- We've all heard of fear of failure.
But have you heard of fear of success?
Did you know that it is almost as common
as the fear of failure?
People have a fear of success,
a fear of succeeding.
How could that be?
Well, keep watching;
I'm going to tell you why you might have it
and definitely how to overcome it.
So what is a fear of success?
A fear of success is really a fear of being judged,
because here's the thing,
we are wired to find connection
and avoid rejection from the minute we are born,
and we find connection by being the same,
"I like you, you like me.
"We look the same, we dress the same,
"we like the same stuff."
We see kids in school and people who are dating
going, "Oh, I like that.
"Oh, I like that.
"Yeah, that's my favorite too.
"Oh, wow, you're like me,
"I'm like you; let's be friends," or, "Let's date."
But, you see, when you succeed,
you often feel different.
The boss of a company
doesn't really go out on a Friday night with the employees.
People who are the boss
don't really make friends with their staff.
And when you are very, very successful,
you can often feel different.
One of my clients who is a very, very famous artist
said, "On my first week at school,
"the teacher said, 'Close your eyes, everyone.
"'Imagine the trees swaying,
"'the wind whistling, the leaves falling.
"'Can you see that?
"'Can you feel it?
"'If you can, put up your hand.
"'And now, children, open your eyes and look around the room.
"'Oh, only Molly has her hand up.'"
Molly is a creative,
but the other kids didn't really like Molly
because Molly was in a different league.
She could write, she could describe things.
I met a young girl who was a brilliant tennis player,
and she could make boys run around the court,
boys older than her, and always beat them.
But she said, "You know what?
"I don't want to be a tennis player.
"None of the kids liked me.
"I don't go to sleepovers.
"I don't go to weekend parties.
"I don't really have friends.
"And I feel different."
And, remember, we are hardwired to connect.
When you're super wealthy, super talented,
you feel different
Judy Garland said,
"You know, every night I go home alone."
So, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth,
Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Sharon Stone,
even Britney Spears would say,
"I felt so different,
"and because I felt different, I couldn't connect."
And many of those women, and men too, say,
"You know, I spend all my time alone."
I happened to meet John McEnroe in Portugal,
and he said, "You know, after every tennis match,
"I just sit in my room.
"I can't go to restaurants.
"I get mobbed by people."
It's a very, very lonely life
being a successful tennis player,
a successful actress, a successful artist.
You get mobbed in the street
and you just learn
to stay in the hotel rooms.
So the price you pay for success can be alone,
"Nobody can relate to me."
That's what Adele said,
"I stopped going to friends' weddings because everyone
"honed in on me.
"I didn't like...,
"'This is my best friend's wedding, my best friend.
"They're going,
"'Adele, Adele, Adele.'
"So I stayed at home and I got so lonely."
So extreme success can be very, very isolating.
You become a bit like a star, a bit like a god,
but nobody really knows you.
Many people say to me,
"You know, I'm acting on a set and I never get invited
"to someone's house. They always think,
"'Oh, no, you're having a great life.'"
Many models say, "No one ever asks me out.
"They think, 'Oh, you must have a boyfriend.
"'Look at you.'
"And I am very, very lonely."
Judy Garland talked about how lonely,
how isolating it was to be famous.
And maybe you're not famous,
maybe you're successful because you run a massive company,
but it's still lonely,
especially for women,
who go, "Well, who's going to date me?
"I've got all this money, this massive house."
We saw that with Charlotte in 'Sex and the City,'
when the guy came in and went,
"Wow, do you live here?
"Oh, I can't date someone living in this kind of home
"because it's out of my league."
So we fear success because it will make us different.
It will isolate us.
It will disconnect us.
And, remember, we must find connection and avoid rejection.
And then there's another element about being rejected,
"Oh, they're famous.
"They're not like you and me.
"They're out of your league.
"They're difficult. They're a diva."
I worked on a show, and someone said,
"This girl you're going to work with is a diva."
You know, she was the loveliest, nicest person.
She wasn't a diva at all, but alone with me,
we're two people.
She was telling me her problems,
I was helping solve them.
But I always hear, "This one's a diva.
"Oh, this one's a nightmare.
"This one is so difficult."
And sometimes they play up to that.
Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud said,
"Everyone called me 'Hardcore Harding.'
"They expected me to act out, and I did.
"And then I forgot who I was.
"I was so busy playing a part,
"the only part I'd ever known, until I made it my own,
"and it wasn't even me."
So we fear success because we believe it will isolate us.
When I drove home once in a Porsche,
my boyfriend said, "Oh, look at you.
"You've gone all posh. Showing off."
And he wouldn't connect with me at all
because I wasn't like him anymore.
I was the same person,
he was the same person, but in his mind,
I'd got a Porsche,
I joined the posh people he didn't like,
and from that day, he never really connected with me again
because he had a belief, "I don't like people up there.
"I like people down here with me."
So we fear success in case it isolate us,
disconnects us, separates us.
We've all heard of that thing,
"You're living in your big mansion
"all alone."
And I went to see a very, very famous movie star
in Beverly Hills,
and I've never met anyone as lonely as her.
She lived in a walled mansion with staff.
She had no friends.
I remember seeing someone else
who lived on Malibu Beach
in complete isolation.
I remember thinking, "Wow, if you lived,
"if you worked in a factory,
"if you worked in a store, you'd be happier,"
but she couldn't relate to anyone
because she was a superstar
and it was very isolating.
And so, that's the fear,
"It will isolate me,
"it will separate me, it will disconnect me."
And how do you get over that?
Well, you have to understand it is not lonely at the top.
It never has to be lonely at the top.
Don't aim to be the best,
aim to be amongst the best.
And when you are successful, if you share your success,
you'll be fine.
And there are many, many successful people sharing their success,
using it to benefit others, who are not lonely,
not disconnected, not isolated,
and not separated at all.
How it can affect your life is
the minute you see success as separating you,
isolating you, disconnecting you,
making you different, you will then fear it.
We are hardwired and super coded
to avoid what is painful,
to avoid what hurts us.
We are hardwired and super coded
to run back to what is familiar,
while running away from what is unfamiliar.
Here's something I've seen a lot,
I have seen many, many successful men and women who say,
"I missed my kid's first steps.
"I didn't go to the school play.
"I employed nannies,
"and my nanny did everything,
"and only now do I sit back and think, 'Gosh,
"'I've missed out,'
"and my kid isn't really close to me.
"I was so busy being successful to give them an amazing life
"that I forgot to be
"a part of that amazing life."
So we have a belief,
"You pay a price for success."
We have another belief that says, "You can't have it all.
"If you have a wildly successful career,
"you can't have a successful marriage,
"you'll never be a great parent,
"and even if you can just about juggle those three things,
"you'll never get to go to the gym or have time for yourself."
I know you've heard this expression, "When you're successful,
"your life is not your own.
"You're always on a plane."
David Bowie said, "You know,
"there's a period of my life and I didn't even remember it.
"I was always on a plane.
"I didn't know what country I was in, a different hotel room.
"I look at video clips
"and I have no idea where I was
"because my life was not my own.
"And I didn't really want to pay that price.
"My marriage ended, my kids didn't know me."
So that's why we fear it.
But how can you overcome it?
Well, you have to decide,
"Hey, if I am smart enough to be successful,
"I can be successful on my terms.
"I can say things like, 'No,
"'you can come to me.
"'I don't go there,
"'you come to me.
"'I don't work on a Sunday.'"
Ray Winston said, "I never have meetings on a Sunday.
"That's my time at home with my wife, my kids,
"Sunday lunch, very traditional,
"and that never changes."
People say, "I take everybody with me.
"I only do things at certain times."
And so, if you are smart enough to be successful,
you are smart enough to define the terms
of what your success looks like.
Do you want to be on a plane?
Do you want to be everywhere?
Do you want to have 18 restaurants,
or maybe you just want to have two?
Do you want to have a massive business or keep it small?
Do you want to have investors?
I met Sara Blakely from Spanx. She has no investors.
She owns that entire business herself.
She's running her business her way.
She has a great marriage.
She has, is it three? Four great kids.
She has it all.
You can have it all if you're smart enough to invent,
create something, you are smart enough
to do it your way on your terms.
Look at Jamie Oliver.
He has five children.
He's been married to Jules for, I think,
I don't know, 25 years.
He does it his way
because he's smart,
and smart means you think outside the box.
So don't fear success.
Don't fear it.
Decide to embrace it, acquire it,
and there are so many people now
having success on their terms,
having meetings with people, saying "No,
"I don't get on a plane.
"I'm not doing that. You can come to me.
"We can do this remotely."
And you can do it too.
Ed Sheeran just took a year off
to be with his wife and baby just because he could.
Many successful people say, "You know, I just stopped.
"I took some time off.
"I sold the business.
"I handed it to my children."
I would say that I have success also on my terms.
I'm very happily married.
I don't go out at night.
I'm not interested in red carpet gala dinners.
I like to be in my house.
I like to go to bed at 10:30.
And, recently, I just did a school in Ibiza
and one in Berlin and one in Miami and one in LA,
and I just don't go out.
I'll go out early, have dinner.
When someone says, "Hey, we're going to party
"in Beverly Hills, it starts at 10,"
I'm not going,
because I knew what works for me.
I don't want to get on planes.
I turn down a lot of stuff.
I film in my house because, frankly, I can't be bothered
to drive across town to a studio,
taking armfuls of clothes.
I know that in between filming, I can go downstairs,
make some coffee, play with my cats, paddleboard.
So my terms is I work in my house.
When I'm filming,
I tend to have an Airbnb and people come to stay.
If I'm filming, I might take my daughter and her fiancé with me.
My husband comes with me.
And I kind of have my terms.
"I'm going to eat this
"and I don't eat that.
"I'm going to film here, but not there.
"I'm not going to wear those awful clothes
"that you think I would like."
And so, eventually, you get to have it on your terms.
There's lots of things
that I won't do, "No,
"that makes my toes curl.
"I wouldn't do that."
I won't promote things I don't believe in.
I would never promote
candy bars or chocolate
or sodas or alcohol,
even though I could make a lot of money doing that,
because you have to live with yourself.
But, I promise you, when you get a level of success,
even a smaller level,
you have the power to, like Frank Sinatra said,
"I'm going to do it my way,"
my success, my way, my life, my terms.
And most successful people,
in fact, all successful people do that.
They decide what they will do,
what they won't do,
and they decide the price they're going to pay.
If they don't want to pay the price, they don't pay it.
Someone I know just tried to book Brené Brown.
She went, "No, I don't want to get in a plane this weekend."
She turned down a lot of money, she said,
"I just don't feel like traveling this weekend.
"I want to stay home with my kids."
So don't fear success.
When you know that you can do it your way,
have your success your way,
like, for instance, I put on schools all over the world,
but I never book a school an hour away
from where I'm staying.
I tend to stay very near the event.
I know what kind of events I like.
I could make a lot more money having 150 people,
but I've worked out that 70
is a number that works better.
So we turn a lot of stuff down,
we turn money down,
but we do what works for us.
And, I promise you, you can do it too.
Don't fear success.
Embrace it, run towards it, make it your own.
So if you are tired of the fear of success
getting in the way of you living your purpose,
click the link below
to find out how to overcome it for good.
See you soon.