In a perfect world,
when you're dedicated to achieving something great,
when you have a "hard to reach" goal
or when you are in search
of some kind of success at the highest level,
the people in your life would see you as right
and as good for going for it.
Except, that we don't live in a perfect world,
we live in a world where
even though some people may actually support your endeavor,
some people may enable your endeavor,
some people may see you as good and right for going for it,
a great many people
will in fact,
feel the opposite.
Disclaimer (pause to read):
Do You Want To Be Successful? Be Willing To Be Seen As The Bad Guy
When you go for what you want,
they're gonna see you as bad
and as wrong.
And this will inevitably put you in the situation
where in order to achieve whatever it is you're dedicated to,
you're gonna have to be willing to be the bad guy.
It's no secret that certain people seriously harm others
and seriously lack ethics
when they go for what they want
or when they try to achieve some kind of success.
This is a shadow of success orientation
that is often talked about.
What's not often talked about,
is the flip side of that coin.
What's not usually talked about
is that if you want to succeed,
and I mean no matter what,
it doesn't matter what you want to succeed at,
you're gonna have to make decisions and do certain things
that certain people will see as bad, as wrong,
as harmful
and as immoral.
So that you can see what I mean,
I'll give you some concrete examples:
A man has a goal of becoming
the most acclaimed documentary filmmaker in the world.
To do this, one of the many things that he must do
that will cause people to see him as bad and wrong,
is to decide that if he gets put in a pinch
between his career
or the needs of a person in his life,
his career has the number one priority.
This means
that if he must be in another country for a specific shoot
on the same day that one of his loved ones needs him,
he's on an airplane flying to the shoot.
So many of the people around him
will believe that people, not career
should be the priority in a person's life,
and that anyone who would prioritize their career
over the people in their life
is both heartless, and self-centered.
To be the most acclaimed documentary filmmaker
he must be willing to be seen as narcissistic
and to do the opposite of what most people think
is the right and loving thing to do.
#2.
Let's look at the case of an Executive Chef.
An executive chef wants to earn another Michelin Star.
To do this he and his kitchen staff
must uphold the absolute highest standard
in terms of the quality of each dish they serve.
This means, he must hold the other chefs in the kitchen
to a standard of excellence.
To do this, he sets the bar super high,
he's critical, he's demanding,
he's driven and he does not let any mistakes slide.
This makes his kitchen staff feel under pressure, stressed
and causes them to grapple with whether or not they are good enough.
Many people would think that he needs to be softer with his staff
and allow people to be people and people make mistakes.
But, if he does this, he will not earn a Michelin Star.
So, in order to achieve his goal,
he has to be willing to be unlikable.
#3.
A woman wants to have a career in comedy,
except for, she's been raised
by parents who led her to believe
that wanting attention is super pathetic,
is super narcissistic,
and hurts other people.
After all, other people want attention too,
and they shouldn't have to compete for it.
In order to become a comedian, she must be willing to push through
that feeling that something is bad and wrong about her
for wanting what she wants.
#4.
A young man grew up with two parents
who are in fact, missionaries.
He grew up his whole life hearing about the fact
that money is the root of all evil,
it's the seed of corruption.
That anyone who values it is a sinner.
For as long as he can remember he loved the idea of being wealthy.
And because of that, he felt guilty.
In order to become wealthy, he has to be willing to sin
and to be rejected by his family.
#5.
As fate would have it,
a man has to square off in a competition,
an athletic one, against his very own best friend.
He knows that if he wins this tournament,
that his friend in fact, loses his career
and all his sponsors.
He knows that many people outside of the sports world
would feel that the right and good thing to do
would be to let his friend win,
or at the very least, try to manipulate the play
so they both look good and neither loses sponsors.
But to achieve his goal,
he must be willing to demolish the competition
including, his own best friend.
#6.
A woman owns a company.
She's at a critical juncture where this company must expand.
And for the company to expand,
it means that all of her employees have to up their game.
The thing is, is that several years ago
when her cousin needed a job,
she hired her own cousin.
The problem is,
her cousin is not very good at her job.
Her cousin is for sure not good enough
to take on the new caseload
that the company expansion would put in her lap.
Nor is she professional enough to interact with the new high-end clientele.
Given that this woman has talked with her cousin several times
about needing to up her performance and act professional,
to no avail,
she must now fire her own cousin.
She knows that if she does this
she will be shamed and ostracized by her whole family.
Thanksgivings will never be the same.
What all of these scenarios have in common
is that the person in the scenario
wants some kind of success or some kind of achievement,
and is bumping against the limiting factor
which is their own self-concept
or the way that they are seen by others.
And they have to choose not to be limited by it.
In order to achieve something
they have to be willing to do something
that causes them to feel shame
and that in fact,
may even cause other people to see them as bad and wrong.
This is not a small thing,
this is a very big thing.
Human beings are relationally dependent.
What that means is that we are totally dependent
on each other for our survival,
for our needs to be met.
Just think about an infant;
If you laid it outside, it would die.
It's totally dependent on the people in its life
in order to survive and have its needs met.
That means you're biologically wired for approval.
The process of socialization
teaches us that in order to be safe and loved
and to have any of our needs met,
we must be and do right
and we must be and do good.
We are absolutely trained for this
to the degree that it even prevents self-awareness.
To understand more about this, I encourage you to watch my video titled:
Self Concept (The Enemy of Awakening)
The best way to imagine the dynamic that this sets up inside of you
is that to imagine any time you are socialized
that something is really bad and really wrong,
you set up an electric fence inside yourself
between yourself and that bad and wrong thing.
So, using our previous example,
let's say that you were taught that seeking attention is bad;
You're going to build an internal electric fence
that separates yourself
from seeking attention.
And guess what?
To be brave enough to have a career on the stage,
you're gonna have to be willing to cross that electric fence.
Guess what else?
Not only are you going to have to be willing
to cross this internal electric fence,
you're going to have to be willing to do that
at the very same time as you've got other people on the outside
setting up electric fences,
telling you that you shouldn't cross that line either.
Now, if any of you watch my video on guilt
you would know that one of the ways to deal with these electric fences
is to take them down,
and the way that you would do that is by rewiring your concept
about right and wrong relative to seeking attention;
If that was our example.
But I'm gonna tell you something really interesting:
While you can focus on taking these "electric fences" down
by changing your concept of right and wrong and good and bad,
in order to succeed, you're still gonna have to be willing
to cross electric fences.
You've probably heard over and over again that in order to succeed,
you've gotta get the hell out of your comfort zone.
And that means you're gonna have to get brave.
Try this on for size:
Try the bravery that it takes to go for what you want
despite feeling like you're gonna lose
the people in your life because of it.
Talk about the bravery it takes to go for what you want,
even though your entire survival system
is telling you that the consequence will be for other people to see you
as bad and wrong,
and to suffer all the consequences
of that negative opinion that they have of you.
Consequences like, feeling like crap about yourself,
other people not liking or loving you anymore,
none of your needs being met, being ostracized,
being seen as the enemy, which of course,
leads to being attacked or even death.
So many people have never accessed this level of bravery within themselves.
And the reality is, some people never will.
When it comes to you wanting success,
whatever success is for you in your life,
you're gonna have to become super conscious of this dynamic
that relates to success.
This dynamic is:
in order to achieve a certain level of success,
you're gonna have to be willing to be the bad guy,
to be seen that way, at least.
The big question
that every person has to answer for himself or herself is:
Where is your line?
What are you willing or not willing
to be and do to achieve what you want?
There's no right answer for this question.
which is why every person must answer this for himself or herself
according to the consequences they're willing to meet with
in order to achieve what they want to achieve.
What price are you willing to pay?
People who don't draw this line
of some kind of sense,
a personal sense of rightness or goodness,
very well could end up crossing the line
with blood all over their hands.
But guess what?
If you're the type of person who draws this line too quickly,
all you will achieve in your life
is that people will see you as good and as right.
In truth, some people actually decide
that being seen as right and good
is worth any consequence
and is worth any price.
I will tell you that this particular element of success
is in fact, much more difficult for women
than it is for men.
This means, if you are a woman listening to this video
you need to expect this.
In society, females are expected
to be the embodiment of rightness and goodness
and are socialized for these qualities much more aggressively than males.
There is an unconscious bias against women
who choose to do what others see as bad and wrong
for the sake of success, especially.
In business, this is often referred to
as the success likability paradox
that is experienced by women.
In other words,
an ambitious man is simply driven,
an ambitious woman, is in fact, a bitch.
Unfortunately, this means that as a woman
the voltage on your electric fences both internally and externally
runs much higher.
Everyone who wants to achieve something great
will have to reckon with
exactly what price they're willing to pay
and what pressure they're willing to take
for whatever reward they are after.
So many people
even if they really want something,
are not actually willing to take the pressure
or to pay the price involved in that level of success.
Many people are simply not in reality about what it takes.
Everyone who wants to achieve something great
will find themselves in circumstances where they have to
make decisions and do things
which will make people see them as the bad guy.
If you don't believe me,
think about Martin Luther King;
If he had been unwilling to be seen as the bad guy,
where might we be today relative to racial justice?
And don't think that success is about that one time
that you had to do something or make a decision
despite how much shame you felt,
or that one time that you were put in a position
where you had to do something or make a decision
that made other people see you as bad and wrong.
This isn't how success works.
The reality is that if you're on the road to success,
you will run into these decision or action points all the time.
They're a bit like toll booths on the road to success.
Some people will always stay small,
limited and imprisoned
by their need to feel like they can see themselves
as the good and the right person.
And imprisoned by their need for other people to see them
as the good person or the right one.
Guess what?
You are never going to be able
to stop caring what other people think of you.
You are never gonna be able to stop wanting people to like you.
This is hardwired into your biology.
In fact, it's pure stupidity
to think you can do anything else, right?
There are actual genuine consequences for people not liking you.
But the question I want to ask you today
relative to your own personal success is:
To what degree are you gonna let these things limit you and your life?
The question is:
To what degree will you let your commitment to seeing yourself
as good and right,
as well as to be seen by others as good and right,
get in the way of whatever you are wanting?
To what degree
will you let it limit your success?
Have a good week.
If you liked this video,
be sure to share it, like it and also subscribe to my channel
so you can see more content like this.
But I wanna personally thank you for taking the initiative
and having the bravery to step into the space of awareness
not only for yourself, but for the benefit of those around you.
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com