There’s a graphic circulating around the internet that includes a quote from Elon Musk. He says, “My proceeds from the PayPal acquisition were $180 million. I put $100 million in SpaceX, $70m in Tesla, and $10m in Solar City. I had to borrow money for rent.”
I’ve noticed it gaining a lot of traction on Instagram accounts lately, and it seems that what is being celebrated is the all-in risk taking of an iconic entrepreneur. But I believe there’s something more nuanced at play here, which is a fascination and admiration of his ability to manage the fear of failure that holds so many people back from aggressively pursuing their dreams.
Over the past decade I’ve spent a lot of time with incredible leaders, and I’ve noticed that they all invest in three core practices that allow them to thrive where others would dare not go. Here are the three methods through which great leaders overcome the fear of failure.
1. Create a Burning Platform
When I think back to one of the most critical moments in the creation of Pencils of Promise, there was an essential decision that seemed illogical at the time. If I’d stayed at Bain & Company just four more months, I would have received a large bonus that would have enabled me to live comfortably for at least 4-6 months without worrying about making rent. Yet I purposely left those funds on the table. Why would I do this?
The answer was that I knew that if I cut myself off from that financial assurance, I would have hustled my ass off to make sure PoP grew rapidly enough for me to justify a full-time salary. More important though, the organization would have to greatly increase its positive impact on the world via revenue growth to enable this, which meant that my own well being was tied to the well being of the students we sought to serve.
By cutting off your lifelines, you effectively triple down on your need to create success in your core venture of focus. For some this is scary, but for those in the know it is essential.
2. Set An Insanely Ambitious Target
Once again, this may seem counterintuitive. If you don’t want to fail, why wouldn’t you give yourself an easy target? The answer is in the acknowledgement that even if you fall just short of a crazy ambitious goal, you’ve still done something incredible by almost all normal standards.
There were a lot of people who set out to break the 4-minute mile barrier before it had ever been done, and even though they fell short, I guarantee they were some of the most impressive runners in the world to even consider that mark a possibility.
3. Keep Your Eyes on the Horizon
The reality of any ambitious undertaking is that you will have many successes and failures along the way. Additionally, the areas of real skill and cognitive growth will always be in the failures. However if you focus too much on them, the emotional weight of those losses will crush your momentum and ability to reach the big end goal.
The key is to keep your eyes on the prize, always looking off into the distance (for more detail on this you can read “The Most Important Lesson I Learned in My 20’s“) at the core goal without getting distracted by the minor wins and losses along the way.
As long as you calibrate towards the major goals you’ve set for yourself, you’ll find yourself seeking the hard challenges necessary to get there, and embracing the minor failures on your way to major success.
If you have any additional lessons on the road to overcoming fear of failure please share them below.
Brita Darany von Regensburg
“My purpose is now focused on being the best man I can be for our family, and doing everything in my power to craft the best possible society for you two to make your mark within….”
Dear Adam! First of all, congratulations to your wife’s gaining her health back and to your two wonderful new babies! You have such a wonderful inspiring way and I enjoyed your latest wonderful news my husband, your old family friend from way back in the old country, had forwarded to me to read .
The birth of your children made you reflect and say this wonderful quote above. As you know I also followed a higher purpose and one day, as the insight struck, and propelled by my child’s terrible needs, created a cause to help kids with a disability right here in our United States have a chance at having better lives than our system allows them to at this time. We actually hope to create a replicable model of a way of life that for many of the more profoundly disabled kids would be the realization of their dreams. I have been working selflessly without pay toward this goal for quite a while and the ability to create this model seems to approach at a glacial pace. Would part of your helping to make this world a better place for your children include, in honor of our families’ shared past, opening the door for us towards our goal just one bit: help me/us get over the “glacier” through a gesture that does not cost you anything but will enable us to accelerate our journey to craft that replicable model of a way of life for the growing number of kids with the disability AND thus build a “better society” for your children to enjoy. My husband has asked several times for that “gesture” of (non-monetary) sharing. Thank you in advance,
fap.autismct@gmail.com
Meditation Eye
There is also that well shared graphic depicting the comfort zone and an arrow pointing to where the magic happens – outside of it.
Setting the bar higher, using your imagination, learning from failure and carrying on despite it, not getting distracted – these seem to be common pieces of advice from those who have found success and wish to show others how they got there.
Julissa
That’s the peecrft insight in a thread like this.
Samara Mahindra
I love the fact that its so simple, yet so true. Almost so simple that we tend not to implement them in our journey to acquire success and instead desperately search for the complex, calculated, strategic plan that eats up a whole lot of funds and churns out nothing. Great article!
Harry Pearle
I am not sure, but I think if often helps to start with very easy steps. To remind myself of this I got an EASY button, from Staples. The buttons simply says, “that was easy”. Since I got the button, I have given away about 140 buttons to other people, as gifts. It was easy, one button at a time.
Sending this comment was easy, but I did not have to do it! THANKS
Harry Pearle
Let me just add my blog: http://www.SavingSchools.org which has ideas on helping failing students to succeed… “That was easy.” THANKS H
Adam
Hah I love it Harry! Those buttons are really fun in general, and this seems like a great application.