Creating Success from the Inside Out: Develop The Focus and Strategy To Uncover the Life You Want

III.2. Two Kinds of Fear

Most of the fears that I see immobilizing people boil down to two primary issues: Fear of People and Fear of Failure. Sometimes I call them FOP and FOF when I speak before a group. That takes the edge off a bit, but these two are nothing to laugh at. They're success killers and create lives of misery.

Fear of People

I regularly speak in front of investor organizations, college business schools, and other professional groups around the country. You'd be amazed at the number of well-educated, otherwise successful people who come up to me afterwards and tell me they would absolutely freeze if they had to stand and talk in front of people. Board meetings give them the shakes; being asked to pray over the Men's Breakfast terrifies them; and even giving a wedding toast is more than they can handle.

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody. —-Bill Cosby

People pleasing can be one way that we compensate for this form of fear. Are you a people pleaser? I see people all the time who try to bend over backward to please their spouse, their boss, their coworkers. They get their lives all twisted up like a pretzel, worrying (there's that false expectation) about offending someone or being rejected. I believe more people avoid pursuing what could be a lucrative sales career because of this one fear over any other reason.

We may think of Fear of People as a fear of messing up, being embarrassed in front of others, having to ...