:anything that's holding you back.
Speaker:Send me an email today, Jonathan, at Jonathan doyle.co, because
Speaker:those questions, excuse me.
Speaker:That I get from you guys really helped generate the content.
Speaker:So please make sure you subscribed, flick me an email with some ideas
Speaker:for what you want to hear about.
Speaker:And make sure you go and check out the description notes today because there
Speaker:are links in there to get free access to my book, bridging the gap, free access.
Speaker:You can find it, how to book me to speak.
Speaker:If you're have a leadership role in, uh, in business, in a community organizations,
Speaker:churches, education, setting schools.
Speaker:Wherever you have a leadership role.
Speaker:Let me know if you would like me to come in and work with your team, your people,
Speaker:and put together a great presentation.
Speaker:That's going to help move everybody forward now.
Speaker:I said about a week ago.
Speaker:It didn't episode.
Speaker:That said, what if God is on your side and a, that fits into today's
Speaker:episode because I had this kind of God on my side experience, we've been
Speaker:on a little break for about a week.
Speaker:And by in Queensland.
Speaker:And I love books.
Speaker:I'm a voracious reader, one of the great tragedies of this season of life.
Speaker:Not that there's many of them really, but one of the tragedies or.
Speaker:How about something that's just mildly inconvenient.
Speaker:Let's just downgrade it to that.
Speaker:Uh, in this season of life is I didn't get to read often as much as I want it to.
Speaker:When a pre COVID, I was traveling so much, especially flying in and out of
Speaker:the U S you know, every, uh, sort of few weeks I got to do tons of great readings.
Speaker:So that's a, it's a real pity, but.
Speaker:So I am a, I'm a bibliophile.
Speaker:I'm somebody that loves to read.
Speaker:I've always been, you know, for.
Speaker:Uh, for decades now, I just had such an interesting business books.
Speaker:Personal development biographies.
Speaker:And so we're up on the coast and there's a couple of oh, I spend two
Speaker:or three bookshops that I went to.
Speaker:And I'll be really honest with you.
Speaker:I was just, I was kind of.
Speaker:What's the word, not nonplussed.
Speaker:I was kind of underwhelmed.
Speaker:That's what I was looking for underwhelmed by a lot of the stuff that's out there in.
Speaker:You know, at the moment in terms of personal development and.
Speaker:Spirituality self-help stuff.
Speaker:It's it's it seems to me, and this is just a, sort of a broad brush here.
Speaker:It's very kind of utilitarian.
Speaker:It takes the view that the purpose of existence is simply too.
Speaker:Maximize efficiency and impact and outcomes.
Speaker:And it treats many of its sort of treats life has kind of like a.
Speaker:Uh, sort of like some sort of project that we just need to optimize
Speaker:and then we will find happiness.
Speaker:I guess what I'm saying is a lot of, it seems to be missing depth.
Speaker:So hence my story.
Speaker:Uh, Karen and I had a rare chance to get a break.
Speaker:Uh, kids are still pretty young as you know, and we Karen's parents
Speaker:offered to take the kids for the evening and we escaped to have dinner
Speaker:and, uh, And it was a, it was great.
Speaker:And the, unfortunately the weather it was, was a bit off.
Speaker:So we were driving around and trying to find somewhere to go for dinner.
Speaker:And as we do some times, here's, here's me teaching people how to
Speaker:be decisive and full of action.
Speaker:And we're indecisive trying to find a restaurant and we're
Speaker:driving around and driving around.
Speaker:And at one point we turned a corner and I just happened to
Speaker:notice a secondhand bookstore.
Speaker:It was closed.
Speaker:I just noticed where it was.
Speaker:And so a couple of days later, We're out walking in.
Speaker:And I said to guys that, Hey, let's go check out this bookstore.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:Sure enough.
Speaker:We ended up at the bookstore and it's, I love old secondhand bookstores, and
Speaker:I've found that a sort of business, personal development section.
Speaker:And I found this really fascinating book and I'm just going to, I've got it here
Speaker:in front of me, and I'm just looking at the, um, The first published thing.
Speaker:It should be interesting when this was first published.
Speaker:Let me see.
Speaker:Um, first published.
Speaker:In 1992.
Speaker:As my first year out of high school.
Speaker:1992.
Speaker:So friends that is 30 years ago.
Speaker:My gosh.
Speaker:And it's, um, it's a fascinating book.
Speaker:It's called thick face, black heart thick face, black heart.
Speaker:From a Taiwanese Chinese lady called chin Ning.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:And she a fascinating lady, you know, really amazing story.
Speaker:Uh, her parents with, uh, she was with her parents when they literally got the last.
Speaker:Commercial flight out of mainland China.
Speaker:Um, during the, uh, you know, when the, uh, the revolution was, um,
Speaker:People were escaping to Taiwan to escape, um, mail.
Speaker:And they were literally on the last flight out.
Speaker:And, um, so she had this amazing life, you know, she came from wealth, but they ended
Speaker:up so poor, obviously fleeing the country.
Speaker:Then she built a life in, in the U S in business.
Speaker:And, um, she became a real genius at helping Western business operators
Speaker:understand the, sort of the, the Asian mindset around business.
Speaker:So that's her story, but.
Speaker:This book thick face black heart was just, I just, I just sort of reached
Speaker:out to me and it costs me $4, 95, $4 95.
Speaker:And most of the other stuff that you find these days in.
Speaker:Airports, you know, you're paying 30, $40 for.
Speaker:What can often be a bit of fluff.
Speaker:So this book has been really fascinating.
Speaker:It's got depth to it.
Speaker:It comes from, uh, an intelligent person.
Speaker:Who's lived a lot of life, seen a lot of life.
Speaker:And, um, yeah, I just want to encourage everybody that, um, you know, pay
Speaker:attention to what you're reading like this, some, a lot of fluff around these
Speaker:days and, and, you know, often the, um, The more challenging texts, you know,
Speaker:stuff that I mentioned at the moment, I just bought her a new translation
Speaker:of Marcus Aurelius has meditations.
Speaker:Um, I'm a big fan of, uh, Alfred Adler and a lot of these things.
Speaker:You have to do the work.
Speaker:You have to actually put the time in and read them and understand them.
Speaker:But, um, listen, what I want to do today.
Speaker:Is a, I'm a big, uh, underline or highlight or so.
Speaker:All through this book, I've just highlighted and written things down.
Speaker:And there was a section I want to share with you today.
Speaker:Which is the purpose of today's episode, which is going a little bit deeper
Speaker:into this concept of fear of success.
Speaker:Self-sabotaged which I talk about quite frequently, regular listeners will
Speaker:know that it comes up and I want to.
Speaker:Uh, share this quote with you from chin Ning.
Speaker:True.
Speaker:And from her book here, but, uh, let's just riff on fear
Speaker:of success at the moment.
Speaker:Now we all get fear of failure, right?
Speaker:Like we all objectively understand why a fear of failure is a thing.
Speaker:We all understand that we want to have.
Speaker:You know, some level of success in life, you want to achieve certain
Speaker:things and it is reasonable to fear failures in it because we're
Speaker:worried that we'll be ostracized.
Speaker:We'll be embarrassed.
Speaker:Will please seen as inadequate or incompetent.
Speaker:So fear of failure on.
Speaker:You know, on a pretty objective level makes some kind of sense, right?
Speaker:And then I can obviously drive a lot of anxiety where afraid to,
Speaker:you know, that we're going to fail.
Speaker:So that's I get that.
Speaker:I kind of understand why fear of, you know, Well, public speaking is
Speaker:a real fear for many people, right?
Speaker:Because there's that genuine sense of, I don't want to get up there and.
Speaker:And make an absolute fool of myself.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:But for your success is a stranger beast.
Speaker:It is sort of one of the unicorns of personal development.
Speaker:Why would any of us.
Speaker:FIA success.
Speaker:I mean, how is that possible?
Speaker:And then, you know, of course we understand this phenomenon of
Speaker:self-sabotage of people getting to a particular place and then blowing
Speaker:their lives up spectacularly.
Speaker:What would drive that?
Speaker:Well,
Speaker:Obviously it's a semi-conscious or even subconscious impulse.
Speaker:Um, that's we want to talk about today.
Speaker:Because chin Nene chew.
Speaker:It gives us a really good insight here in this.
Speaker:So let me read it to you.
Speaker:She says this.
Speaker:Most of the things we think we want come at the price of
Speaker:leaving behind our familiar life and venturing into the unknown.
Speaker:Every time we accomplished something and move ahead.
Speaker:We have to exchange the known conditions of our life.
Speaker:For uncertainty.
Speaker:And unfamiliarity.
Speaker:Even though most people think they are trying to succeed.
Speaker:They are simply going through the motions.
Speaker:And I'm going to read that to you again in a sec, I think
Speaker:there's a lot of depth in that.
Speaker:And as I say, that's why I liked this book.
Speaker:Um, She's drawing our attention to the most obvious truth.
Speaker:That we are bio physiologically.
Speaker:And in terms of evolutionary psychology, we are hardwired adapted to
Speaker:belonging, to certainty, to stability and predictability as a species.
Speaker:We have done really well using.
Speaker:Leveraging a few great realities.
Speaker:Cooperation is one of them.
Speaker:That's one of the things that's seen.
Speaker:Our species absolutely thrive.
Speaker:Uh, and also.
Speaker:Things like this sort of, uh, the social cohesion and this desire
Speaker:to stay alive, this desire to, to not take unnecessary risks.
Speaker:I've said on recent podcasts that we admire risk-takers we admire explorers
Speaker:and people that do amazing things, but to be honest, in terms of evolutionary, uh,
Speaker:psychology and, uh, and evolution itself, these are often the people that got eaten.
Speaker:They were the ones that wanted to explore our known territories
Speaker:and got eaten by a bear.
Speaker:So as a species, we actually evolved to sit around the campfire with our
Speaker:backs, to the fire, looking out into the darkness, making sure nothing ATUs.
Speaker:So you can see how this desire for predictability for certainty has been
Speaker:a very big part of the human story.
Speaker:And once we begin to venture into unknown territory, we
Speaker:simultaneously make the decision.
Speaker:For our lives, our experiences, our relationships to be different.
Speaker:Let's do some really obvious examples.
Speaker:If you're a heavy drug addict, there is a highly, like a
Speaker:high likelihood that you are.
Speaker:Of course, what surrounded by white for it.
Speaker:Other heavy drug users.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:It's.
Speaker:It's an enabling process.
Speaker:Uh, we often find that.
Speaker:You know, people with all sorts of particular focuses and
Speaker:interests in life tend to group themselves around other people.
Speaker:Elite athletes tend to be around other elite athletes as a species.
Speaker:Again, we're adapted for this.
Speaker:So, what tends to happen is if we want to really change our lives, we
Speaker:immediately face the risk of ostracizing, some of the people in our lives.
Speaker:And, um, people think, well, does it have to be that way?
Speaker:I don't know the answer to that, but it seems to be that
Speaker:way that is our lives change.
Speaker:As we try different things and experience different things
Speaker:and desire different things.
Speaker:Some of our relationships and our experience of life and our relationship
Speaker:with ourselves can begin to shift.
Speaker:So what are most people do?
Speaker:Well, as she says here in the last line, she says, even though most people
Speaker:think they are trying to succeed,
Speaker:They are simply going through the motions.
Speaker:I think if you ask most people, if you say, Hey, did, would
Speaker:you like to succeed in life?
Speaker:I mean, who is rationally going to say, hell no, I want to fail badly.
Speaker:I want to just lose everything.
Speaker:Everybody.
Speaker:I think most rational people would argue that they want to improve their lives.
Speaker:They want to grow.
Speaker:They want to succeed.
Speaker:They want to change.
Speaker:So why don't they.
Speaker:You know, to be blunt.
Speaker:Why does so many people tend to settle in life?
Speaker:You know, I often talk about the metaphorical couch of life.
Speaker:Why does so many people settle?
Speaker:What differentiates people that want more and desire more?
Speaker:That is, uh, you know, it's one of the great mysteries.
Speaker:Isn't it?
Speaker:Let me do this quote with you one more time.
Speaker:We'll just unpack a little bit more here.
Speaker:She goes.
Speaker:Most of the things we think we want.
Speaker:I come at the price of leaving behind our familiar life.
Speaker:And venturing into the unknown.
Speaker:Every time we accomplished something and move ahead, we have to exchange
Speaker:the known conditions of our life.
Speaker:For uncertainty and unfamiliarity.
Speaker:Even though most people think they are trying to succeed.
Speaker:They are simply going through the motions.
Speaker:You know, I think I mentioned recently that I've been teaching my eldest daughter
Speaker:world history, and recently we've looked at the D uh, the journeys of Vesco to
Speaker:Garma Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand, Magellan, and Magellan, of course.
Speaker:Is the, uh, the great Explorer, the first person to circumnavigate the globe though.
Speaker:He didn't actually pull it off.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker:Many of you will go.
Speaker:What, Magellan's the guy that circumnavigated the world.
Speaker:What kind of, he.
Speaker:He left Spain and, uh, headed through pasture Boulter and out
Speaker:into the ocean and, um, got around the horn and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:But eventually he got to the Philippines and was killed.
Speaker:So had his captain and, uh, the rest of his crew managed to get back to Italy, but
Speaker:he didn't, uh, he didn't actually make it.
Speaker:But, you know, I think about these people.
Speaker:When you look at the journey that they would have made and the
Speaker:boats that they were doing it in.
Speaker:And the vast distances.
Speaker:You know, it was Magellan that named the Pacific, the Pacific, it comes from,
Speaker:you know, Uh, patchy, meaning peaceful.
Speaker:So they, it was a peaceful ocean and it was calm when they crossed it.
Speaker:I've flown that ocean so many times.
Speaker:I'm flying Sydney to Dallas that many times.
Speaker:And you just get a sense of the scale involved and modern
Speaker:getting at he was, can you imagine what that would have been like?
Speaker:To leave behind the relative comforts of European civilization at that time
Speaker:to head into this vast unknown, I mean,
Speaker:And then I looked at who was I looking at the other day?
Speaker:You know, Marco polo that a tedious kind of 25 year Trek all the way from Venice
Speaker:to, uh, to the Imperial courts in China.
Speaker:And just the leaving behind and the decision to step out into something,
Speaker:not knowing what's going to happen.
Speaker:My point here is that.
Speaker:The men and women who tend to do interesting, remarkable, important things
Speaker:in life tend to be men and women who are prepared to leave behind the familiar.
Speaker:Who are prepared to take risks now as OSA, lets you know, there's a
Speaker:question of degree here, right?
Speaker:So we're not all called to, you know, chart new courses through the stars.
Speaker:But sometimes, you know, The success that we want in a marriage or
Speaker:parenting or work or career or health.
Speaker:Comes from the same dynamic.
Speaker:It comes from going, the realization that you've lived a certain way.
Speaker:For a long time, but you're no longer prepared to stay there.
Speaker:So, this is what I call it.
Speaker:We're.
Speaker:When I think about this episode, I thought.
Speaker:How do I move this from being abstract to being concrete?
Speaker:How do I give you?
Speaker:Some actual things to do or to think about in terms of, you know,
Speaker:experiencing more success in your life.
Speaker:Look, the first things I'd say to everybody is.
Speaker:You want to have some clarity, always teach that you need to have some
Speaker:clarity about what success actually.
Speaker:Looks like for you and no judgment, right?
Speaker:Like for some people, success could be, you know, the, the big success
Speaker:that the chasing could be, you know, losing 10 pounds and getting fit.
Speaker:For some people that could be to become president of the United nations.
Speaker:Um, it doesn't matter.
Speaker:It's it's, I mean, I'm not going to critique people's desires in terms of
Speaker:growth and development and, and goals.
Speaker:But the first thing you needed is some clarity.
Speaker:The next thing I'd suggest is.
Speaker:I was really thinking deeply that what, what is the energy
Speaker:source that will move you from.
Speaker:The drudgery of the day to day or the results that you've
Speaker:been getting for too long.
Speaker:And what it is that you actually want, what is that mechanism?
Speaker:And it's what I've been calling, I think for a few years, divine dissatisfaction.
Speaker:You've got to get what I call a divine dissatisfaction,
Speaker:which is a kind of spiritual dissatisfaction with where you are.
Speaker:Uh, nagging sense that there is more in life for you, a nagging
Speaker:sense that you could contribute more experience, more, have more.
Speaker:You know, in life said, you've got to look for that dissatisfaction.
Speaker:If you don't have that.
Speaker:If you don't have some kind of gnawing sense that things couldn't
Speaker:should be a little bit different.
Speaker:Then you are unlikely to make significant change.
Speaker:And the last point I wanted to make today, Was to also draw your
Speaker:attention to the truth, to the truth.
Speaker:I think the truth.
Speaker:That growth.
Speaker:Is.
Speaker:Essential.
Speaker:It's an essential aspect of the cosmic order.
Speaker:Everything is moving in the cosmos, right?
Speaker:Nothing stationary where you say, you might say, well, what about mountains?
Speaker:Mountains don't go anywhere.
Speaker:Of course they do.
Speaker:You know, like I live in Australia, it's a very old, stable, relatively
Speaker:flat geological continent that once had huge mountains.
Speaker:So mountains are being ground down to dust and that dust is moving into the oceans or
Speaker:being blown to other parts of the world.
Speaker:And eventually.
Speaker:We're going to get a supernova and the planet won't exist and everything
Speaker:that constitutes this planet will be sucked into a black hole, probably.
Speaker:So nothing is stationary.
Speaker:Nothing.
Speaker:Things are always moving.
Speaker:And I just think that the.
Speaker:Where I'm beginning to move.
Speaker:My thinking is that we are called into this great cosmic mystery.
Speaker:Of growth and movement.
Speaker:And as recently somebody said, well, what about just learning to
Speaker:be still in meditation and being in gratitude for what you do have?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:These are not mutually exclusive.
Speaker:So I'll move in and out of, you know, today I went and, um,
Speaker:When had a long, 35 minute deep meditation session, prayer session.
Speaker:So I spend time every day in deep stillness and contemplation.
Speaker:But the rest of the time I'm moving, I'm trying to do things
Speaker:and trying to make stuff happen.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Friends.
Speaker:Do not be afraid of success.
Speaker:Uh, you know, success will mean that things will change for you.
Speaker:Some things you will have to leave behind some things you'll need to let go of.
Speaker:A couple of weeks ago, in an episode, we talked about, you know, Stephen Covey's
Speaker:quote that, um, you know, the reason you, if you want different things in your life,
Speaker:you're gonna have to do different things.
Speaker:You have to become a different person.
Speaker:We see this in cinema all the time.
Speaker:You know, the hero's journey, Joseph Campbell's hero archetype.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Where we see the Luke Skywalker's, who come from one place don't
Speaker:really know their identity.
Speaker:They get swept up.
Speaker:In into an adventure that, that takes them away from all of the
Speaker:stability and transforms them and changes them into who they really are.
Speaker:So maybe it's not about a case of sort of radically becoming a different person.
Speaker:Maybe it's a case of becoming radically, who we actually are in the first place.
Speaker:I'm convinced at the moment that there is just so much potential,
Speaker:so much capacity in every single one of us so much to contribute.
Speaker:And this fear of success.
Speaker:Rob's the world of all that is in you.
Speaker:So do not be afraid of change to not be afraid of growth, run towards it.
Speaker:I run towards at my friends because.
Speaker:You don't want to get to the end of this journey and realize
Speaker:that the music dies with you.
Speaker:You don't want to get to the end of the journey and realize
Speaker:that you stayed safe too long.
Speaker:You stayed comfortable too long.
Speaker:You didn't try things for too long.
Speaker:One day, the music stops.
Speaker:All right, everybody.
Speaker:That's it do not be afraid of success.
Speaker:Thank you to chin.
Speaker:Children.
Speaker:Oh, my gosh, chin.
Speaker:chew in a memorize that chin being true.
Speaker:True from her book thick face black heart.
Speaker:If you can find a copy, I think there are copies on Amazon.
Speaker:It's definitely worth checking out.
Speaker:I really liked it.
Speaker:Uh, God bless you everybody.
Speaker:Please make sure you have subscribed.
Speaker:Book me to speak.
Speaker:The links are all here in the show notes.
Speaker:Um, grab yourself some free access to my book, bridging the gap of God.
Speaker:Bless, should be encouraged to get out there amongst it today.
Speaker:Take some small step.
Speaker:Never leave the scene of a decision without taking action go get them
Speaker:friends my name is jonathan doyle this has been the daily podcast and you
