A few weeks ago I wrote a blog on “The Darkest Hour” – those moments before things improve when we have plunged the depths. All seems hopeless at these points – not least because we are uncertain where the bottom lies. Our fall seems relentless, with no net or ledge in sight to break our fall.
The blog generated some response, which is always heartening. But it was also concerning. When down, it’s hard to look up, or even stop the fall. So talk of “darkest hour” can only ever – I now realise – be retrospective. “Oh yes, that was the worst moment”, we can state once on the mend. While there, however, such a perspective is impossible.
Of course, all those self-help gurus would state that we can break our own fall, find our own ledge. It’s all a question of changing our thinking, they’ll say. While accepting depression as a mental condition that requires medical treatment, many still think our acts and thoughts play a major role in making us feel so down.
For instance, chief motivational guru Anthony Robbins emphatically writes that depressive states are something we have created for ourselves. We have had to work to get ourselves in such a place, he notes – perhaps through how we perceived certain events, as well as how we hold ourselves, how we breath, the things we say in our head, or even through excessive alcohol or drug use. In fact, some people – he states – can find this the most comfortable state to be in, helped by secondary gains such as allowances from peers and sympathy from loved ones. But just as we worked hard to get ourselves in such a place, says Robbins, we can – and should – work to get ourselves out of it.
Yet this seems a little glib to me. Such words are easy to say, and make sense at a primary level. Banishing the “black dog” – as Winston Churchill used to call his periodic depressions – is no easy task. Nonetheless, we can at least try and lift the clouds – perhaps through small actions that, at first, feel forced. After a while, however, they may, just, help us spot that elusive light at the end of the tunnel.
Here are my – totally non-scientific – thoughts**:
1) Be aware of our state. Sure, we can pursue the indulgences of our misery. We can drink too much, play melancholic music and wallow in our despondency. After all, any bungy-jumper or sky-diver will tell you that falling is a pleasant sensation (though not one I intend to experience). But, at some point, the bungy rope kicks in or the parachute opens. Be aware – very aware – that, at some point in our mental descent we’ll need to break our fall and that our current state must be viewed as no more than a temporary indulgence.
2) Note the positives. Having spent 10 minutes feeling like a loser, we should spend another 10 minutes noting the positives in our life, no matter how meagre they feel or how refutable they seem. Health, friendship, family, income, the fact we are alive and therefore tomorrow’s coming – anything. Just note that – amongst the doom – good fortune exists. Write it down.
3) Note the problems. Keep with the writing for a moment, because it may help to also write down our misfortunes. Why do they feel like such a calamity? What went wrong? Where was the wrong turning? And what are the lessons that can prevent a repeat?
4) Plot the steps for redemption. Sure, we may think “what repeat?” There’s no second chance with this one. But I thought that with my first book. So much so it took me 10 years to write a second. Yet that was my decision. I could have written a second book immediately – there was nothing stopping me. That said, the 10 year gap resulted in a very different – and much better – book. But I had to make that second chance a reality. Why not plot the steps required – however unlikely they now seem – to making that second chance a reality?
5) Plan 10-years hence. That said, 10 years is not a bad timeframe. We need to give ourselves a significant runway to overcome our major setbacks. In many cases our despondency regarding our chances is no more than our impatience. We have drawn too tight a timeline. Stretch weeks into months and months into years, and we give ourselves a far greater chance of success. And remember, it’s the direction of travel that’s important for our mental well-being – not the destination (which can cause a sense of deflation if reached too quickly). Destinations are for compass setting. Once heading in the right direction – no matter how slowly – enjoy the progress.
6) Maintain the routine. While depressed, we should maintain our routine, no matter how hard that seems. Go to work, keep that dental appointment, visit our parents at the weekend, keep that date with a friend. Assuming you are bad company and withdrawing is a colossally self-reinforcing move. Sure you may be bad company for a few minutes, but so what? Most people enjoy hearing others’ misfortunes (as long as it doesn’t go on and on) – it makes them feel empathetic. Also, keep getting dressed, keep washing, shaving and – especially – exercising (and if you don’t exercise, go for a long walk or bike ride – or just visit a museum). It’s ridiculous to try and look the part as well as feel it: life isn’t a movie, so don’t act like it is.
7)Break the routine. No, I’m not contradicting myself. Find room to add another dimension. Haven’t been to the cinema for years? Go (though choose a comedy). Never seen an opera? Do so. Always wanted to learn to ride? Now is your chance. Invest in your happiness.
8) Be nice to strangers. Don’t project your depression onto others through irritability or bad manners, especially with respect to strangers. If you usually say good morning to the doorman, force yourself to keep doing so. Their positivity will radiate back. But so will your negativity if it’s stronger. So be false – maintain the veneer. It may just produce a moment that shatters the pain.
9) Give something up. Sugar, caffeine, smoking, chocolate, meat, pornography, late nights, trashy novels, TV, alcohol, pot-smoking, fatty-foods: anything that doesn’t add to your long-term well-being. Just one thing – I’m not asking you to become a hippie or a monk. Dumping something bad for you will immediately make you feel better, reframe your negativity (because you’ve achieved a small victory) and distract you from your current misery.
10) Donate to charity. Something small but significant: £10 perhaps. And don’t discriminate with respect to the cause (or you’ll potentially reinforce negative feelings). Why not give £10 to the first mainstream charity box you find (perhaps the first charity shop in the High Street). After exercise, nothing triggers the release of endorphins more readily than a charitable deed. And don’t look for a thank you. In fact, do the opposite: just this once, make sure no one knows you’ve done it. This is your small private victory against the “black dog”.
**Depression is a clinical condition that requires treatment. The above deals with event-triggered despondency for those only occasionally triggered.
Robert Kelsey is author of What’s Stopping You? Why Smart People Don’t Always Reach Their Potential and How You Can. www.robert-kelsey.co.uk
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Whether Peckham or Essex – dads rule
Father’s Day approaches, and with it the need to recognise his role in my upbringing. Given the fact I write of my awkward relationship with my father in What’s Stopping You? I more than most need to pay my dues. Yet I’ll do so tangentially if I’m allowed – via a strong fatherly example I came across in my PR work.
At Moorgate, we have recently started working with a video production company based near us in Spitalfields. In fact, I met the CEO in the gym and we got chatting about the fact many of our clients are becoming keen on converting articles into videos. We’ve since kept his company gainfully employed. Our clients appreciate his professionalism – turning around projects on time, within budget and with flair and thought for the content.
From my dealings with this particular CEO, he’ll not mind me labelling him a High-AM – someone with high achievement motivation (as I write in What’s Stopping You?). He approaches meetings and projects expecting success, in fact is somewhat surprised when that’s not the outcome – although is certain that it will be, perhaps with a small adjustment (usually in the price!).
Yet there’s nothing in this man’s background suggesting the inevitability of this approach. He was brought up in a tough part of south London and mixed with childhood friends that became drug dealers and even violent criminals. He had to watch many of his peers adopt the swagger of youthful criminal success, as well as watch them later being arrested, banged up and, on several occasions murdered – putting my own rough-edged youth in exurban Essex somewhat into perspective. Yet he never strayed from the certainty of his route – despite being aware of the potential prejudices he faced as a black entrepreneur selling services to the privileged elite of the City.
As I have discussed previously, immigrants – and their children – are proportionally more likely to start businesses, making this unremarkable. Yet it would be doing him a disservice to assume this man’s cultural background fitted comfortably into the professional financial/City landscape I occupy and he was successfully selling into. Sure, I’d defend the City as a meritocratic place – far more so than other industries I’ve worked in such as media (despite its protestations). But he undoubtedly had to overcome preconceived ideas about him and his background in order to win over this particular audience. Certainly, I did as an Essex lad with a state-education. So it would have been doubly so for him. Yet, boy was he winning them over: with diligence, with service and with strong results.
Eventually, I could no longer resist my curiosity. I wanted to know his story. It was then he told me of his tough Peckham childhood and his determination to “get on”. Aware of the hurdles, he used them to his advantage – offering corporations the sharp eye for the cool look while offering good service and prompt attention.
“But I was lucky,” he concluded. “My father was a strict disciplinarian. He was very old fashioned and made sure I stayed on the straight and narrow.”
This got me thinking about my own dad – now sadly suffering from Alzheimer’s. As What’s Stopping You? explores I had a far from easy relationship with my father as a child – in fact his treatment of me is one of the root causes of my own insecurities (for which, as an adult, I now take full responsibility). Yet my video production CEO’s instant and unambiguous recognition of his father’s contribution to his undoubted success shamed me. With my book now published – and with my childhood traumas outlined as an example of the early-years development of adult insecurities – I need to acknowledge the positive influences of my father.
1) Academic drive. As stated previously, I was an academic disaster – leaving school at 15 with one O’ level (geography, taught by the school’s only enthusiastic teacher). But my father was a structural engineer and this acted as a powerful benchmark. I was certain I was capable of a university degree, which I achieved via nightschool A’ levels and hard graft. Only from this distance do I appreciate that my conviction was influenced by his example.
2) Bookish. My dad was always reading – mainly books on the Second World War. This made me very aware of the power of books and the world they opened up (although one mainly restricted to theatres of war between 1939-45 in our house). This may seem obvious to middle-class readers. Yet, believe me, I entered many Essex households in my childhood and youth that contained no other book bar the telephone directory.
3) History. In fact I exaggerate – dad loved all of history. And I too love history – being made aware of the fantastic perspective it offers. Whenever I hear arguments I consider ignorant or simply wrong-headed (from left, right and centre) it’s nearly always due to a total and utter ignorance of history. To know history is to understand the bus ride you take, the street you cross, the building you live and work in and even the person you buy your coffee from. What else gives you that perspective?
4) Work ethic. “No one owes you a living,” dad would often say – perhaps when I preferred the duvet to getting up and doing something constructive. He was by no means a disciplinarian – being far too busy working most evenings and half the weekend. But his example of hard work – and his “no pain, no gain” philosophising – had an undoubted impact.
5) London. Although, we lived in the boring exurbs beyond the city limits I’ve always loved London and consider myself a Londoner – eventually rejecting its only serious rival (New York) because I missed it so. My father was also a proud Londoner and instilled both my love – as well as my knowledge – of this great city.
6) West Ham. In fact, I’m not that grateful for this one. He was brought up off Green Street in Upton Park so I guess he had no choice. But his insistence that no son of his follow an alternative team – and that, once “chosen”, I could never change my football team (with even changing my gender allowable prior to this crime, in his view) – has provided me with miserable footballing fare for too long. I recently ordered my eldest son’s first replica kit for his sixth birthday. It was Arsenal (the boy’s choice after I steered him away from Chelsea or Tottenham). Sorry dad – but thanks for the other values.
At Moorgate, we have recently started working with a video production company based near us in Spitalfields. In fact, I met the CEO in the gym and we got chatting about the fact many of our clients are becoming keen on converting articles into videos. We’ve since kept his company gainfully employed. Our clients appreciate his professionalism – turning around projects on time, within budget and with flair and thought for the content.
From my dealings with this particular CEO, he’ll not mind me labelling him a High-AM – someone with high achievement motivation (as I write in What’s Stopping You?). He approaches meetings and projects expecting success, in fact is somewhat surprised when that’s not the outcome – although is certain that it will be, perhaps with a small adjustment (usually in the price!).
Yet there’s nothing in this man’s background suggesting the inevitability of this approach. He was brought up in a tough part of south London and mixed with childhood friends that became drug dealers and even violent criminals. He had to watch many of his peers adopt the swagger of youthful criminal success, as well as watch them later being arrested, banged up and, on several occasions murdered – putting my own rough-edged youth in exurban Essex somewhat into perspective. Yet he never strayed from the certainty of his route – despite being aware of the potential prejudices he faced as a black entrepreneur selling services to the privileged elite of the City.
As I have discussed previously, immigrants – and their children – are proportionally more likely to start businesses, making this unremarkable. Yet it would be doing him a disservice to assume this man’s cultural background fitted comfortably into the professional financial/City landscape I occupy and he was successfully selling into. Sure, I’d defend the City as a meritocratic place – far more so than other industries I’ve worked in such as media (despite its protestations). But he undoubtedly had to overcome preconceived ideas about him and his background in order to win over this particular audience. Certainly, I did as an Essex lad with a state-education. So it would have been doubly so for him. Yet, boy was he winning them over: with diligence, with service and with strong results.
Eventually, I could no longer resist my curiosity. I wanted to know his story. It was then he told me of his tough Peckham childhood and his determination to “get on”. Aware of the hurdles, he used them to his advantage – offering corporations the sharp eye for the cool look while offering good service and prompt attention.
“But I was lucky,” he concluded. “My father was a strict disciplinarian. He was very old fashioned and made sure I stayed on the straight and narrow.”
This got me thinking about my own dad – now sadly suffering from Alzheimer’s. As What’s Stopping You? explores I had a far from easy relationship with my father as a child – in fact his treatment of me is one of the root causes of my own insecurities (for which, as an adult, I now take full responsibility). Yet my video production CEO’s instant and unambiguous recognition of his father’s contribution to his undoubted success shamed me. With my book now published – and with my childhood traumas outlined as an example of the early-years development of adult insecurities – I need to acknowledge the positive influences of my father.
1) Academic drive. As stated previously, I was an academic disaster – leaving school at 15 with one O’ level (geography, taught by the school’s only enthusiastic teacher). But my father was a structural engineer and this acted as a powerful benchmark. I was certain I was capable of a university degree, which I achieved via nightschool A’ levels and hard graft. Only from this distance do I appreciate that my conviction was influenced by his example.
2) Bookish. My dad was always reading – mainly books on the Second World War. This made me very aware of the power of books and the world they opened up (although one mainly restricted to theatres of war between 1939-45 in our house). This may seem obvious to middle-class readers. Yet, believe me, I entered many Essex households in my childhood and youth that contained no other book bar the telephone directory.
3) History. In fact I exaggerate – dad loved all of history. And I too love history – being made aware of the fantastic perspective it offers. Whenever I hear arguments I consider ignorant or simply wrong-headed (from left, right and centre) it’s nearly always due to a total and utter ignorance of history. To know history is to understand the bus ride you take, the street you cross, the building you live and work in and even the person you buy your coffee from. What else gives you that perspective?
4) Work ethic. “No one owes you a living,” dad would often say – perhaps when I preferred the duvet to getting up and doing something constructive. He was by no means a disciplinarian – being far too busy working most evenings and half the weekend. But his example of hard work – and his “no pain, no gain” philosophising – had an undoubted impact.
5) London. Although, we lived in the boring exurbs beyond the city limits I’ve always loved London and consider myself a Londoner – eventually rejecting its only serious rival (New York) because I missed it so. My father was also a proud Londoner and instilled both my love – as well as my knowledge – of this great city.
6) West Ham. In fact, I’m not that grateful for this one. He was brought up off Green Street in Upton Park so I guess he had no choice. But his insistence that no son of his follow an alternative team – and that, once “chosen”, I could never change my football team (with even changing my gender allowable prior to this crime, in his view) – has provided me with miserable footballing fare for too long. I recently ordered my eldest son’s first replica kit for his sixth birthday. It was Arsenal (the boy’s choice after I steered him away from Chelsea or Tottenham). Sorry dad – but thanks for the other values.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
We the people: discover your true values, and the goals become obvious
One aspect of What’s Stopping You? generating troubling feedback is goal setting. I state that goals must reflect out true values – not those of others (such as parents, siblings, peers or rivals). Only then will we pursue them with enough energy and willpower to overcome the inevitable setbacks.
But of the goals we set, how do we know which ones are our goals – based on our values – and which are based on the values of others? And by others, I don’t mean just those around us. Values are thrown at us every day: from lifestyle advertising; from celebrity behaviour; even from the “worthy” statements of politically-motivated associates. Cutting our way through this lot requires thought and planning, which in the book I tried to encapsulate in the concept of generating “Our Constitution”.
I named it Our Constitution after the US Constitution, which is a document I have admired since studying it at university. It is brief, succinct, flexible and was a strong indication of the values of the new republic. Whenever the USA has veered from the path set by the Constitution – even with its original sin of slavery – the Constitution has eventually made it abundantly clear where it has erred. Such is the strength of the document that, when living in the US, I couldn’t help noticing that demonstrations of all political persuasion marched waving the stars and stripes flag and made references to the true American values they were fighting for – as enshrined in the Constitution. That’s one powerful document.
So we need our own constitution – a document far stronger than a mission statement that can end up being no more than a one-line goal-setting statement. This involves recording our most important values, which then directs our goal setting. Meanwhile, mission statements can still send us down the wrong path, which may simply line us up for a terrible reckoning once – perhaps a long way down the line – we realize we’ve been following goals not in tune with our values. Certainly, Our Constitution is a document that must remain valid no matter what. Our goals can change, and must. But Our Constitution is our mental totem – hence the need to make it strong enough, but also flexible enough, to carry us through both the triumphs (helping us retain judgement) and the setbacks. Indeed, only once driven by our true values are we able to cope with the setbacks – no longer seeing them as a reflection of our unworthiness but as simply a step towards our value-based goals, albeit one that, this time, failed to provide the optimum result.
Before any goal-setting exercise, therefore, we need to fully understand what motivates us, and this means taking a long hard look at our values and principles. Yet these maybe difficult to find – not least because they may be barely formed, which makes the exercise all the more important.
Perhaps my own story can help. As a schoolchild, I was fascinated by the wider world. While unable to focus on formal studies (taught by unenthusiastic teachers in a broken comprehensive) I was well versed in the geography and history of even the most obscure countries. And I had a strong handle on even local politics – knowing the issues that divided the parties and even the nuances of policy (none of which was taught in the school). Much of this initially supported fantasy game playing (seen as a little odd to outside observers such as my parents). Overtime, however, it also gelled into strong creative writing skills that took me way beyond any curricular activities (in which I struggled because of my poor spelling and grammar). My mother spotted this and encouraged me towards journalism. Yet my father dismissed such thoughts as irrelevant, unstructured and unprofessional. He was a structural engineer with letters after his name and that was his benchmark.
Of course, my father was the dominant character in the family so I pursued his values, yet never with passion. I left school with only one O’ Level (geography, unsurprisingly) and worked at a friend of my father’s as a trainee building surveyor. This mainly involved holding stripy poles in the muddy fields of east Essex but he also enrolled me – generously – on a day-a-week diploma course in order to help me along the tortured path towards qualification.
Yet I bunked the course in favour of days spent wandering the streets of London – a city that I was determined to know intricately. It was exciting, vibrant, historical, complex, cosmopolitan, and in the early 1980s a political powder keg: it had everything my true values cried out for. But the imposed values kicked in and I used the days searching for a trainee building surveying job in London, which I eventually found, and initially enjoyed. I was looking after the housing stock of the London region gas board and this took me to enough peculiar nooks and crannies and led me to enough personal drama to satisfy my own unformed values.
But time was marching on and my father wanted a plan. I shared the office with many young professionals – all of whom were graduates and none of whom seemed any more intelligent than me. Their encouragement convinced me that – despite my own disastrous academic progress – I was capable of a university career. So I enrolled on some evening A’ Level courses. One was history – and from the first lecture, my real passions were alight.
Finally, the scales fell from my eyes with respect to education. The depth of historical research and analysis required for an A’ Level history course at last tapped into my latent educational abilities. Finally I was pursuing something I truly valued. I was fascinated by the world and how we got here. I went to every lecture and soaked it up – staying late for the post lesson debate and avidly reading more deeply into the subjects than I needed to. I eagerly pursued sections of the curriculum the teacher warned against as too complex – such as the history of Ireland – and my essays, for the first time in my life, were winning top marks. I fell in love with learning. I needed no motivation, no focus on reward, no efforts at generating willpower: I had the lot because I was pursuing a goal in line with my true values.
Ultimately, I achieved an A and later won a high 2:1 from the University of Manchester. My values – to intellectually explore the world – were being pursued with vigour and love. From here the goals were obvious, desirable and achievable – and resulted in the journalistic career my mother suggested and which took me all over the world, meeting economists, politicians and bankers.
Yet everyone has that spark in them, whether formal education has brought it out or not. We just need to find it.
But of the goals we set, how do we know which ones are our goals – based on our values – and which are based on the values of others? And by others, I don’t mean just those around us. Values are thrown at us every day: from lifestyle advertising; from celebrity behaviour; even from the “worthy” statements of politically-motivated associates. Cutting our way through this lot requires thought and planning, which in the book I tried to encapsulate in the concept of generating “Our Constitution”.
I named it Our Constitution after the US Constitution, which is a document I have admired since studying it at university. It is brief, succinct, flexible and was a strong indication of the values of the new republic. Whenever the USA has veered from the path set by the Constitution – even with its original sin of slavery – the Constitution has eventually made it abundantly clear where it has erred. Such is the strength of the document that, when living in the US, I couldn’t help noticing that demonstrations of all political persuasion marched waving the stars and stripes flag and made references to the true American values they were fighting for – as enshrined in the Constitution. That’s one powerful document.
So we need our own constitution – a document far stronger than a mission statement that can end up being no more than a one-line goal-setting statement. This involves recording our most important values, which then directs our goal setting. Meanwhile, mission statements can still send us down the wrong path, which may simply line us up for a terrible reckoning once – perhaps a long way down the line – we realize we’ve been following goals not in tune with our values. Certainly, Our Constitution is a document that must remain valid no matter what. Our goals can change, and must. But Our Constitution is our mental totem – hence the need to make it strong enough, but also flexible enough, to carry us through both the triumphs (helping us retain judgement) and the setbacks. Indeed, only once driven by our true values are we able to cope with the setbacks – no longer seeing them as a reflection of our unworthiness but as simply a step towards our value-based goals, albeit one that, this time, failed to provide the optimum result.
Before any goal-setting exercise, therefore, we need to fully understand what motivates us, and this means taking a long hard look at our values and principles. Yet these maybe difficult to find – not least because they may be barely formed, which makes the exercise all the more important.
Perhaps my own story can help. As a schoolchild, I was fascinated by the wider world. While unable to focus on formal studies (taught by unenthusiastic teachers in a broken comprehensive) I was well versed in the geography and history of even the most obscure countries. And I had a strong handle on even local politics – knowing the issues that divided the parties and even the nuances of policy (none of which was taught in the school). Much of this initially supported fantasy game playing (seen as a little odd to outside observers such as my parents). Overtime, however, it also gelled into strong creative writing skills that took me way beyond any curricular activities (in which I struggled because of my poor spelling and grammar). My mother spotted this and encouraged me towards journalism. Yet my father dismissed such thoughts as irrelevant, unstructured and unprofessional. He was a structural engineer with letters after his name and that was his benchmark.
Of course, my father was the dominant character in the family so I pursued his values, yet never with passion. I left school with only one O’ Level (geography, unsurprisingly) and worked at a friend of my father’s as a trainee building surveyor. This mainly involved holding stripy poles in the muddy fields of east Essex but he also enrolled me – generously – on a day-a-week diploma course in order to help me along the tortured path towards qualification.
Yet I bunked the course in favour of days spent wandering the streets of London – a city that I was determined to know intricately. It was exciting, vibrant, historical, complex, cosmopolitan, and in the early 1980s a political powder keg: it had everything my true values cried out for. But the imposed values kicked in and I used the days searching for a trainee building surveying job in London, which I eventually found, and initially enjoyed. I was looking after the housing stock of the London region gas board and this took me to enough peculiar nooks and crannies and led me to enough personal drama to satisfy my own unformed values.
But time was marching on and my father wanted a plan. I shared the office with many young professionals – all of whom were graduates and none of whom seemed any more intelligent than me. Their encouragement convinced me that – despite my own disastrous academic progress – I was capable of a university career. So I enrolled on some evening A’ Level courses. One was history – and from the first lecture, my real passions were alight.
Finally, the scales fell from my eyes with respect to education. The depth of historical research and analysis required for an A’ Level history course at last tapped into my latent educational abilities. Finally I was pursuing something I truly valued. I was fascinated by the world and how we got here. I went to every lecture and soaked it up – staying late for the post lesson debate and avidly reading more deeply into the subjects than I needed to. I eagerly pursued sections of the curriculum the teacher warned against as too complex – such as the history of Ireland – and my essays, for the first time in my life, were winning top marks. I fell in love with learning. I needed no motivation, no focus on reward, no efforts at generating willpower: I had the lot because I was pursuing a goal in line with my true values.
Ultimately, I achieved an A and later won a high 2:1 from the University of Manchester. My values – to intellectually explore the world – were being pursued with vigour and love. From here the goals were obvious, desirable and achievable – and resulted in the journalistic career my mother suggested and which took me all over the world, meeting economists, politicians and bankers.
Yet everyone has that spark in them, whether formal education has brought it out or not. We just need to find it.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Megalomania, imposter phenomenon and the fear of failure. Or, why the barrow boy went missing
I wrote a few weeks ago about how, in my opinion, trucker Edward Stobart was driven by fear of failure. His determination to be judged by his spotless and ubiquitous trucks, and his shyness when dealing with people, all said to me that here was a man with fear-based insecurities.
Yet fear of failure can also drive bad behaviour. In fact, it can turn us into criminals. Such can be the mental terror of low achievement that – instead of indulging in avoidance tactics (as with Stobart and his reluctance to meet people) – we go full-throttle in the other direction, eventually (but wilfully) crossing the line with respect to acceptable behaviour. Even here, however, it may be possible to, in fact, see a person so desperate not to fail, or so desperate to be accepted, that they’ve made calamitous choices that can be explained by frustration or perceived (or real) prejudice or lack of opportunity.
This can certainly be the case when examining those that break the law in order to cover up their failures. Seen through the lens of fear of failure, some obviously criminal acts become more understandable, even if not more justifiable. Two cases stand out for me, perhaps because of my background in finance. In the UK there’s Nick Leeson, the “rogue trader” that brought down Barings, and in the US there’s Bernie Madoff, the daddy of all Ponzi schemers.
Leeson brought the venerable Barings Bank to its knees in 1995 due to a series of failed bets on Japanese equities. Rather than declare his equity derivatives losses, and confess his failure, Leeson set up a series of secret accounts to hide the losses. Meanwhile, he furiously tried to gamble them away – a tactic that can, and did, spiral out of control. The bank collapsed after Leeson’s bets crumbled in the dust of the Kobe earthquake in January 1995.
In Rogue Trader, Leeson’s own account of his actions, he claimed no malicious or criminal intent, and I believe him. He was a state-educated lower middle-class lad from Watford working for a posh bank in a senior and trusted role (as one memo from a board member famously stated: “he knows what he’s doing”). There was a clear touch of “imposter phenomenon” about him, where (in his head) his strong performances counted for nothing because he was not of the right stock.
Indeed, when the losses were uncovered and he went briefly into hiding, one of the directors revealed that Leeson’s assumptions regarding snobbery were not so far off. “One of our barrow boys has gone missing,” he declared, which at least did me the service of not having to invest any sympathy for a bank that had so little understanding of the motivations of its employees.
And, in my opinion, it was this insecurity that drove Leeson to criminality. He never intended stealing the money. His aim was to make money for his employers and thus prove his worth. He was also concerned for his team, and the blame that may be apportioned to them. Yet fear of failure destroyed his judgement – resulting in the hidden losses, the collapsed bank and his arrest and imprisonment.
The US example is more controversial because his crime is greater, the victims true innocents and it is more recent – indeed the corpse is still warm on this one. My evidence for Bernie Madoff’s fear of failure comes from the Wizard of Lies by Diana Henriques, who covered the collapse of his US$50 billion Ponzi scheme for the New York Times. Like Leeson, Madoff grew up in a lower-middle class neighbourhood on the edge of the metropolis – this time in Queens, New York. His father’s business ventures usually failed, which created a great impression upon the young Bernard. At all costs he wanted to succeed – and was determined to avoid the negative judgement from others that was the fate of his father.
This led him towards his first fraud – when managing money for around 20 clients. Trying for higher returns to please sceptical investors, he lost money on risky stocks. Yet rather than own up, he borrowed US$30,000 to erase the losses for his clients, allowing him to impress them with the brilliance of his money management. In Madoff’s mind he had done the honourable thing – taking the hit but covering his losses. Of course, the loan was repaid from renewed investment on the back of his enhanced reputation. And the pyramid developed its all-important second layer.
That was in 1962. After the 1987 stockmarket crash he found himself in a similar position and, again, used new investor’s cash to cover the losses and, again, to maintain his strong name. The pattern was repeated again in 2001-02. Indeed, only the scale of the redemptions from the 2008 crash prevented his flawed model from surviving the latest bear market, although by then the losses were vast. Indeed, he was nearly wiped out in 2005 when he managed to raise US$92 million with just three days to spare.
According to Henriques, Madoff always saw himself as an outsider and was determined to over-compensate. He served as chairman of NASDAQ and was on the board of governors from the National Association of Securities Dealers. He even gave office space to the regulator’s legal team when they had to abandon their home after 9/11. Some have put this down to the criminal mastermind, conducting grand fraud under the noses of the authorities. But, as a High-FF (someone with a high fear of failure) I think I can spot an alternative motive. I think it reveals an insecurity – of a man desperate to be accepted as an insider in a world he admired but was not part of.
He was determined to succeed where his father failed, so he had zero tolerance for failure. Failure, to Madoff, was not feedback or a temporary setback. It was condemning, a confirmation of his irretrievable and final awfulness. And this allowed his unethical behaviour (which was to hide his failings) to build to destructive levels. In his head he knew this, of course, but – in my view – he never viewed himself as a criminal, just as an outsider.
Henriques is perplexed by Madoff despite her deep research. She finds his criminality difficult to fathom – citing an interview in jail in which he complains about feeling “burned” by investors withdrawing their money in the 1987 cash. “I was hung out to dry,” he claimed – a mentality that Henriques struggles to explain although is absolutely clear to me, as a self-declared High-FF. It is typical of the extreme High-FF to blame his victims for his misfortune (assuming they were never on his side), not dissimilar to Hitler’s bunker denunciations of the German people. These are usually the very people the megalomaniac High-FF envied and emulated: the posh, the rich, the Aryans. He has spent his life trying to be deemed worthy of this group – sometimes going to ridiculous extremes in order to do so. And, ultimately, they have been the very people that have castigated or rejected him, or simply let him down.
When I lived in New York I often passed Madoff’s Midtown building – a preposterously ugly tower in brown marble called the Lipstick Building. I didn’t know who occupied it but I used to joke to friends that – whoever it was – they were trying way too hard to make an impression. It really does stand out from the skyscraper crowd for all the wrong reasons (and is also one of two blocks in the wrong place). When I heard it was Madoff’s, I was delighted. There was a building that was desperate to be an icon – yet it inwardly knew it was ugly and never likely to be accepted as a New York landmark: not so far removed from the man himself.
Yet fear of failure can also drive bad behaviour. In fact, it can turn us into criminals. Such can be the mental terror of low achievement that – instead of indulging in avoidance tactics (as with Stobart and his reluctance to meet people) – we go full-throttle in the other direction, eventually (but wilfully) crossing the line with respect to acceptable behaviour. Even here, however, it may be possible to, in fact, see a person so desperate not to fail, or so desperate to be accepted, that they’ve made calamitous choices that can be explained by frustration or perceived (or real) prejudice or lack of opportunity.
This can certainly be the case when examining those that break the law in order to cover up their failures. Seen through the lens of fear of failure, some obviously criminal acts become more understandable, even if not more justifiable. Two cases stand out for me, perhaps because of my background in finance. In the UK there’s Nick Leeson, the “rogue trader” that brought down Barings, and in the US there’s Bernie Madoff, the daddy of all Ponzi schemers.
Leeson brought the venerable Barings Bank to its knees in 1995 due to a series of failed bets on Japanese equities. Rather than declare his equity derivatives losses, and confess his failure, Leeson set up a series of secret accounts to hide the losses. Meanwhile, he furiously tried to gamble them away – a tactic that can, and did, spiral out of control. The bank collapsed after Leeson’s bets crumbled in the dust of the Kobe earthquake in January 1995.
In Rogue Trader, Leeson’s own account of his actions, he claimed no malicious or criminal intent, and I believe him. He was a state-educated lower middle-class lad from Watford working for a posh bank in a senior and trusted role (as one memo from a board member famously stated: “he knows what he’s doing”). There was a clear touch of “imposter phenomenon” about him, where (in his head) his strong performances counted for nothing because he was not of the right stock.
Indeed, when the losses were uncovered and he went briefly into hiding, one of the directors revealed that Leeson’s assumptions regarding snobbery were not so far off. “One of our barrow boys has gone missing,” he declared, which at least did me the service of not having to invest any sympathy for a bank that had so little understanding of the motivations of its employees.
And, in my opinion, it was this insecurity that drove Leeson to criminality. He never intended stealing the money. His aim was to make money for his employers and thus prove his worth. He was also concerned for his team, and the blame that may be apportioned to them. Yet fear of failure destroyed his judgement – resulting in the hidden losses, the collapsed bank and his arrest and imprisonment.
The US example is more controversial because his crime is greater, the victims true innocents and it is more recent – indeed the corpse is still warm on this one. My evidence for Bernie Madoff’s fear of failure comes from the Wizard of Lies by Diana Henriques, who covered the collapse of his US$50 billion Ponzi scheme for the New York Times. Like Leeson, Madoff grew up in a lower-middle class neighbourhood on the edge of the metropolis – this time in Queens, New York. His father’s business ventures usually failed, which created a great impression upon the young Bernard. At all costs he wanted to succeed – and was determined to avoid the negative judgement from others that was the fate of his father.
This led him towards his first fraud – when managing money for around 20 clients. Trying for higher returns to please sceptical investors, he lost money on risky stocks. Yet rather than own up, he borrowed US$30,000 to erase the losses for his clients, allowing him to impress them with the brilliance of his money management. In Madoff’s mind he had done the honourable thing – taking the hit but covering his losses. Of course, the loan was repaid from renewed investment on the back of his enhanced reputation. And the pyramid developed its all-important second layer.
That was in 1962. After the 1987 stockmarket crash he found himself in a similar position and, again, used new investor’s cash to cover the losses and, again, to maintain his strong name. The pattern was repeated again in 2001-02. Indeed, only the scale of the redemptions from the 2008 crash prevented his flawed model from surviving the latest bear market, although by then the losses were vast. Indeed, he was nearly wiped out in 2005 when he managed to raise US$92 million with just three days to spare.
According to Henriques, Madoff always saw himself as an outsider and was determined to over-compensate. He served as chairman of NASDAQ and was on the board of governors from the National Association of Securities Dealers. He even gave office space to the regulator’s legal team when they had to abandon their home after 9/11. Some have put this down to the criminal mastermind, conducting grand fraud under the noses of the authorities. But, as a High-FF (someone with a high fear of failure) I think I can spot an alternative motive. I think it reveals an insecurity – of a man desperate to be accepted as an insider in a world he admired but was not part of.
He was determined to succeed where his father failed, so he had zero tolerance for failure. Failure, to Madoff, was not feedback or a temporary setback. It was condemning, a confirmation of his irretrievable and final awfulness. And this allowed his unethical behaviour (which was to hide his failings) to build to destructive levels. In his head he knew this, of course, but – in my view – he never viewed himself as a criminal, just as an outsider.
Henriques is perplexed by Madoff despite her deep research. She finds his criminality difficult to fathom – citing an interview in jail in which he complains about feeling “burned” by investors withdrawing their money in the 1987 cash. “I was hung out to dry,” he claimed – a mentality that Henriques struggles to explain although is absolutely clear to me, as a self-declared High-FF. It is typical of the extreme High-FF to blame his victims for his misfortune (assuming they were never on his side), not dissimilar to Hitler’s bunker denunciations of the German people. These are usually the very people the megalomaniac High-FF envied and emulated: the posh, the rich, the Aryans. He has spent his life trying to be deemed worthy of this group – sometimes going to ridiculous extremes in order to do so. And, ultimately, they have been the very people that have castigated or rejected him, or simply let him down.
When I lived in New York I often passed Madoff’s Midtown building – a preposterously ugly tower in brown marble called the Lipstick Building. I didn’t know who occupied it but I used to joke to friends that – whoever it was – they were trying way too hard to make an impression. It really does stand out from the skyscraper crowd for all the wrong reasons (and is also one of two blocks in the wrong place). When I heard it was Madoff’s, I was delighted. There was a building that was desperate to be an icon – yet it inwardly knew it was ugly and never likely to be accepted as a New York landmark: not so far removed from the man himself.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Religion, faith and talking to grown ups
Our youngest son was Christened recently. It was in a sweet village chapel in Suffolk where my immediate family, and those of the godparents, made up three-quarters of the attendees that Sunday. Yet the event got me thinking about faith and religion – and I ended up with a positive view, though initially more of religion than faith.
Faith is a very personal thing but my mind is just too rational – at least these days – to find room for ancient parables that read like an early form of social instruction. Rather, my positive view is of formalised religion and, indeed, its healthy influence with respect to socialisation.
Certainly, religion is probably the most successful socialising force ever invented. And this may have been my problem with it when younger. As I’ve written before, rebelliousness is often a mask for fear of failure – with the “failure” in many instances being social. There are expectations we are supposed to meet – social and material – and it is these that form the benchmarks for our lives. So if we rail against those expectations, it may be that the rebellion hides a deeply-hidden (even denied) fear of falling short.
With respect to my early academic and career mishaps, this is patently true. My rebellion masked a deeply-held belief regarding my inadequacies. Yet this is also true socially – inwardly, I felt alienated from the community around me. So I may have, again, been rejecting society before it could reject me.
And I think religion played a significant part in this, although it wasn’t until I had to engage the vicar in correspondence regarding my faith – as part of the process for persuading him that we could invade his small but reflective Sunday worship to get the youngest sorted – that I realised the role religion played.
My family were agnostics – at least they would have been if they’d examined their relationship with God, which they didn’t (agnostic agnostics perhaps). Indeed, right through my life I’ve seen religion as something other people “get” or “have” or “did”. Meanwhile, I’d never been consulted – at least not until the moment the vicar asked me for my view on faith.
On reflection I regret this inherited agnosticism – not the spiritual or faith element but the resultant absence from any form of involvement in the most obvious totem of community life. Many of my school friends attended church – mostly reluctantly. Yet I now see what it brought them: community involvement, integration, acceptance, behavioural norms and grown-up codes of conduct.
I could also add discipline here, although that makes me sound reactionary, and I’m not. But it did encourage an adult discourse, imparting skills on “how” to communicate with adults, which would surely have a beneficial influence on whether we wanted such a communication.
Meanwhile, I never learned these simple skills, which meant the village adults viewed me as sullen, stroppy, and poorly socialised. They treated me with suspicion. So I acted suspiciously. It was self-fulfilling.
It was clearly a major hole in my community life and one that was deeply felt, although one I can only now articulate. My church-going mates knew people (grown ups) and were liked by them. I was an outsider in my own village. Religion created a powerful sense of cohesion that was apparent for both those on the inside, and those on the outside. It gave those kids boundaries that I didn’t have. And, yes, that included the values of the bible as much as it meant community activity.
Instead, I went the other way – cheeking the grown-ups, leading the other kids towards petty vandalism and shoplifting (true I’m afraid – I was the 10-year old leader of the shoplifting gang). And this led me down a path of being disliked and distrusted by those adults in the village that were part of the community. Of course, this had implications for who I could hang around with. Eventually I was banned from some houses, compounding the alienation. It also had implications at school – not least because many of the teachers lived locally and were plugged into the village scene. Their attitude towards my behaviour, and my work, became noticeably harder as I moved up the years.
Unfortunately, I think society has moved more in my direction. I suspect there are a lot more Robert Kelseys in my “village” (actually a suburb of Chelmsford in Essex) than there were in my day. And society is a lot poorer for it (this isn’t a right-wing rant, by the way, more a sadness at our lost cohesion).
I told the vicar all this in our Christening preamble and he was impressed, but thought I’d missed the point. What about faith, he asked? As far as he was concerned, I was talking about religion as seen through the eyes of an amateur (and atheistic) sociologist. Where’s the spirituality?
I was lost for a reply on this one. But then I remembered going to his service a year-or-so ago. He is married to my wife’s cousin and we were staying with them for the weekend – so it was only good manners to attend his Sunday sermon. I thought it would only be an hour and we’d just have to cope with the boring rituals and distracted kids.
But I found myself deeply moved by his service. I sat there in this ancient environment (surrounded by some pretty ancient people) and absorbed his words regarding love and reflection. Work was pretty taxing at this point, I remember, and he reminded me that I had to appreciate those closest, not view them as a barrier. His message was simple, it made biblical references, and it was sandwiched between a hymn and a prayer – but it also hit the nail on the head when it came to my current stresses. I realise this isn't exactly faith - but it is surely spiritual, which maybe as close as I can get.
Sure, as a kid such words would have had less impact. We need to grow up before we can appreciate any form of reflection. But it would have been nice to have known they existed. Just maybe I’d have wasted less energy trying to reject the world around me before – in my mind – they could reject me.
Faith is a very personal thing but my mind is just too rational – at least these days – to find room for ancient parables that read like an early form of social instruction. Rather, my positive view is of formalised religion and, indeed, its healthy influence with respect to socialisation.
Certainly, religion is probably the most successful socialising force ever invented. And this may have been my problem with it when younger. As I’ve written before, rebelliousness is often a mask for fear of failure – with the “failure” in many instances being social. There are expectations we are supposed to meet – social and material – and it is these that form the benchmarks for our lives. So if we rail against those expectations, it may be that the rebellion hides a deeply-hidden (even denied) fear of falling short.
With respect to my early academic and career mishaps, this is patently true. My rebellion masked a deeply-held belief regarding my inadequacies. Yet this is also true socially – inwardly, I felt alienated from the community around me. So I may have, again, been rejecting society before it could reject me.
And I think religion played a significant part in this, although it wasn’t until I had to engage the vicar in correspondence regarding my faith – as part of the process for persuading him that we could invade his small but reflective Sunday worship to get the youngest sorted – that I realised the role religion played.
My family were agnostics – at least they would have been if they’d examined their relationship with God, which they didn’t (agnostic agnostics perhaps). Indeed, right through my life I’ve seen religion as something other people “get” or “have” or “did”. Meanwhile, I’d never been consulted – at least not until the moment the vicar asked me for my view on faith.
On reflection I regret this inherited agnosticism – not the spiritual or faith element but the resultant absence from any form of involvement in the most obvious totem of community life. Many of my school friends attended church – mostly reluctantly. Yet I now see what it brought them: community involvement, integration, acceptance, behavioural norms and grown-up codes of conduct.
I could also add discipline here, although that makes me sound reactionary, and I’m not. But it did encourage an adult discourse, imparting skills on “how” to communicate with adults, which would surely have a beneficial influence on whether we wanted such a communication.
Meanwhile, I never learned these simple skills, which meant the village adults viewed me as sullen, stroppy, and poorly socialised. They treated me with suspicion. So I acted suspiciously. It was self-fulfilling.
It was clearly a major hole in my community life and one that was deeply felt, although one I can only now articulate. My church-going mates knew people (grown ups) and were liked by them. I was an outsider in my own village. Religion created a powerful sense of cohesion that was apparent for both those on the inside, and those on the outside. It gave those kids boundaries that I didn’t have. And, yes, that included the values of the bible as much as it meant community activity.
Instead, I went the other way – cheeking the grown-ups, leading the other kids towards petty vandalism and shoplifting (true I’m afraid – I was the 10-year old leader of the shoplifting gang). And this led me down a path of being disliked and distrusted by those adults in the village that were part of the community. Of course, this had implications for who I could hang around with. Eventually I was banned from some houses, compounding the alienation. It also had implications at school – not least because many of the teachers lived locally and were plugged into the village scene. Their attitude towards my behaviour, and my work, became noticeably harder as I moved up the years.
Unfortunately, I think society has moved more in my direction. I suspect there are a lot more Robert Kelseys in my “village” (actually a suburb of Chelmsford in Essex) than there were in my day. And society is a lot poorer for it (this isn’t a right-wing rant, by the way, more a sadness at our lost cohesion).
I told the vicar all this in our Christening preamble and he was impressed, but thought I’d missed the point. What about faith, he asked? As far as he was concerned, I was talking about religion as seen through the eyes of an amateur (and atheistic) sociologist. Where’s the spirituality?
I was lost for a reply on this one. But then I remembered going to his service a year-or-so ago. He is married to my wife’s cousin and we were staying with them for the weekend – so it was only good manners to attend his Sunday sermon. I thought it would only be an hour and we’d just have to cope with the boring rituals and distracted kids.
But I found myself deeply moved by his service. I sat there in this ancient environment (surrounded by some pretty ancient people) and absorbed his words regarding love and reflection. Work was pretty taxing at this point, I remember, and he reminded me that I had to appreciate those closest, not view them as a barrier. His message was simple, it made biblical references, and it was sandwiched between a hymn and a prayer – but it also hit the nail on the head when it came to my current stresses. I realise this isn't exactly faith - but it is surely spiritual, which maybe as close as I can get.
Sure, as a kid such words would have had less impact. We need to grow up before we can appreciate any form of reflection. But it would have been nice to have known they existed. Just maybe I’d have wasted less energy trying to reject the world around me before – in my mind – they could reject me.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
The darkest hour . . .
Songs transport us back to our past more efficiently than any other stimulation (though smells come a well-placed second). The power of a three-minute tune to bring back time and place with incredible clarity is extraordinary. Emotions also return, almost as strongly as the original experience – although now with the bitter-sweet icing of the retrospective view.
I thought this as I listened to Transfatty Acid by Lamb – the opening line of which is “no one said it would be easy” – a statement intended to conjure the trials of past eras. I used to listen to the song as part of a Café del Mar compilation around the turn of the millennium. Yet one occasion stands out, of me sitting alone in my small flat in North London – half-cut after several cans of Stella.
I’d never intended living there. It was an investment property while in the US. But there I sat, after being thrown out of a shared house in Camden, with a string of failed relationships behind me and the foolishness of my recent career choices starkly apparent.
To top it all, 10-years of non-smoking had recently been thrown away and I sat there puffing on Marlboro Lights, a brand that hadn’t even existed in my smoking youth. It felt that the past few years of giddy excess had finally crashed around me as I watched the fog build up under the ceiling and cracked another can – probably nodding just a little too deeply to Lamb’s song of suffering and endeavour.
Did I cry? I can’t remember. Probably – why not go all the way? In fact, I can remember a thrown glass around that time. Oh yeah, I was determined to indulge in all of misery’s thin pleasures.
Yet the reminder – due to setting the iPod to random while preparing dinner for my lovely and loving wife and wonderful (though occasionally naughty) boys in our beautiful home (there’s a point to this – don’t worry) – was, indeed, a bitter-sweet retrospective. Because I could now look back at that moment – the filling ashtray, the tired furniture, the solitude of failure – and realise that it was the darkest moment. I think it was deep winter (I’d left the Camden house in December, so my guess was that it was January, hardly a cheery month). In early February I took a friend on a nightout. She’d never been to The Cross – the famous nightclub behind King’s Cross station – so I promised to take her. We got on, we kissed, we started dating. I fell in love.
That summer was wonderful, and my small flat – in fact the top-floor of a small tower with unbroken views over Clissold Park – proved perfect for developing a grown-up relationship away from the pressures. A year later we were living together. A year later married. A year after that we were preparing for the birth of our first child.
Yet if I’m honest (and male), the downer back in that bleak January centred on my career. That winter I had to cope with the “failure” of my first book. Also, the enterprise I’d left banking in order to set up was going nowhere. Post dotcom crash, our internet “incubator” had declined to the point of being no more than a fight to save face (and savings). Our dreams looked naïve, as did my writing ambitions. So when I lit that next Marlboro Light, my thoughts would turn to what I’d thrown away. Banking in London, Moscow and New York – cutting deals with Russian oligarchs and financial whizzkids. For what?
But, again, it was the darkest hour. I’d often thought of starting a PR agency for banks but I’d never “got around” to it. My part of banking – corporate banking – was crying out for intelligent public relations from someone that fully understood the sector. But I’d always been too fearful. Stuck in the avoidance activity of “keeping a job” I’d done nothing about it. I was too concerned about the potential humiliation.
Well here I was – down and humbled. There was no fear of failure anymore because failed was the current state. There was only one way up.
Lamb’s words came back: “Did anyone tell you that the road would be straight and long?” No they didn’t. And it wasn’t. But once I realised it was a road I travelled, with a destination I wanted to get to, I worked out how to deal with the bends and occasional obstacle.
Of course, the retrospective sweetens the memory, and probably laces it with a little licence. I doubt I rose from the chair and started Moorgate Communications the next day. But, encouraged by my new girlfriend, it certainly happened that year. So thank you Lamb for such an atmospheric song. I couldn’t have got so low (and therefore so high) without you.
I thought this as I listened to Transfatty Acid by Lamb – the opening line of which is “no one said it would be easy” – a statement intended to conjure the trials of past eras. I used to listen to the song as part of a Café del Mar compilation around the turn of the millennium. Yet one occasion stands out, of me sitting alone in my small flat in North London – half-cut after several cans of Stella.
I’d never intended living there. It was an investment property while in the US. But there I sat, after being thrown out of a shared house in Camden, with a string of failed relationships behind me and the foolishness of my recent career choices starkly apparent.
To top it all, 10-years of non-smoking had recently been thrown away and I sat there puffing on Marlboro Lights, a brand that hadn’t even existed in my smoking youth. It felt that the past few years of giddy excess had finally crashed around me as I watched the fog build up under the ceiling and cracked another can – probably nodding just a little too deeply to Lamb’s song of suffering and endeavour.
Did I cry? I can’t remember. Probably – why not go all the way? In fact, I can remember a thrown glass around that time. Oh yeah, I was determined to indulge in all of misery’s thin pleasures.
Yet the reminder – due to setting the iPod to random while preparing dinner for my lovely and loving wife and wonderful (though occasionally naughty) boys in our beautiful home (there’s a point to this – don’t worry) – was, indeed, a bitter-sweet retrospective. Because I could now look back at that moment – the filling ashtray, the tired furniture, the solitude of failure – and realise that it was the darkest moment. I think it was deep winter (I’d left the Camden house in December, so my guess was that it was January, hardly a cheery month). In early February I took a friend on a nightout. She’d never been to The Cross – the famous nightclub behind King’s Cross station – so I promised to take her. We got on, we kissed, we started dating. I fell in love.
That summer was wonderful, and my small flat – in fact the top-floor of a small tower with unbroken views over Clissold Park – proved perfect for developing a grown-up relationship away from the pressures. A year later we were living together. A year later married. A year after that we were preparing for the birth of our first child.
Yet if I’m honest (and male), the downer back in that bleak January centred on my career. That winter I had to cope with the “failure” of my first book. Also, the enterprise I’d left banking in order to set up was going nowhere. Post dotcom crash, our internet “incubator” had declined to the point of being no more than a fight to save face (and savings). Our dreams looked naïve, as did my writing ambitions. So when I lit that next Marlboro Light, my thoughts would turn to what I’d thrown away. Banking in London, Moscow and New York – cutting deals with Russian oligarchs and financial whizzkids. For what?
But, again, it was the darkest hour. I’d often thought of starting a PR agency for banks but I’d never “got around” to it. My part of banking – corporate banking – was crying out for intelligent public relations from someone that fully understood the sector. But I’d always been too fearful. Stuck in the avoidance activity of “keeping a job” I’d done nothing about it. I was too concerned about the potential humiliation.
Well here I was – down and humbled. There was no fear of failure anymore because failed was the current state. There was only one way up.
Lamb’s words came back: “Did anyone tell you that the road would be straight and long?” No they didn’t. And it wasn’t. But once I realised it was a road I travelled, with a destination I wanted to get to, I worked out how to deal with the bends and occasional obstacle.
Of course, the retrospective sweetens the memory, and probably laces it with a little licence. I doubt I rose from the chair and started Moorgate Communications the next day. But, encouraged by my new girlfriend, it certainly happened that year. So thank you Lamb for such an atmospheric song. I couldn’t have got so low (and therefore so high) without you.
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
The good, the bad and those ugly neural hijackings
There’s one opinion I assert in What’s Stopping You? that may raise a few disbelieving eyebrows. It’s the notion that – in my opinion – everybody thinks of themselves as good people. And their bad behaviour, which many will admit, can be personally justified as forced upon them by poor opportunity or prejudice, or the righting of a perceived wrong. They were made to act in such a way, they’ll state, through circumstances not of their own making.
Certainly, this is how I’ve justified my own episodes of bad behaviour. There have been occasions when my reactions have been outrageous and damaging – ill-tempered, insulting, selfish and emotionally immature. And while I apologise now to anyone who suffered my nonsense, I maintain that – underneath – I was responding to what I perceived as an attack on me. That I was acting in my own defence. I was the victim (at least in my head), not the person on the receiving end of my temper or insults.
Yet this is a position I’m going to have to defend – not my own justifications (I know what goes on my head, at least most of the time), but those of people society condemns as “bad “ or “evil”. While the self-justification of a terrorist, even of Osama Bin Laden’s notoriety, is obvious (he felt his cause was just and required such extremism), can such a defence be made of bank robbers, murderers and or even rapists? These are surely selfish crimes, driven by uncontrolled greed or lust. Difficult as it is to assume from such a moral distance, I’m convinced it can – not from a moralistic point of view but from the wholly practical standpoint that, deep down, we all aim to be good people.
I’m not stating we are not responsible for the crimes we commit – we are 100 percent responsible. I’m just offering the view that those guilty of crime, in all its forms, will most-likely defend themselves on the grounds that they were forced to do it due to actions or circumstances that were not of their choosing. And that, given the choice – and differing circumstances – they’d have chosen peace, friendship, respect and a whole host of other positive reactions.
What’s this got to do with fear of failure? A lot. One of the most difficult aspects of any recovery programme for fear of failure is focused on our dealings with other people. It is our encounters with others that produce the fear-based and usually ill-conceived responses that send High-FFs (as I call those with fear of failure) in the wrong direction. Convinced we are under attack, we react defensively – aggressively even. This is the result of what Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence calls a neural hijacking: an emotional explosion in which the limbic system of the brain proclaims an emergency, “recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda”, says Goleman. This hijacking, which is instantaneous and arrives in an emotional surge, overrides what Goleman calls the “thinking brain” – leading to instant emotional responses based on fear, whatever the reality.
Is there any way we can prevent these neural hijackings? Again, as I state in What’s Stopping You? the unfortunate answer is no. I reason that fear of failure is an innate condition that is, in fact, a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traumatic events in our early childhood – some of which we may not even be aware of – have led us to respond with fear when triggered, leading to those neural hijackings that, in turn, lead to those terrible responses that, on reflection, we wish we could undo.
Is there an answer? Yes. While we cannot stop the neural hijackings, the poor responses they currently induce are not inevitable. Many of us, on reflection and after the passage of enough time for the emotional fog to clear, look back on those emotional fear-based moments and realise we may have misread or over-read the signals. We may have been under attack, but – probably – we misheard them or mistook the body-language or misunderstood the intention behind their comment or action. This realisation – hopefully (though certainly not always) – dawns on us after a while and we become embarrassed by our defensive response. A response moreover, that makes us appear the aggressor – adding to our sense of injustice and potentially sending us further down the path towards vengeful thoughts and actions.
The challenge, therefore, is to be able to have that second – better, more reflective – response sooner. In fact, if only we could have that second response as an instant reaction to the original neural hijacking, we’d have prevented the neural hijacking from generating the first defensive response (the one that’s turned us into the guilty party and left us isolated, alienated and embittered).
Developing a kinder response is, therefore, one of the most vital aspects of any recovery programme for a High-FF. We must think of everyone the way we want others to think of us: as essentially good people trying to overcome their own agonies and deal with their own insecurities. We don’t need to become evangelical about this. After all, few people like having their insecurities pointed out – something almost guaranteed to produce a neural hijacking in anyone on the receiving end. We just need to be aware that – at heart – everybody thinks of themselves as a good person and that any act or utterance that contradicts this conviction is almost certainly the reaction to some perceived slight or injustice. Or, more likely, we have misconstrued their actions.
And if we adjust our thinking to see it from their point of view, we’ve immediately transformed our view of them. Look hard enough and everyone has a justifiable viewpoint that, if we can empathise with, will deflect their perceived attack on - or threat to - us. And this, after a lot of practice, can help prevent those inevitable neural hijackings from producing those, far from inevitable, awful responses.
Certainly, this is how I’ve justified my own episodes of bad behaviour. There have been occasions when my reactions have been outrageous and damaging – ill-tempered, insulting, selfish and emotionally immature. And while I apologise now to anyone who suffered my nonsense, I maintain that – underneath – I was responding to what I perceived as an attack on me. That I was acting in my own defence. I was the victim (at least in my head), not the person on the receiving end of my temper or insults.
Yet this is a position I’m going to have to defend – not my own justifications (I know what goes on my head, at least most of the time), but those of people society condemns as “bad “ or “evil”. While the self-justification of a terrorist, even of Osama Bin Laden’s notoriety, is obvious (he felt his cause was just and required such extremism), can such a defence be made of bank robbers, murderers and or even rapists? These are surely selfish crimes, driven by uncontrolled greed or lust. Difficult as it is to assume from such a moral distance, I’m convinced it can – not from a moralistic point of view but from the wholly practical standpoint that, deep down, we all aim to be good people.
I’m not stating we are not responsible for the crimes we commit – we are 100 percent responsible. I’m just offering the view that those guilty of crime, in all its forms, will most-likely defend themselves on the grounds that they were forced to do it due to actions or circumstances that were not of their choosing. And that, given the choice – and differing circumstances – they’d have chosen peace, friendship, respect and a whole host of other positive reactions.
What’s this got to do with fear of failure? A lot. One of the most difficult aspects of any recovery programme for fear of failure is focused on our dealings with other people. It is our encounters with others that produce the fear-based and usually ill-conceived responses that send High-FFs (as I call those with fear of failure) in the wrong direction. Convinced we are under attack, we react defensively – aggressively even. This is the result of what Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence calls a neural hijacking: an emotional explosion in which the limbic system of the brain proclaims an emergency, “recruiting the rest of the brain to its urgent agenda”, says Goleman. This hijacking, which is instantaneous and arrives in an emotional surge, overrides what Goleman calls the “thinking brain” – leading to instant emotional responses based on fear, whatever the reality.
Is there any way we can prevent these neural hijackings? Again, as I state in What’s Stopping You? the unfortunate answer is no. I reason that fear of failure is an innate condition that is, in fact, a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Traumatic events in our early childhood – some of which we may not even be aware of – have led us to respond with fear when triggered, leading to those neural hijackings that, in turn, lead to those terrible responses that, on reflection, we wish we could undo.
Is there an answer? Yes. While we cannot stop the neural hijackings, the poor responses they currently induce are not inevitable. Many of us, on reflection and after the passage of enough time for the emotional fog to clear, look back on those emotional fear-based moments and realise we may have misread or over-read the signals. We may have been under attack, but – probably – we misheard them or mistook the body-language or misunderstood the intention behind their comment or action. This realisation – hopefully (though certainly not always) – dawns on us after a while and we become embarrassed by our defensive response. A response moreover, that makes us appear the aggressor – adding to our sense of injustice and potentially sending us further down the path towards vengeful thoughts and actions.
The challenge, therefore, is to be able to have that second – better, more reflective – response sooner. In fact, if only we could have that second response as an instant reaction to the original neural hijacking, we’d have prevented the neural hijacking from generating the first defensive response (the one that’s turned us into the guilty party and left us isolated, alienated and embittered).
Developing a kinder response is, therefore, one of the most vital aspects of any recovery programme for a High-FF. We must think of everyone the way we want others to think of us: as essentially good people trying to overcome their own agonies and deal with their own insecurities. We don’t need to become evangelical about this. After all, few people like having their insecurities pointed out – something almost guaranteed to produce a neural hijacking in anyone on the receiving end. We just need to be aware that – at heart – everybody thinks of themselves as a good person and that any act or utterance that contradicts this conviction is almost certainly the reaction to some perceived slight or injustice. Or, more likely, we have misconstrued their actions.
And if we adjust our thinking to see it from their point of view, we’ve immediately transformed our view of them. Look hard enough and everyone has a justifiable viewpoint that, if we can empathise with, will deflect their perceived attack on - or threat to - us. And this, after a lot of practice, can help prevent those inevitable neural hijackings from producing those, far from inevitable, awful responses.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
The High-FF manager – not such a contradiction in terms
High-FFs (as I call those with a high fear of failure in What’s Stopping You?) are the opposite to High-AMs (those with high achievement motivation) and they have a major problem when it comes to management. But also a major opportunity.
Their High-FF status is likely to have dogged them all the way up the organisation, so High-FFs that have not dealt with their insecurities will rarely make it to the top. Yet, from sheer longevity, many will make it to management positions that require leadership skills.
The question is – will they exercise those skills based on their faulty reactions to the “neural hijackings” many High-FFs suffer from when their fears are triggered (making them defensive and paranoid)? Or will they “step through the mirror” and develop a strong understanding – based on their experiences on the way up – of the potential insecurities of their team? An understanding, what’s more, that will make them an “inspiring” leader in the modern office.
Certainly, High-FF leadership can seem like a contradiction in terms. Our fears mean we distrust those both above and below us in the hierarchy and we can make poor judgements based on our insecurities. Our creativity (a strong High-FF trait) will be switched towards defensiveness, which will curtail the team’s growth, make us a reactive manager and a suspicious hirer. Unenlightened High-FFs, it seems, cannot take instruction from above or lead the team below.
Yet leadership is possible for the “recovering” (there is no final victory – fear of failure is a hardwired condition from early childhood) High-FF as long as we are prepared to accept who we are – including our faulty wiring – and externalise and depersonalize our experiences.
Leadership is no more than goal achievement for a group of individuals, so if we are fully onboard with those goals – if they are our goals – then leadership is no more than the recruitment of others in pursuit of our goals. Of course, this is a fantastic turnaround for High-FFs more used to being recruited by others to help pursue their goals.
And, luckily, modern leadership is moving the way of the High-FF – as long as they can learn from their experiences. Most people now work in the knowledge economy. This is the world of the office or studio and it involves people who possess both skills and choices. Productivity is the modern economy involves qualitative measurements such as creativity, thought leadership, analysis and mental processing. And this requires workers who are emotionally – as well as intellectually – capable of performing such tasks. It also requires leaders who can motivate workers through emotional awareness and intelligence: traits High-FFs usually have in abundance.
Yet our self-obsession may prevent us from seeing that, as High-FFs, our previous weaknesses – of being too emotional, too sensitive, of being overly concerned with not losing face, of giving too much credence to external opinions – becomes our strengths. To lead, however, we must externalise these experiences and see it from the viewpoint of those we manage.
Our ability to empathise with the emotional needs of others is crucial in the modern world of work – an essential building block in business leadership that underlies our ability to be a mentor and to navigate sometimes conflicting workplace personalities.
A key point is that the people we lead are at least as important as the people we follow, despite their lower position in the hierarchy. And this means that – just for once – our insecurities as High-FFs, where we are so often concerned about what people think of us or how we are being perceived, is on-the-money when it comes to leadership.
Those with achievement motivation (High-AMs), meanwhile, are clueless. In what’s known in management circles as the “paradox of success” problem leadership behaviours can include, ironically, “winning too much”, which makes us trample over others, “adding too much value”, which prevents others getting any credit, “passing judgement”, which means offering opinions rather than listening, “being straight talking” which means making destructive comments and being too critical, and “telling the world how smart we are”, rather than offering praise to others.
These are all traits that High-AMs have used to get to the top. Now there, however, they can alienate the team below and destroy confidence, creativity, optimism and, ultimately, loyalty. Little wonder that so many High-AMs, when made the boss, simply keep going: acquiring companies, becoming corporate raiders, throwing themselves into maniacal deal-doing and even becoming crooks. Anything but nurture the team beneath them.
Their High-FF status is likely to have dogged them all the way up the organisation, so High-FFs that have not dealt with their insecurities will rarely make it to the top. Yet, from sheer longevity, many will make it to management positions that require leadership skills.
The question is – will they exercise those skills based on their faulty reactions to the “neural hijackings” many High-FFs suffer from when their fears are triggered (making them defensive and paranoid)? Or will they “step through the mirror” and develop a strong understanding – based on their experiences on the way up – of the potential insecurities of their team? An understanding, what’s more, that will make them an “inspiring” leader in the modern office.
Certainly, High-FF leadership can seem like a contradiction in terms. Our fears mean we distrust those both above and below us in the hierarchy and we can make poor judgements based on our insecurities. Our creativity (a strong High-FF trait) will be switched towards defensiveness, which will curtail the team’s growth, make us a reactive manager and a suspicious hirer. Unenlightened High-FFs, it seems, cannot take instruction from above or lead the team below.
Yet leadership is possible for the “recovering” (there is no final victory – fear of failure is a hardwired condition from early childhood) High-FF as long as we are prepared to accept who we are – including our faulty wiring – and externalise and depersonalize our experiences.
Leadership is no more than goal achievement for a group of individuals, so if we are fully onboard with those goals – if they are our goals – then leadership is no more than the recruitment of others in pursuit of our goals. Of course, this is a fantastic turnaround for High-FFs more used to being recruited by others to help pursue their goals.
And, luckily, modern leadership is moving the way of the High-FF – as long as they can learn from their experiences. Most people now work in the knowledge economy. This is the world of the office or studio and it involves people who possess both skills and choices. Productivity is the modern economy involves qualitative measurements such as creativity, thought leadership, analysis and mental processing. And this requires workers who are emotionally – as well as intellectually – capable of performing such tasks. It also requires leaders who can motivate workers through emotional awareness and intelligence: traits High-FFs usually have in abundance.
Yet our self-obsession may prevent us from seeing that, as High-FFs, our previous weaknesses – of being too emotional, too sensitive, of being overly concerned with not losing face, of giving too much credence to external opinions – becomes our strengths. To lead, however, we must externalise these experiences and see it from the viewpoint of those we manage.
Our ability to empathise with the emotional needs of others is crucial in the modern world of work – an essential building block in business leadership that underlies our ability to be a mentor and to navigate sometimes conflicting workplace personalities.
A key point is that the people we lead are at least as important as the people we follow, despite their lower position in the hierarchy. And this means that – just for once – our insecurities as High-FFs, where we are so often concerned about what people think of us or how we are being perceived, is on-the-money when it comes to leadership.
Those with achievement motivation (High-AMs), meanwhile, are clueless. In what’s known in management circles as the “paradox of success” problem leadership behaviours can include, ironically, “winning too much”, which makes us trample over others, “adding too much value”, which prevents others getting any credit, “passing judgement”, which means offering opinions rather than listening, “being straight talking” which means making destructive comments and being too critical, and “telling the world how smart we are”, rather than offering praise to others.
These are all traits that High-AMs have used to get to the top. Now there, however, they can alienate the team below and destroy confidence, creativity, optimism and, ultimately, loyalty. Little wonder that so many High-AMs, when made the boss, simply keep going: acquiring companies, becoming corporate raiders, throwing themselves into maniacal deal-doing and even becoming crooks. Anything but nurture the team beneath them.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Edward Stobart: gentleman trucker, High-FF
Edward Stobart died on March 31st, aged just 56. Britain’s become used to lauding the attributes of its famous entrepreneurs – from James Dyson to Richard Branson to Peter Jones. Yet Stobart – despite his ubiquitous trucks on the UK’s motorway network – died as something of an unknown. Even the lorries carry his father’s name – Eddie – although it was Edward that turned it into the country’s most famous trucking brand.
From the excellent obituary of him in a recent Economist, I think I’ve worked out why. Unlike his contemporary entrepreneurs – who effuse the confidence and chutzpah and sheer certainty that the image of the entrepreneur (incorrectly) insists is a requirement for success – Edward Stobart, in my view, appeared to suffer from fear of failure.
I’m only going on the obituary – so this could well be wide of the mark – but here’s my evidence that Edward Stobart was, indeed, a High-FF (as I call those with a high fear of failure in What’s Stopping You?):
• He had a stammer, brought about by a traumatic childhood event – in his case a fall through a roof. As I write in What’s Stopping You? and recently on this blog, traumatic childhood events can induce a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that generates a fearful response from tangentially-similar incidents in adulthood. And while a fall through a roof is not the usual public humiliation for triggering fear of failure, the resultant stammer is a classic fear-triggered response.
• No matter how large the business became, the persona of Eddie Stobart Ltd was through the trucks rather than himself. Mostly, he was the man eating egg and chips in the lorry-park café, with his fellow diners oblivious to the fact he was by far the most famous name in UK haulage (non-UK readers may be amazed to learn that “spot the Eddie Stobart truck” is now a more popular children’s travel game than eye-spy, or that there are more than 25,000 registered “spotters”, with many times that number unregistered).
• Stobart was always polite and always smart but he shied away from meeting strangers – a trait which prevented a public flotation of the company until after he sold his majority stake to his brother. My guess (and it is only a guess) was that he distrusted financial advisers and shareholders – perhaps fearing that their intrusion would reveal his personally-perceived (but deeply-held) self-belief in his own inadequacies.
• Trust was certainly an issue. As a child he showed entrepreneurial flair but kept all his savings in his trouser pocket. And he forced upon his drivers a rigid dress and conduct code (including wearing ties – something unheard of in the oil-n-nicotine stained trucking community). In fact his lack of trust in his workforce went as far as washing many of the trucks himself.
• Of course, both the tie wearing and manual truck-washing may suggest – not distrust – but a strong desire to project an upright professional image in a world renowned for sloppiness and poor manners. Such a desire to over-compensate can of course, be based on perceived insecurities regarding how the world might judge him or his brand.
• Indeed, he confessed that a lot of the brand’s power was down to image. He “didn’t hesitate to lie about how many lorries he had,” stated The Economist obituary. Again, this could show chutzpah but could equally reveal deeply-held feelings of inadequacy – as The Economist writes: “With his stammer, it was much easier to say, ‘no problem’ than to start picking difficulties.”
• Stobart’s first job, at 14, was on a JCB – planting roadsigns on the new M6 motorway. Apparently, he preferred spotting these to his own lorries. And he claimed they were both 10-feet high and 10-feet deep, which both The Economist thought and I think an apt analogy for the quiet man of trucking.
From the excellent obituary of him in a recent Economist, I think I’ve worked out why. Unlike his contemporary entrepreneurs – who effuse the confidence and chutzpah and sheer certainty that the image of the entrepreneur (incorrectly) insists is a requirement for success – Edward Stobart, in my view, appeared to suffer from fear of failure.
I’m only going on the obituary – so this could well be wide of the mark – but here’s my evidence that Edward Stobart was, indeed, a High-FF (as I call those with a high fear of failure in What’s Stopping You?):
• He had a stammer, brought about by a traumatic childhood event – in his case a fall through a roof. As I write in What’s Stopping You? and recently on this blog, traumatic childhood events can induce a mild form of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that generates a fearful response from tangentially-similar incidents in adulthood. And while a fall through a roof is not the usual public humiliation for triggering fear of failure, the resultant stammer is a classic fear-triggered response.
• No matter how large the business became, the persona of Eddie Stobart Ltd was through the trucks rather than himself. Mostly, he was the man eating egg and chips in the lorry-park café, with his fellow diners oblivious to the fact he was by far the most famous name in UK haulage (non-UK readers may be amazed to learn that “spot the Eddie Stobart truck” is now a more popular children’s travel game than eye-spy, or that there are more than 25,000 registered “spotters”, with many times that number unregistered).
• Stobart was always polite and always smart but he shied away from meeting strangers – a trait which prevented a public flotation of the company until after he sold his majority stake to his brother. My guess (and it is only a guess) was that he distrusted financial advisers and shareholders – perhaps fearing that their intrusion would reveal his personally-perceived (but deeply-held) self-belief in his own inadequacies.
• Trust was certainly an issue. As a child he showed entrepreneurial flair but kept all his savings in his trouser pocket. And he forced upon his drivers a rigid dress and conduct code (including wearing ties – something unheard of in the oil-n-nicotine stained trucking community). In fact his lack of trust in his workforce went as far as washing many of the trucks himself.
• Of course, both the tie wearing and manual truck-washing may suggest – not distrust – but a strong desire to project an upright professional image in a world renowned for sloppiness and poor manners. Such a desire to over-compensate can of course, be based on perceived insecurities regarding how the world might judge him or his brand.
• Indeed, he confessed that a lot of the brand’s power was down to image. He “didn’t hesitate to lie about how many lorries he had,” stated The Economist obituary. Again, this could show chutzpah but could equally reveal deeply-held feelings of inadequacy – as The Economist writes: “With his stammer, it was much easier to say, ‘no problem’ than to start picking difficulties.”
• Stobart’s first job, at 14, was on a JCB – planting roadsigns on the new M6 motorway. Apparently, he preferred spotting these to his own lorries. And he claimed they were both 10-feet high and 10-feet deep, which both The Economist thought and I think an apt analogy for the quiet man of trucking.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
When it comes to enterprise, take it slow and steady
The following article has appeared in the latest edition (Spring) of the
RSA Journal, the house magazine of the RSA.
Slow and Steady . . .
Robert Kelsey argues that, far from being restricted to the privileged few, entrepreneurial opportunities abound in all walks of life
The coalition government believes that private-sector employment can replace the jobs being lost in the public sector, with start-up businesses being hailed as crucial contributors in this respect. At a time of continued economic uncertainty, however, can we really expect people from all social groups to embrace enterprise? Indeed, couldn’t it be considered socially irresponsible to encourage economically vulnerable people to bet their meagre life savings on a venture?
Yet for those facing social exclusion, entrepreneurship is potentially a liberating career choice. Surveys of UK entrepreneurs, such as recent research by data analysts Experian, show that ethnic minorities (including the Irish) and those with learning difficulties such as dyslexia are over-represented. This suggests that entrepreneurship is a naturally effective equal-opportunities arena, perhaps even counterbalancing ingrained prejudice in more formal working environments.
“The wish to overcome prejudice is a key reason why many people start out on their own,” says RSA Fellowship Council member Emma Jones, head of small-business support initiative Enterprise Nation. “Running your own business is fantastically meritocratic. It is also flexible in ways that employment simply cannot be, hence the large number of young mums starting businesses.”
Exclusion concerns do, of course, exist among budding entrepreneurs but they go beyond ethnic, gender, age and ability divides. This is creating a new kind of social gap: between people with high fear of failure (whom I call ‘High-FFs’) and their opposites, those with high achievement motivation (‘High-AMs’).
Fear of failure is a condition from which millions suffer, irrespective of gender, class, ethnicity or age. High-FFs approach tasks expecting failure and dreading the potential for public humiliation that such failure brings. This leads them to employ avoidance techniques that, ultimately, confirm their negative predictions. While many would love to start a business – often because they feel overlooked or belittled in their current situation – they are afraid of the risks involved, making fear of failure both a debilitating and self-fulfilling affliction.
TV programmes such as BBC’s Dragons’ Den don’t help. This is behind-the-sofa viewing for most High-FF would-be entrepreneurs, whose resolve to start a business is likely to be eroded with every public roasting from a ‘Dragon’. The steely traits that form the public image of the Dragons are a long way from those of the typical High-FF.
Like the Dragons, successful entrepreneurs create their own mythology. For instance, in his book The Beermat Entrepreneur, start-up guru Mike Southon writes: “Entrepreneurs are confident. They are born optimists: they simply know they can do it. Entrepreneurs are also charismatic. They inspire people…they have optimism to spare. Entrepreneurs are also arrogant. They know they are good.”
Yet entrepreneurialism has nothing to do with hardwired personality traits. Like so many other celebrity entrepreneurs, Southon is describing himself, while conveying an image of entrepreneurship that is overly aggressive, short-sighted and unfair, not least because it alienates – and therefore excludes – so many potential entrepreneurs.
A recent survey, presented at the UK launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week, revealed that about 50% of the UK population are considering becoming their own boss, yet only 5% are doing something about it. So what’s stopping the other 45%? Partly fear of the risks and costs associated with starting a new business, and partly fear that they do not fit the stereotype of the ‘maverick’ entrepreneur.
Emma Jones points out that most budding entrepreneurs are simply looking for freedom and flexibility in their working life. The typical small-business owner, she says, is a “mum who starts a business to earn extra money for the household while still being able to do the school run”. She adds: “This is a long way from the defy-all-odds swashbuckling heroes who are most associated with entrepreneurship.”
So what can be done? Support mechanisms such as Enterprise Nation are a start, but what about funding? Fear of the financial consequences of failure is a key barrier, making the reintroduction of the Thatcher-era Enterprise Allowance Scheme for the unemployed a strong move.
Yet many people overestimate the financial requirements for a start-up enterprise. Jones says that the best way to start a business is modestly: through cautious planning and by sticking to a strict budget, perhaps while working from home or, at least at first, continuing with the day job.
This is a crucial message. In some ways, too much funding can actually disadvantage entrepreneurs in the early stages of their venture. Grants, for instance, can create unnecessary and potentially fear-inducing liabilities, such as forcing a start-up to operate at a higher level than its income comfortably allows, thereby saddling it with unaffordable costs once the grant has been spent.
An effective alternative is self-financing, and especially ‘bootstrapping’, which involves entrepreneurs – especially nervous ones – starting small and staying within their means. Fred DeLuca, founder of sandwich chain Subway, began with an investment of US$1,000 (£750) and bootstrapped his way to a fortune. He relied on cash flow to expand and never over-extended himself through debt or equity, both of which bring external obligations that can increase both the risk and the fear.
“Just because it is small doesn’t mean the business can’t grow,” writes DeLuca in his book Start Small, Finish Big. “And, while it is small, you will have the time to learn the lessons that are essential to your future success.”
Such sentiments certainly undermine any notions of inequality when it comes to succeeding as an entrepreneur: quite the opposite. Indeed, fearful people of modest means are just as well suited to entrepreneurship as their bolder, more affluent counterparts. They may even be more so, given the need for start-ups to be grounded and sustainable, rather than overnight sensations.
Entrepreneurship can be isolating, however, which can compound fears, erode resolve and increase the failure rate. At Metrocube (an early noughties incubator for dotcom start-ups where I was CEO), our aim was to get would-be entrepreneurs out of their bedrooms and into a community environment where they could swap ideas and favours with a network of like-minded individuals. Fostering camaraderie is also one of the goals at the heart of Enterprise Nation and other collegiate initiatives such as the Institute of Entrepreneurs, run by RSA chairman Luke Johnson.
Networks offer more than just advice and resources. While these are helpful, it is the shared concerns and sense of fellowship that are vital to the lonely entrepreneur, especially if his or her own socio-economic grouping is under-represented in entrepreneurial circles. Mentoring can also be valuable, although care is needed when trying to impose formal structures on individuals who may just be looking for shared experiences, occasional guidance and – most importantly – a network.
Networks, however, are only part of the answer. More importantly, the image of entrepreneurship needs to change so that it encourages both the cautious and the fearful, proving that this most meritocratic of economic sectors is open to all.
Robert Kelsey FRSA is a businessman and author
Robert Kelsey’s book, What’s Stopping You? Why Smart People Don’t Always Reach Their Potential, and How You Can will be published by Capstone/Wiley in April 2011
[pull quote] Entrepreneurialism has nothing to do with hardwired personality traits
[call to action] The RSA’s Social Entrepreneurs Network provides a source of support and advice to Fellows interested in social enterprise. Join in the discussion at www.RSAfellowship.com/group/socialentrepreneursnetwork
RSA Journal, the house magazine of the RSA.
Slow and Steady . . .
Robert Kelsey argues that, far from being restricted to the privileged few, entrepreneurial opportunities abound in all walks of life
The coalition government believes that private-sector employment can replace the jobs being lost in the public sector, with start-up businesses being hailed as crucial contributors in this respect. At a time of continued economic uncertainty, however, can we really expect people from all social groups to embrace enterprise? Indeed, couldn’t it be considered socially irresponsible to encourage economically vulnerable people to bet their meagre life savings on a venture?
Yet for those facing social exclusion, entrepreneurship is potentially a liberating career choice. Surveys of UK entrepreneurs, such as recent research by data analysts Experian, show that ethnic minorities (including the Irish) and those with learning difficulties such as dyslexia are over-represented. This suggests that entrepreneurship is a naturally effective equal-opportunities arena, perhaps even counterbalancing ingrained prejudice in more formal working environments.
“The wish to overcome prejudice is a key reason why many people start out on their own,” says RSA Fellowship Council member Emma Jones, head of small-business support initiative Enterprise Nation. “Running your own business is fantastically meritocratic. It is also flexible in ways that employment simply cannot be, hence the large number of young mums starting businesses.”
Exclusion concerns do, of course, exist among budding entrepreneurs but they go beyond ethnic, gender, age and ability divides. This is creating a new kind of social gap: between people with high fear of failure (whom I call ‘High-FFs’) and their opposites, those with high achievement motivation (‘High-AMs’).
Fear of failure is a condition from which millions suffer, irrespective of gender, class, ethnicity or age. High-FFs approach tasks expecting failure and dreading the potential for public humiliation that such failure brings. This leads them to employ avoidance techniques that, ultimately, confirm their negative predictions. While many would love to start a business – often because they feel overlooked or belittled in their current situation – they are afraid of the risks involved, making fear of failure both a debilitating and self-fulfilling affliction.
TV programmes such as BBC’s Dragons’ Den don’t help. This is behind-the-sofa viewing for most High-FF would-be entrepreneurs, whose resolve to start a business is likely to be eroded with every public roasting from a ‘Dragon’. The steely traits that form the public image of the Dragons are a long way from those of the typical High-FF.
Like the Dragons, successful entrepreneurs create their own mythology. For instance, in his book The Beermat Entrepreneur, start-up guru Mike Southon writes: “Entrepreneurs are confident. They are born optimists: they simply know they can do it. Entrepreneurs are also charismatic. They inspire people…they have optimism to spare. Entrepreneurs are also arrogant. They know they are good.”
Yet entrepreneurialism has nothing to do with hardwired personality traits. Like so many other celebrity entrepreneurs, Southon is describing himself, while conveying an image of entrepreneurship that is overly aggressive, short-sighted and unfair, not least because it alienates – and therefore excludes – so many potential entrepreneurs.
A recent survey, presented at the UK launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week, revealed that about 50% of the UK population are considering becoming their own boss, yet only 5% are doing something about it. So what’s stopping the other 45%? Partly fear of the risks and costs associated with starting a new business, and partly fear that they do not fit the stereotype of the ‘maverick’ entrepreneur.
Emma Jones points out that most budding entrepreneurs are simply looking for freedom and flexibility in their working life. The typical small-business owner, she says, is a “mum who starts a business to earn extra money for the household while still being able to do the school run”. She adds: “This is a long way from the defy-all-odds swashbuckling heroes who are most associated with entrepreneurship.”
So what can be done? Support mechanisms such as Enterprise Nation are a start, but what about funding? Fear of the financial consequences of failure is a key barrier, making the reintroduction of the Thatcher-era Enterprise Allowance Scheme for the unemployed a strong move.
Yet many people overestimate the financial requirements for a start-up enterprise. Jones says that the best way to start a business is modestly: through cautious planning and by sticking to a strict budget, perhaps while working from home or, at least at first, continuing with the day job.
This is a crucial message. In some ways, too much funding can actually disadvantage entrepreneurs in the early stages of their venture. Grants, for instance, can create unnecessary and potentially fear-inducing liabilities, such as forcing a start-up to operate at a higher level than its income comfortably allows, thereby saddling it with unaffordable costs once the grant has been spent.
An effective alternative is self-financing, and especially ‘bootstrapping’, which involves entrepreneurs – especially nervous ones – starting small and staying within their means. Fred DeLuca, founder of sandwich chain Subway, began with an investment of US$1,000 (£750) and bootstrapped his way to a fortune. He relied on cash flow to expand and never over-extended himself through debt or equity, both of which bring external obligations that can increase both the risk and the fear.
“Just because it is small doesn’t mean the business can’t grow,” writes DeLuca in his book Start Small, Finish Big. “And, while it is small, you will have the time to learn the lessons that are essential to your future success.”
Such sentiments certainly undermine any notions of inequality when it comes to succeeding as an entrepreneur: quite the opposite. Indeed, fearful people of modest means are just as well suited to entrepreneurship as their bolder, more affluent counterparts. They may even be more so, given the need for start-ups to be grounded and sustainable, rather than overnight sensations.
Entrepreneurship can be isolating, however, which can compound fears, erode resolve and increase the failure rate. At Metrocube (an early noughties incubator for dotcom start-ups where I was CEO), our aim was to get would-be entrepreneurs out of their bedrooms and into a community environment where they could swap ideas and favours with a network of like-minded individuals. Fostering camaraderie is also one of the goals at the heart of Enterprise Nation and other collegiate initiatives such as the Institute of Entrepreneurs, run by RSA chairman Luke Johnson.
Networks offer more than just advice and resources. While these are helpful, it is the shared concerns and sense of fellowship that are vital to the lonely entrepreneur, especially if his or her own socio-economic grouping is under-represented in entrepreneurial circles. Mentoring can also be valuable, although care is needed when trying to impose formal structures on individuals who may just be looking for shared experiences, occasional guidance and – most importantly – a network.
Networks, however, are only part of the answer. More importantly, the image of entrepreneurship needs to change so that it encourages both the cautious and the fearful, proving that this most meritocratic of economic sectors is open to all.
Robert Kelsey FRSA is a businessman and author
Robert Kelsey’s book, What’s Stopping You? Why Smart People Don’t Always Reach Their Potential, and How You Can will be published by Capstone/Wiley in April 2011
[pull quote] Entrepreneurialism has nothing to do with hardwired personality traits
[call to action] The RSA’s Social Entrepreneurs Network provides a source of support and advice to Fellows interested in social enterprise. Join in the discussion at www.RSAfellowship.com/group/socialentrepreneursnetwork
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Hating judo – and other fear of failure giveaways
My six year old son achieved something last week that eluded me as a child. He was awarded a red-belt at judo. This meant a presentation in front of the class and a round of applause. He was delighted.
So how come he could manage this rather modest achievement, while I couldn’t? Because I had fear of failure. My mother enrolled me on a judo class because she thought I needed toughening up. It always seemed a bit scary to me – a bit rough – but I played along hoping it may awaken a hitherto untapped talent for mindless violence. In fact I was hoping to develop the sort of attack mentality I was suffering from on the walk to school – though from much older boys – hence this rather 1970s response (I suspect dad had a hand in it somewhere).
Yet this felt like just another dose of the same – except in a sports hall (so officially sanctioned) and with people in white dressing gowns. And the teacher had bad breath and a dismissive “useless boy” way about him. Meanwhile, my son thinks fighting great fun and loves the idea of rolling around on mats and trying to wrestle each other to the ground. The whole thing suits his constant battle fantasies and gives his little brother some respite. And his teacher is a female national champion likely to be in the Great Britain Olympic team. She’s not to be messed with but still oozes warmth and love for her charges, unlike my episode which seemed to bear more of a resemblance to Lord of the Flies.
So there are key differences in teaching and atmosphere that led my six-year old the right way and me down another activity cul-de-sac (football and the Cubs were two others I joined and, immediately sought to avoid). But the key difference was that he approached judo assuming he’d be good at it and saw the setbacks as just temporary: a technique to be learnt (usually a violent one). While I approached judo fearfully – expecting to fail. Pretty soon I was complaining to my mother that I was too tired, or more interested in football, or that Blue Peter had an item our teacher wanted us to watch.
Looking back, my fear of failure was pretty evident. So what are the classic signs that we are High-FFs (as I call those with a high fear of failure in What’s Stopping You?) – both as a child and an adult? Here are a few – some from personal experience, some from the wide body of psychological research on the subject (and all with the caveat that any one of these traits is not evidence in itself of fear of failure – there could be other explanations).
1) Difficulty settling into mainstream activities. As above, this was certainly a major one for me. I just couldn’t settle in any club or formalised non-curricular activity. Partly this was due to an innate rebelliousness (see below) but a core problem was that I secretly feared failure and, therefore, sought to avoid the activity. Occasionally I’d be tempting in – seeing other boys enjoying football or church-hall dramatics or chess – but it would never last. Even as an adult, hobbies are fleeting and soon forgotten – usually after the first humiliation.
2) Rebelliousness. This can include music-based cultures – perhaps punks or (more recently) emos where the “shock” is mainly delivered through inappropriate dress. Yet it could develop into something more serious – perhaps indulging in misdemeanours relevant to the social backdrop of the sufferer. This includes becoming disruptive in class, being a petty vandal, a shop-lifter, car-jack, or even just a smoker. Bullying or, if less confident, becoming one of the bully’s lieutenants is – surprisingly – another trait of the classic High-FF (anything that rejects mainstream behaviour).
3) Exam stress. This is an obvious one but even mild fear of failure can cause extreme exam stress, with High-FFs potentially taking their avoidance tactics (conscious or otherwise) to extremes. Feigning illness (or even experiencing the illness), panic attacks and even deliberately sabotaging the exam are all avoidance tactics (perhaps feigning an “I don’t care” attitude).
4) “Dream fulfilment” careers. Some of the most outwardly-ambitious people may, in reality, be indulging in High-FF avoidance of sensible but challenging career choices. These can include those focused on “wildest dream” career choices such as pop stardom or TV fame. Crucially, the near-impossibility of achieving the dream means they will be kindly judged for being “a trier”, and it may mask their avoidance of realistic but challenging career choices (usually involving qualifications). Watch the early episodes of the X-Factor or any other reality TV show for examples.
5) Acting the clown. This one can follow us all the way through our lives. High-FFs are often the school, office or shopfloor clown – the joker that everyone likes, despite (and partly because of) their lowly status. On the surface at least, being the popular cheeky-chappie appears to be more important to the office clown that making progress. However, it's usually a mask hiding an inner sense of inadequacy.
6) Avoiding promotion. High-FFs can actively seek to avoid promotion, even when they are the obvious candidate. Excuses may vary (including claiming a “fear of success”) but it is usually based on an inner conviction that failure and – importantly – humiliation will result. Many declare themselves happier among the troops than the officers or show no desire to “fall out with Fred/John/Joan” who may be contesting the promotion.
7) Criticising and feuding. The High-FFs view of his or her workplace (or school, studio, college) is most likely to be a negative one. Indeed, High-FFs are usually highly critical of the way all external life is executed – sometimes publicly and vocally so. They can be part of the moaning canteen gang – perhaps its leader. And they can direct their criticisms at particular individuals – usually those they fear. Inevitably this leads to petty rivalries that can even develop into full-blown and disruptive feuds. Oddly, the other end of the scale – over-enthusiasm – can also be a mask to hide self-perceived inadequacies.
8) Injustice convictions. This was definitely one of my major giveaways – assuming slights or insults were meant and personal, looking (and usually finding) prejudice or favouritism to others (real or otherwise), developing acute paranoia about the intentions of colleagues and managers. Of course, these can turn into self-fulfilling prophesies if we are not careful, and can also lead to a disastrous vengeful attitude. In its extreme, this can lead to pilfering and absenteeism and other misbehaviour based on a “why shouldn’t I?” mentality.
9) Poor luck. High-FFs are convinced they have poor luck. That they are always in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially at those crucial moments. Job interviews are blighted by late trains or random illnesses (food poisoning from a banana was one of mine). New jobs or promotions have unexpected crises or challenges visited upon them only after we arrive – all seemingly beyond our control. Of course, in reality we are searching the horizon for icebergs, and immediately manning the lifeboats, rather than giving them the wide berth the previous captain quietly managed.
10) Choking. This is perhaps an obvious one but one no less harmful for that. Job interviews, presentations, key meetings – those important moments that require a strong performance are the very moments we lose our self-confidence and “choke”. We may even develop physical traits such as the shakes, or sweats, or a wobbly voice. More usually we say stupid things, forget obvious answers and come across as a fool: the usual self-fulfilling results of High-FF behaviour, in other words.
My webpage.
So how come he could manage this rather modest achievement, while I couldn’t? Because I had fear of failure. My mother enrolled me on a judo class because she thought I needed toughening up. It always seemed a bit scary to me – a bit rough – but I played along hoping it may awaken a hitherto untapped talent for mindless violence. In fact I was hoping to develop the sort of attack mentality I was suffering from on the walk to school – though from much older boys – hence this rather 1970s response (I suspect dad had a hand in it somewhere).
Yet this felt like just another dose of the same – except in a sports hall (so officially sanctioned) and with people in white dressing gowns. And the teacher had bad breath and a dismissive “useless boy” way about him. Meanwhile, my son thinks fighting great fun and loves the idea of rolling around on mats and trying to wrestle each other to the ground. The whole thing suits his constant battle fantasies and gives his little brother some respite. And his teacher is a female national champion likely to be in the Great Britain Olympic team. She’s not to be messed with but still oozes warmth and love for her charges, unlike my episode which seemed to bear more of a resemblance to Lord of the Flies.
So there are key differences in teaching and atmosphere that led my six-year old the right way and me down another activity cul-de-sac (football and the Cubs were two others I joined and, immediately sought to avoid). But the key difference was that he approached judo assuming he’d be good at it and saw the setbacks as just temporary: a technique to be learnt (usually a violent one). While I approached judo fearfully – expecting to fail. Pretty soon I was complaining to my mother that I was too tired, or more interested in football, or that Blue Peter had an item our teacher wanted us to watch.
Looking back, my fear of failure was pretty evident. So what are the classic signs that we are High-FFs (as I call those with a high fear of failure in What’s Stopping You?) – both as a child and an adult? Here are a few – some from personal experience, some from the wide body of psychological research on the subject (and all with the caveat that any one of these traits is not evidence in itself of fear of failure – there could be other explanations).
1) Difficulty settling into mainstream activities. As above, this was certainly a major one for me. I just couldn’t settle in any club or formalised non-curricular activity. Partly this was due to an innate rebelliousness (see below) but a core problem was that I secretly feared failure and, therefore, sought to avoid the activity. Occasionally I’d be tempting in – seeing other boys enjoying football or church-hall dramatics or chess – but it would never last. Even as an adult, hobbies are fleeting and soon forgotten – usually after the first humiliation.
2) Rebelliousness. This can include music-based cultures – perhaps punks or (more recently) emos where the “shock” is mainly delivered through inappropriate dress. Yet it could develop into something more serious – perhaps indulging in misdemeanours relevant to the social backdrop of the sufferer. This includes becoming disruptive in class, being a petty vandal, a shop-lifter, car-jack, or even just a smoker. Bullying or, if less confident, becoming one of the bully’s lieutenants is – surprisingly – another trait of the classic High-FF (anything that rejects mainstream behaviour).
3) Exam stress. This is an obvious one but even mild fear of failure can cause extreme exam stress, with High-FFs potentially taking their avoidance tactics (conscious or otherwise) to extremes. Feigning illness (or even experiencing the illness), panic attacks and even deliberately sabotaging the exam are all avoidance tactics (perhaps feigning an “I don’t care” attitude).
4) “Dream fulfilment” careers. Some of the most outwardly-ambitious people may, in reality, be indulging in High-FF avoidance of sensible but challenging career choices. These can include those focused on “wildest dream” career choices such as pop stardom or TV fame. Crucially, the near-impossibility of achieving the dream means they will be kindly judged for being “a trier”, and it may mask their avoidance of realistic but challenging career choices (usually involving qualifications). Watch the early episodes of the X-Factor or any other reality TV show for examples.
5) Acting the clown. This one can follow us all the way through our lives. High-FFs are often the school, office or shopfloor clown – the joker that everyone likes, despite (and partly because of) their lowly status. On the surface at least, being the popular cheeky-chappie appears to be more important to the office clown that making progress. However, it's usually a mask hiding an inner sense of inadequacy.
6) Avoiding promotion. High-FFs can actively seek to avoid promotion, even when they are the obvious candidate. Excuses may vary (including claiming a “fear of success”) but it is usually based on an inner conviction that failure and – importantly – humiliation will result. Many declare themselves happier among the troops than the officers or show no desire to “fall out with Fred/John/Joan” who may be contesting the promotion.
7) Criticising and feuding. The High-FFs view of his or her workplace (or school, studio, college) is most likely to be a negative one. Indeed, High-FFs are usually highly critical of the way all external life is executed – sometimes publicly and vocally so. They can be part of the moaning canteen gang – perhaps its leader. And they can direct their criticisms at particular individuals – usually those they fear. Inevitably this leads to petty rivalries that can even develop into full-blown and disruptive feuds. Oddly, the other end of the scale – over-enthusiasm – can also be a mask to hide self-perceived inadequacies.
8) Injustice convictions. This was definitely one of my major giveaways – assuming slights or insults were meant and personal, looking (and usually finding) prejudice or favouritism to others (real or otherwise), developing acute paranoia about the intentions of colleagues and managers. Of course, these can turn into self-fulfilling prophesies if we are not careful, and can also lead to a disastrous vengeful attitude. In its extreme, this can lead to pilfering and absenteeism and other misbehaviour based on a “why shouldn’t I?” mentality.
9) Poor luck. High-FFs are convinced they have poor luck. That they are always in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially at those crucial moments. Job interviews are blighted by late trains or random illnesses (food poisoning from a banana was one of mine). New jobs or promotions have unexpected crises or challenges visited upon them only after we arrive – all seemingly beyond our control. Of course, in reality we are searching the horizon for icebergs, and immediately manning the lifeboats, rather than giving them the wide berth the previous captain quietly managed.
10) Choking. This is perhaps an obvious one but one no less harmful for that. Job interviews, presentations, key meetings – those important moments that require a strong performance are the very moments we lose our self-confidence and “choke”. We may even develop physical traits such as the shakes, or sweats, or a wobbly voice. More usually we say stupid things, forget obvious answers and come across as a fool: the usual self-fulfilling results of High-FF behaviour, in other words.
My webpage.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Even for Kings, the monkey comes too
Another long flight and another chance to catch up on the latest(ish) movies: this time The King’s Speech. I was amazed: the parallels between King George VI’s (Bertie’s) speech impediment and fear of failure – the psychological condition I write about in What’s Stopping You? (out this month, by the way) – are remarkable, as were some of the routes to recovery.
The film hinges on the king’s introduction to Lionel Logue, a maverick Australian speech therapist who flew in the face of conventional thinking when it came to the treatment of impediments. Prior to seeing him, the poor prince (then the Duke of York) had to endure a succession of physicists treating it as a purely physiological problem. They had him chewing marbles and even smoking. Yet it was only Logue who saw the condition as psychological and the actual impediment as its physical impact: a symptom of the underlying mental condition. This was evidenced by the fact the stammer was exacerbated by fear – for instance when talking to his father (George V) or when being confronted by his brother (Edward VIII).
And it’s here where the similarities with fear of failure become compelling.
So while the physiological exercises were ongoing, Logue probed the prince’s mental condition – breaking through after a few whiskies. Once Bertie was willing to divulge his childhood traumas – mainly his nanny’s rejection and humiliation of him – Logue was able to identify this trauma as the root of the future king’s stammer, when previously the assumption was that it was something “he had always had”.
Logue’s experience as a speech therapist was in treating returning Anzacs from the western front during the First World War. Many had such serious shell-shock their speech was majorly affected. These days, we call shell-shock Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and, as I write in What’s Stopping You? it is the key prerequisite for fear of failure – especially cases involving early episodes of public humiliation or rejection.
Of course, the fear of failure version is mild compared to shell-shocked soldiers but the responses are apparent nonetheless – and they include stammering as much as they include fear of failure. High-FFs (as I call those with a high fear of failure) fear rejection and the humiliation of failure, which leads them to pursue avoidance tactics with respect to tasks, careers and even personal life choices: anything that brings the potential for humiliation.
Yet I was further fascinated by Logue’s treatment of Bertie. As the abdication crisis gathered force it became apparent our stammerer was going to end up king and be forced to embrace his biggest fear: of public speaking, including via the new technology of live radio broadcasts. It was obvious to Logue, however, that fear triggered Bertie’s doubts about his abilities to speak fluently, which then became self-fulfilling.
This is identical to those with fear of failure. I call this the monkey on our shoulder, who whispers doubt into our ear at the very moments we need to be brave. Logue could rouse Bertie into angry – but perfectly fluent – outbursts. Swearing and singing were also not a problem. But it was those moments of tension – the very moments he needed fluent speech – that his fluency would elude him. And those moments in front of a live microphone were sheer terror.
This certainly struck a chord. I can remember the first time I was on national radio – on Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. As the presenter turned to me the monkey grabbed my ear and said: “this is it. This is IT. The whole country’s listening and you haven’t a clue what to say: have you? They should never have invited you on. You’re a fraud”.
Incapable of clear thinking, my voice cracked, which caused me to panic and retreat to hackneyed clichés. The presenter looked for a chance to escape my failing performance and rarely came back to me after that. Thanks to the monkey, I’d screwed my moment and was never invited back. My 15 minutes of fame lasted about a minute and a half.
Yet Bertie has to face the whole country – literally – at his coronation (the first to be broadcast live to the empire). So how does Logue keep the monkey quiet? By making light of the whole thing. As they rehearse he talks of the archbishop “poncing up the stairs”, of him talking “rubbish, rubbish, rubbish” – all to try and strip the archbishop of his authority (and Bertie his fear of it).
Another fear-reduction tactic used for direct broadcasts (rather than ceremonies) was for Logue to stand right in front of the king so that the broadcasts felt like no more than just another session with the therapist. Winston Churchill also offered his own wisdom – saying that he made a virtue of his own speech impediment, making his part of a distinct style (in what became probably the most famous speech-making style in history). This helped the king recover from the odd halt – stating that he had to “throw in a few so they knew it was me”. Thus the monkey’s power was neutered.
In What’s Stopping You? I discuss the potential for making a virtue of our fears and insecurities – for instance helping us realize that our sensitivities usually mean we are creative and strong lateral thinkers – traits we should harness as we seek to make progress. And that our sensitivity brings with it problems on our way up that can turn us into effective leaders once we become managers, because we understand the sensitivities of the people we lead. Certainly, I’m keen to ensure we realize that our fears are part of us. That the monkey comes too and that accepting him as a fellow passenger is an important part of our recovery.
Finally, in Logue I saw something of myself (if I’m permitted the vanity). He possessed no qualifications and was simply offering his experiences as he saw them, which allowed him to come at the issue from a different direction, and one that offended establishment figures. I too have no formal qualifications to discuss fear of failure. In fact my main qualification is as a sufferer, and as someone who’d read 100s of books on “failure”, “success”, “confidence” and “self-esteem” and found a major gap between what most psychologists stated was innate and the self-help gurus said was possible (if you follow their advice). I saw a role in researching both deeply and in trying, through writing, to both marry the two and convey this for any reader potentially stymied by their fear of failure, and other insecurities halting their progress.
I wasn’t expecting to like The King’ Speech. I expected a typical Merchant Ivory style offering of the romanticized English upper classes. But – thanks to my research into fear of failure and other fear-based insecurities – I loved it.
The film hinges on the king’s introduction to Lionel Logue, a maverick Australian speech therapist who flew in the face of conventional thinking when it came to the treatment of impediments. Prior to seeing him, the poor prince (then the Duke of York) had to endure a succession of physicists treating it as a purely physiological problem. They had him chewing marbles and even smoking. Yet it was only Logue who saw the condition as psychological and the actual impediment as its physical impact: a symptom of the underlying mental condition. This was evidenced by the fact the stammer was exacerbated by fear – for instance when talking to his father (George V) or when being confronted by his brother (Edward VIII).
And it’s here where the similarities with fear of failure become compelling.
So while the physiological exercises were ongoing, Logue probed the prince’s mental condition – breaking through after a few whiskies. Once Bertie was willing to divulge his childhood traumas – mainly his nanny’s rejection and humiliation of him – Logue was able to identify this trauma as the root of the future king’s stammer, when previously the assumption was that it was something “he had always had”.
Logue’s experience as a speech therapist was in treating returning Anzacs from the western front during the First World War. Many had such serious shell-shock their speech was majorly affected. These days, we call shell-shock Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and, as I write in What’s Stopping You? it is the key prerequisite for fear of failure – especially cases involving early episodes of public humiliation or rejection.
Of course, the fear of failure version is mild compared to shell-shocked soldiers but the responses are apparent nonetheless – and they include stammering as much as they include fear of failure. High-FFs (as I call those with a high fear of failure) fear rejection and the humiliation of failure, which leads them to pursue avoidance tactics with respect to tasks, careers and even personal life choices: anything that brings the potential for humiliation.
Yet I was further fascinated by Logue’s treatment of Bertie. As the abdication crisis gathered force it became apparent our stammerer was going to end up king and be forced to embrace his biggest fear: of public speaking, including via the new technology of live radio broadcasts. It was obvious to Logue, however, that fear triggered Bertie’s doubts about his abilities to speak fluently, which then became self-fulfilling.
This is identical to those with fear of failure. I call this the monkey on our shoulder, who whispers doubt into our ear at the very moments we need to be brave. Logue could rouse Bertie into angry – but perfectly fluent – outbursts. Swearing and singing were also not a problem. But it was those moments of tension – the very moments he needed fluent speech – that his fluency would elude him. And those moments in front of a live microphone were sheer terror.
This certainly struck a chord. I can remember the first time I was on national radio – on Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. As the presenter turned to me the monkey grabbed my ear and said: “this is it. This is IT. The whole country’s listening and you haven’t a clue what to say: have you? They should never have invited you on. You’re a fraud”.
Incapable of clear thinking, my voice cracked, which caused me to panic and retreat to hackneyed clichés. The presenter looked for a chance to escape my failing performance and rarely came back to me after that. Thanks to the monkey, I’d screwed my moment and was never invited back. My 15 minutes of fame lasted about a minute and a half.
Yet Bertie has to face the whole country – literally – at his coronation (the first to be broadcast live to the empire). So how does Logue keep the monkey quiet? By making light of the whole thing. As they rehearse he talks of the archbishop “poncing up the stairs”, of him talking “rubbish, rubbish, rubbish” – all to try and strip the archbishop of his authority (and Bertie his fear of it).
Another fear-reduction tactic used for direct broadcasts (rather than ceremonies) was for Logue to stand right in front of the king so that the broadcasts felt like no more than just another session with the therapist. Winston Churchill also offered his own wisdom – saying that he made a virtue of his own speech impediment, making his part of a distinct style (in what became probably the most famous speech-making style in history). This helped the king recover from the odd halt – stating that he had to “throw in a few so they knew it was me”. Thus the monkey’s power was neutered.
In What’s Stopping You? I discuss the potential for making a virtue of our fears and insecurities – for instance helping us realize that our sensitivities usually mean we are creative and strong lateral thinkers – traits we should harness as we seek to make progress. And that our sensitivity brings with it problems on our way up that can turn us into effective leaders once we become managers, because we understand the sensitivities of the people we lead. Certainly, I’m keen to ensure we realize that our fears are part of us. That the monkey comes too and that accepting him as a fellow passenger is an important part of our recovery.
Finally, in Logue I saw something of myself (if I’m permitted the vanity). He possessed no qualifications and was simply offering his experiences as he saw them, which allowed him to come at the issue from a different direction, and one that offended establishment figures. I too have no formal qualifications to discuss fear of failure. In fact my main qualification is as a sufferer, and as someone who’d read 100s of books on “failure”, “success”, “confidence” and “self-esteem” and found a major gap between what most psychologists stated was innate and the self-help gurus said was possible (if you follow their advice). I saw a role in researching both deeply and in trying, through writing, to both marry the two and convey this for any reader potentially stymied by their fear of failure, and other insecurities halting their progress.
I wasn’t expecting to like The King’ Speech. I expected a typical Merchant Ivory style offering of the romanticized English upper classes. But – thanks to my research into fear of failure and other fear-based insecurities – I loved it.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Feel the fear – and fully understand it before doing anything
“What’s that other book – err – oh yes, Feel the fear and do it anyway. That’s the one. Is your book the same as that one?”
I keep hearing it, so I’d better address it head on. What’s so different about What’s Stopping You? (due out next month, by the way) and Susan Jeffers’s well-known and best-selling book dealing with the fears that can prevent us from taking action?
On the surface, of course, they are similar. Both are focused on those that may have fear of failure, or other fear-based insecurities that are preventing them for achieving their potential. Both set out a course of action in order to help navigate those fears. Yet that’s where the similarity ends. In both style and content they are very different, as they are in both message and structure, and in the description of our condition and – perhaps most importantly – the journey required to prevent it disabling our progress.
A crucial aspect is the style. Jeffers invokes many case studies that feel fictional (although she states they are from her “fear classes”). They are of people such as Mary Alice, Patti, Teddy and Janet. Some want a better job. Some more respect from their partners. Others are keen to become artists or to overcome their fear of aging. These are feel-good tales of suburban redemption in which Janet goes back to college and Kevin summons up the courage to ask that girl for a date – all after a pep-talk from Susan.
Many people will be engaged by such a saccharin style, although it leaves me unmoved. I’m now in my 40s and have had plenty of encouraging chats from well-meaning people full of home-spun wisdom. Sure, the book gets more technical later (though not that much more technical), but another pep-talk from mum isn’t what’s needed in my opinion. I’d rather know why my brain reacts as it does when faced with major (and even minor) challenges. What process creates such reactions, and why are they so disabling? So I’m more of the persuasion that the sound reasoning of a psychologist (or even neurologist) is what’s required – telling me about post-traumatic stress disorder and its link, via traumatic childhood events and “fear conditioning”, to fear of failure.
I’d rather write about the permanent damage this can cause to the brain’s amygdale (a key cluster of components in the limbic system dealing with emotions such as anxiety, distress and fear). And the fact incidents of public humiliation as a young child can create an imprint generating a lifelong resetting of the brain’s default (i.e. instant) responses to potentially-humiliating situations. The fact it is this faulty wiring that leads sufferers to respond with fear is, in my view, crucial – especially as, in many cases, they don’t even realise why they are so fearful. Only from such awareness can sufferers, in my opinion, develop an appropriate strategy for progress. Yet none of this is explained in Susan Jeffers’s book.
I’m not saying there’s no room for the Jeffers approach. What I’m saying is that there’s also room for the more analytical approach. For instance, Feel the fear. . ..chapter one ends with giant and bold capitals shouting I’LL HANDLE IT! In fact, the entire chapter and much of the book is peppered with these capitalised “ra-ra” messages and this “go girl (or boy), you can do it” tone runs right through the book. This places Feel the fear…within the classic self-help genre that I’m somewhat critical of in What’s Stopping You? because, ultimately, they are asking you to become somebody you are not. In my opinion, such rousing prose soon fades. Without fully understanding our insecurities and fears they will soon resurface – usually at the first major setback.
This style of self-help book angers some psychologists because it deals with only the symptoms of the condition. They see it as an injection of foreign ideas and methodology into vulnerable people without offering any understanding of why their fears and insecurities have developed or retained such a grip on their behaviour. The assumption is that all fearful people can adopt somebody else’s personality traits. Traits that potentially go against the grain of their default and hardwired personalities. Yet “reframing” the brain of insecure people with helpful phrases that have to be repeated in front of the bathroom mirror (a Jeffers favourite) is a form of self-denial in my opinion (and the opinion of many psychologists). It is the adoption of a mask that, after the inevitable slip, can lead to a damaging reckoning.
I’ll give one (of many) examples:
“For the women reading this book,” says Jeffers, “a good antidote to any inner conflict between power and femininity is to repeat to yourself a least twenty-five times each morning, noon and night:
I AM POWERFUL AND I AM LOVED and I AM POWERFUL AND I AM LOVING.”
This has to be done aloud to allow the “pain-to-power concept” to really take hold. In fact, there is a helpful chart plotting this concept that has the word PAIN at one end, then an arrow pointing towards the word POWER. This is called the Pain-to-Power Chart and we are invited to draw it and place it on a convenient wall.
Ignoring the over-simplification of a complex mental condition for a moment, my own view of this chart if that, during my worst years with fear of failure, it would not have survived the first setback. In fact, as I was reading this I could visualise the moment it would have been ripped off the wall in anger as the pain of yet another rejection or dead-end or fear-induced self-fulfilling emotional reaction hit home. We are almost in the same territory as the hypnotisers and acupuncturists here – the world that promises “instance and transformative change” without any analysis or reflection or hard-fought re-evaluation.
Apologies. This is starting to sound like a trashing of Jeffers’s book. It isn’t meant to be. Any book that has sold so well will have helped many people take that all-important next step. And that’s a powerful thing that I’m in no position to criticise. I guess I’m simply stating that my target is the slightly more intelligent reader – someone looking deeply, as I did, at the root causes of their hardwired but disabling personality traits. Someone that wants to fully understand what is stopping them, before accepting it as part of them – a mental limb that is coming too, no matter what we say and do to remove it. But somebody determined to make progress despite the mental obstacles – through navigating the barriers thrown in our path (both externally and internally).
Which brings me to the title of Jeffers’s book – and my deepest criticism (sorry!). Having quoted over 100 books in What’s Stopping You? the only line I found worth quoting in Feel the fear and do it anyway was the title. And that was to refute its premise – at least the “do it anyway” proposition. Of course, we attack the same condition – fear of failure – but we differ fundamentally on the prescription because we have taken a different route from the diagnosis. Jeffers starts with the fear and works her way forwards, injecting helpful thoughts and tips as we pursue the goals that are triggering those fearful moments. What’s Stopping You? also starts with the fear. But it then works its way backwards, to how we got ourselves in this position. And this has a profound impact on how we should move forward from our current, stuck, status – re-evaluating our goals and seriously questioning the “do it anyway” element of Jeffers’s premise.
To explain, many fear of failure sufferers harbour inner dreams that occupy the highest-shelves of achievement. Many want to become famous via music, sport or broadcasting. Few will, because the dream is a nonsense conjured from our fear-based avoidance of challenging but realistic career choices that may involve exams and qualifications or other dreaded evaluations. In reality most fear of failure sufferers have yet to explore their real goals because their goals have all been motivated by the fear of public humiliation which, extraordinarily, can manifest itself in a willingness to pursue impossible dreams while eschewing challenging but obtainable career paths. And many sufferers may not even realise that this is where they stand – nurturing avoidance-based but inappropriate “wildest dreams” that are not goals at all. They are fantasies.
Yet Jeffers – and many other self-help writers – are focused on offering those with fear of failure the chance to, indeed, be a popstar. They are not decrying the dream as inappropriate or driven by avoidance of realistic but difficult challenges, as I am. Instead, they are saying: “go on – you can be a popstar” – despite the fact the desire to be a popstar may be yet another symptom or their fear of failure. Given this, my book is a million miles from “that other book” on the same subject.
That said, I want to end on a positive note. One thing Jeffers emphasises throughout is the need to take responsibility. And this means never “blaming anyone else for anything you are being, doing, having or feeling”. Yet it is also not blaming yourself – because that too is avoiding responsibility. “There I am messing up my life again. I’m hopeless,” is – again – not taking responsibility (other writers such as Stephen Covey support this). In fact, Jeffers is so strong on this vital requirement for recovery that she dedicates a whole chapter on it. It’s called “Whether You Want It or Not…It’s Yours” and it’s her best – even with the cuddly tales of Jean, Kevin and Tanya.
I keep hearing it, so I’d better address it head on. What’s so different about What’s Stopping You? (due out next month, by the way) and Susan Jeffers’s well-known and best-selling book dealing with the fears that can prevent us from taking action?
On the surface, of course, they are similar. Both are focused on those that may have fear of failure, or other fear-based insecurities that are preventing them for achieving their potential. Both set out a course of action in order to help navigate those fears. Yet that’s where the similarity ends. In both style and content they are very different, as they are in both message and structure, and in the description of our condition and – perhaps most importantly – the journey required to prevent it disabling our progress.
A crucial aspect is the style. Jeffers invokes many case studies that feel fictional (although she states they are from her “fear classes”). They are of people such as Mary Alice, Patti, Teddy and Janet. Some want a better job. Some more respect from their partners. Others are keen to become artists or to overcome their fear of aging. These are feel-good tales of suburban redemption in which Janet goes back to college and Kevin summons up the courage to ask that girl for a date – all after a pep-talk from Susan.
Many people will be engaged by such a saccharin style, although it leaves me unmoved. I’m now in my 40s and have had plenty of encouraging chats from well-meaning people full of home-spun wisdom. Sure, the book gets more technical later (though not that much more technical), but another pep-talk from mum isn’t what’s needed in my opinion. I’d rather know why my brain reacts as it does when faced with major (and even minor) challenges. What process creates such reactions, and why are they so disabling? So I’m more of the persuasion that the sound reasoning of a psychologist (or even neurologist) is what’s required – telling me about post-traumatic stress disorder and its link, via traumatic childhood events and “fear conditioning”, to fear of failure.
I’d rather write about the permanent damage this can cause to the brain’s amygdale (a key cluster of components in the limbic system dealing with emotions such as anxiety, distress and fear). And the fact incidents of public humiliation as a young child can create an imprint generating a lifelong resetting of the brain’s default (i.e. instant) responses to potentially-humiliating situations. The fact it is this faulty wiring that leads sufferers to respond with fear is, in my view, crucial – especially as, in many cases, they don’t even realise why they are so fearful. Only from such awareness can sufferers, in my opinion, develop an appropriate strategy for progress. Yet none of this is explained in Susan Jeffers’s book.
I’m not saying there’s no room for the Jeffers approach. What I’m saying is that there’s also room for the more analytical approach. For instance, Feel the fear. . ..chapter one ends with giant and bold capitals shouting I’LL HANDLE IT! In fact, the entire chapter and much of the book is peppered with these capitalised “ra-ra” messages and this “go girl (or boy), you can do it” tone runs right through the book. This places Feel the fear…within the classic self-help genre that I’m somewhat critical of in What’s Stopping You? because, ultimately, they are asking you to become somebody you are not. In my opinion, such rousing prose soon fades. Without fully understanding our insecurities and fears they will soon resurface – usually at the first major setback.
This style of self-help book angers some psychologists because it deals with only the symptoms of the condition. They see it as an injection of foreign ideas and methodology into vulnerable people without offering any understanding of why their fears and insecurities have developed or retained such a grip on their behaviour. The assumption is that all fearful people can adopt somebody else’s personality traits. Traits that potentially go against the grain of their default and hardwired personalities. Yet “reframing” the brain of insecure people with helpful phrases that have to be repeated in front of the bathroom mirror (a Jeffers favourite) is a form of self-denial in my opinion (and the opinion of many psychologists). It is the adoption of a mask that, after the inevitable slip, can lead to a damaging reckoning.
I’ll give one (of many) examples:
“For the women reading this book,” says Jeffers, “a good antidote to any inner conflict between power and femininity is to repeat to yourself a least twenty-five times each morning, noon and night:
I AM POWERFUL AND I AM LOVED and I AM POWERFUL AND I AM LOVING.”
This has to be done aloud to allow the “pain-to-power concept” to really take hold. In fact, there is a helpful chart plotting this concept that has the word PAIN at one end, then an arrow pointing towards the word POWER. This is called the Pain-to-Power Chart and we are invited to draw it and place it on a convenient wall.
Ignoring the over-simplification of a complex mental condition for a moment, my own view of this chart if that, during my worst years with fear of failure, it would not have survived the first setback. In fact, as I was reading this I could visualise the moment it would have been ripped off the wall in anger as the pain of yet another rejection or dead-end or fear-induced self-fulfilling emotional reaction hit home. We are almost in the same territory as the hypnotisers and acupuncturists here – the world that promises “instance and transformative change” without any analysis or reflection or hard-fought re-evaluation.
Apologies. This is starting to sound like a trashing of Jeffers’s book. It isn’t meant to be. Any book that has sold so well will have helped many people take that all-important next step. And that’s a powerful thing that I’m in no position to criticise. I guess I’m simply stating that my target is the slightly more intelligent reader – someone looking deeply, as I did, at the root causes of their hardwired but disabling personality traits. Someone that wants to fully understand what is stopping them, before accepting it as part of them – a mental limb that is coming too, no matter what we say and do to remove it. But somebody determined to make progress despite the mental obstacles – through navigating the barriers thrown in our path (both externally and internally).
Which brings me to the title of Jeffers’s book – and my deepest criticism (sorry!). Having quoted over 100 books in What’s Stopping You? the only line I found worth quoting in Feel the fear and do it anyway was the title. And that was to refute its premise – at least the “do it anyway” proposition. Of course, we attack the same condition – fear of failure – but we differ fundamentally on the prescription because we have taken a different route from the diagnosis. Jeffers starts with the fear and works her way forwards, injecting helpful thoughts and tips as we pursue the goals that are triggering those fearful moments. What’s Stopping You? also starts with the fear. But it then works its way backwards, to how we got ourselves in this position. And this has a profound impact on how we should move forward from our current, stuck, status – re-evaluating our goals and seriously questioning the “do it anyway” element of Jeffers’s premise.
To explain, many fear of failure sufferers harbour inner dreams that occupy the highest-shelves of achievement. Many want to become famous via music, sport or broadcasting. Few will, because the dream is a nonsense conjured from our fear-based avoidance of challenging but realistic career choices that may involve exams and qualifications or other dreaded evaluations. In reality most fear of failure sufferers have yet to explore their real goals because their goals have all been motivated by the fear of public humiliation which, extraordinarily, can manifest itself in a willingness to pursue impossible dreams while eschewing challenging but obtainable career paths. And many sufferers may not even realise that this is where they stand – nurturing avoidance-based but inappropriate “wildest dreams” that are not goals at all. They are fantasies.
Yet Jeffers – and many other self-help writers – are focused on offering those with fear of failure the chance to, indeed, be a popstar. They are not decrying the dream as inappropriate or driven by avoidance of realistic but difficult challenges, as I am. Instead, they are saying: “go on – you can be a popstar” – despite the fact the desire to be a popstar may be yet another symptom or their fear of failure. Given this, my book is a million miles from “that other book” on the same subject.
That said, I want to end on a positive note. One thing Jeffers emphasises throughout is the need to take responsibility. And this means never “blaming anyone else for anything you are being, doing, having or feeling”. Yet it is also not blaming yourself – because that too is avoiding responsibility. “There I am messing up my life again. I’m hopeless,” is – again – not taking responsibility (other writers such as Stephen Covey support this). In fact, Jeffers is so strong on this vital requirement for recovery that she dedicates a whole chapter on it. It’s called “Whether You Want It or Not…It’s Yours” and it’s her best – even with the cuddly tales of Jean, Kevin and Tanya.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Entrepreneurial myths - busted
I rarely pass on other people’s blog posts but thought I would in this case – from Chicago entrepreneur Jay Goltz. His New York Times blog on the eight fallacies of entrepreneurship struck a chord with me – not least because I’m currently writing and researching a follow-up to What’s Stopping You? called What’s Stopping You – Starting a Business?
One of the conclusions I come to in What’s Stopping You? is that entrepreneurship could be a strong route for a recovering High-FF (someone with high fear of failure) because it removes many of the barriers (real and perceived) to making progress in our lives: other people. While we will have to persuade our customers to buy our goods or services, we will no longer have to navigate a boss that may be blocking our path for all manner of reasons, or colleagues (otherwise known as rivals).
I also suggest that a crucial need for High-FFs is to depersonalise their progress, perhaps making them view themselves as a company – Me Inc or Me Ltd – rather than an emotional being with confidence and self-esteem issues. Crucially, this allows people to view setbacks as just that: setbacks. They are not final and irreversible confirmations of our innate inabilities but wrinkles in a continuing project. They can be navigated (though not if we are convinced they are part of an inevitable journey towards ultimate failure). And starting a company is no more than taking depersonalisation to its rational conclusion – making our progress and the progress of our company one and the same pursuit.
Yet entrepreneurship brings its own myths, and Goltz does a fine job in busting a few. For me, his best-targeted thoughts are regarding control and freedom – two oft-cited objectives for starting a business. Indeed, starting a company is probably the least controlled project you will ever undertake (with the possible exception of parenting). A spark of an idea and bags of enthusiasm may help you make the leap – but it is a leap into the unknown, no matter how long and detailed your business plan. It is impossible to second-guess what is going to happen the moment you let go of the handrail of employment: sales certainties dry up, promised partners disappear, warm leads turn icy cold in just a phone call, costs escalate, projected income melts away.
If people want control they should stay working for a large corporation or public-sector body where yearly targets are made with some degree of knowledge and optimism, and our dealings with others are regulated by the fact it is a recognised name on the door.
As for freedom – forget it! I have often mused that, in reality, I have simply built my own prison. Who’s got the key? The clients, the team, the landlord, the creditors (and the debtors come to that). No matter where I am or what I’m doing my business has me trapped. I’ve spent days on the beach with the phone clutched to my ear, negotiated contracts while on a ski-lift and dealt with staff-disputes while trying to persuade my three-year old to eat his breakfast. No matter how well you delegate, the minute the pottery’s broken, you’re the owner.
This brings me to the third Goltz fallacy I want to emphasise – “do what you do well and delegate the rest”. In fact he was a bit gentle here, saying it was “nice in theory”. In my view its suicide, even in theory. In fact, this isn’t just my view – it comes from Michael Gerber – writer of The E-Myth Revisited, which is an important book for any would-be entrepreneur. The “e-myth” he talks of is the entrepreneurial legend of swashbuckling heroism and daring-do that leads the entrepreneur towards inevitable glory, fame and riches.
And one of the crucial elements of this myth, according to Gerber, is the notion that we go into business as a “technician” – keen to exploit our technical talents for our own account (rather than the big corporation we used to work for). Yet Gerber states there are two other equally-crucial roles that we cannot ignore if our business is to be sustainable: that of the “entrepreneur” with the vision and power to drive the business forward, and that of the “manager”, making the business actually meet its obligations (to all its obligees).
Business start-ups need to be able to cope with all three roles – or find someone (quickly) who can fulfil the needs of the roles the founder dislikes. Yet, while we can delegate the role of the manager – we may find that this leads to crucial balls being dropped in execution that eventually erode our reputation. And while we can delegate the role of the entrepreneur, we may find that person soon wondering why their vision and drive is for your benefit and not theirs.
So the only role we can successfully delegate and remain a viable and growing business is that of the technician – the executioner of the product or service we are employed to do. This is the very role that we love and probably our impetus for starting the business in the first place. Yet it’s the very role we have to give up to make our company succeed.
Welcome to the world of the entrepreneur!
One of the conclusions I come to in What’s Stopping You? is that entrepreneurship could be a strong route for a recovering High-FF (someone with high fear of failure) because it removes many of the barriers (real and perceived) to making progress in our lives: other people. While we will have to persuade our customers to buy our goods or services, we will no longer have to navigate a boss that may be blocking our path for all manner of reasons, or colleagues (otherwise known as rivals).
I also suggest that a crucial need for High-FFs is to depersonalise their progress, perhaps making them view themselves as a company – Me Inc or Me Ltd – rather than an emotional being with confidence and self-esteem issues. Crucially, this allows people to view setbacks as just that: setbacks. They are not final and irreversible confirmations of our innate inabilities but wrinkles in a continuing project. They can be navigated (though not if we are convinced they are part of an inevitable journey towards ultimate failure). And starting a company is no more than taking depersonalisation to its rational conclusion – making our progress and the progress of our company one and the same pursuit.
Yet entrepreneurship brings its own myths, and Goltz does a fine job in busting a few. For me, his best-targeted thoughts are regarding control and freedom – two oft-cited objectives for starting a business. Indeed, starting a company is probably the least controlled project you will ever undertake (with the possible exception of parenting). A spark of an idea and bags of enthusiasm may help you make the leap – but it is a leap into the unknown, no matter how long and detailed your business plan. It is impossible to second-guess what is going to happen the moment you let go of the handrail of employment: sales certainties dry up, promised partners disappear, warm leads turn icy cold in just a phone call, costs escalate, projected income melts away.
If people want control they should stay working for a large corporation or public-sector body where yearly targets are made with some degree of knowledge and optimism, and our dealings with others are regulated by the fact it is a recognised name on the door.
As for freedom – forget it! I have often mused that, in reality, I have simply built my own prison. Who’s got the key? The clients, the team, the landlord, the creditors (and the debtors come to that). No matter where I am or what I’m doing my business has me trapped. I’ve spent days on the beach with the phone clutched to my ear, negotiated contracts while on a ski-lift and dealt with staff-disputes while trying to persuade my three-year old to eat his breakfast. No matter how well you delegate, the minute the pottery’s broken, you’re the owner.
This brings me to the third Goltz fallacy I want to emphasise – “do what you do well and delegate the rest”. In fact he was a bit gentle here, saying it was “nice in theory”. In my view its suicide, even in theory. In fact, this isn’t just my view – it comes from Michael Gerber – writer of The E-Myth Revisited, which is an important book for any would-be entrepreneur. The “e-myth” he talks of is the entrepreneurial legend of swashbuckling heroism and daring-do that leads the entrepreneur towards inevitable glory, fame and riches.
And one of the crucial elements of this myth, according to Gerber, is the notion that we go into business as a “technician” – keen to exploit our technical talents for our own account (rather than the big corporation we used to work for). Yet Gerber states there are two other equally-crucial roles that we cannot ignore if our business is to be sustainable: that of the “entrepreneur” with the vision and power to drive the business forward, and that of the “manager”, making the business actually meet its obligations (to all its obligees).
Business start-ups need to be able to cope with all three roles – or find someone (quickly) who can fulfil the needs of the roles the founder dislikes. Yet, while we can delegate the role of the manager – we may find that this leads to crucial balls being dropped in execution that eventually erode our reputation. And while we can delegate the role of the entrepreneur, we may find that person soon wondering why their vision and drive is for your benefit and not theirs.
So the only role we can successfully delegate and remain a viable and growing business is that of the technician – the executioner of the product or service we are employed to do. This is the very role that we love and probably our impetus for starting the business in the first place. Yet it’s the very role we have to give up to make our company succeed.
Welcome to the world of the entrepreneur!
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