What Many Leaders Fear The Most…

What many leaders fear the most is…Failure. So, let’s deal with it…

Don’t ever wait for circumstances to be perfect before courageously stepping out into greater opportunities. Too many people want to wait for their fear to disappear before they take a leap of faith; but faith does not operate that way. Courage is about stepping out even when you are unsure of the outcome. Those who wait until they feel ready are usually just living with an excuse for their apprehension.

You and I have to step out in unwavering bravery despite our fears. If I were to ask you to walk across an 8-foot beam that was only 2 feet off the ground, would you do it? Probably so. You probably wouldn’t think twice about it. However, if I were to raise it 5 feet off the ground, would you still do it? Maybe. What if I raised it 25 feet off the ground? What about 50 feet? What about 500 feet? What about 5,000 feet? At what point did you drop out? Why did you drop out? Was it because you do not know how to walk across an 8-foot beam? Of course not. It takes the exact same skill to walk across an 8-foot beam at 500 feet off the ground as it does to walk across an 8-foot beam at 2 feet off the ground. Nothing changed in terms of your ability to make it across. What changed is your fear. Fear keeps us from going higher and reaching for greater opportunities.

Your sight may scare you; it can put fear in your mind. The reality is: If you knew the beam was no higher than 2 feet off the ground, you would have very little fear in crossing it. You’re only afraid because of what you see. You’re afraid of falling. The fear of failure can cause you to stop pressing on in your courage. Disappointments will be a part of life, but they are not forever. Every one of us will fail at some point, sooner or later. Even the best of the best have had their share of setbacks. Think about these household names who did not start off as the successes that we know them to be…

• Babe Ruth, who had the record for most home runs, also had the record for most strikeouts.
• Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
• Walt Disney went bankrupt seven times. A newspaper editor fired him because, “He lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”
• Henry Ford forgot to put reverse in his first automobile, but it didn’t stop him from building cars.
• Star Wars received this review from a movie critic: “Dull new world, as exciting as last year’s weather report.”
• The artist, Van Gogh, sold one painting in his lifetime.
• Steven Spielberg dropped out of high school. He applied to attend film school three times but was unsuccessful because of his C grade average.
• Twenty-seven different publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’ first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.
• Many record labels rejected the Beatles. In a famous rejection, Decca Records said, “Guitar groups are on the way out,” and “The Beatles have no future in show business.”

Always remember: Failure is not forever; it’s just a moment to learn. Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” When we stop moving forward for fear of having a bad experience, we waste the possibility of having a great experience. The key to overcoming failure is to keep our eyes forward. Everyone has faced, is facing, or will face failures in their life. The question is not, “Will I ever fail?”

The question is, “How will I respond to failure?” Every failure brings with it a seed of success, but we must extract the growth lessons from our failures in order to learn from them. If you allow failure to keep you down, you will miss out on great opportunities. Motivational speaker, Les Brown, put it this way: “When life knocks you down, try to land on your back. Because if you can look up, you can get up.” Leaders get back up from failure and keep on keepin’ on. Building upon failure is how we reach high enough to become successful in what we do. Thomas J. Watson, the former chairman and CEO of IBM said, “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.”

* Taken from my new leadership book LEADOLOGY available on Amazon, iBooks, Audio Book, & Kindle