Last week, while discussing what it takes to succeed at your work, Seth Godin said, “I worked really hard, back against the wall, thinking I was going to fail, almost did, and I got lucky.” Personally, I am more inclined to have faith in the providence of God than blind luck. However, the heart of the statement rang true to me. Particularly the part about thinking I was going to fail and then almost failing. Anything worthwhile that I have ever attempted went exactly that way. I set out for accomplishment, ran into difficulty, fear failure, ALMOST FAIL, and then see success. That fear of failure rises twice in any endeavor. It shows up first at the onset of a great idea and through the development of the plan. It says, “This is never going to work.” It presents obstacles to your plan. Truthfully, this is the easier of the two to overcome. The real difficulty is overcoming the second fear of failure when you’re in the middle of the process and you almost do fail. Things are not going according to plan, resources become scarce, a deadline is looming and it appears failure is imminent. If you can resist pushing the eject button at this point, you’re going to be ok.
Joel Stiff's Adventure 