Fear Factor

When you see or read interviews with people who've achieved at least a small degree of success in any area of life, routinely there's a question about failure. We all know that old expression about how it's not considered failure if you learn from it and so forth.

But it's interesting that the opinions about failure seem to vary among these successful people. Many say they're not afraid to fail, which explains their ability to block things out and focus only on the current task. In athletics, coaches will tell their players, "If at the end of the game we come up short on the scoreboard, but we all know we gave it our best, then we'll still walk out of here a winner." That might sound so very Disney, but there's a significant amount of truth to it.

On the other hand, I just watched a short interview with UCLA freshman phenom Kevin Love, who in a few weeks will lead the Bruins to their first national championship since 1995 (as long as another starter's ankle injury heals soon). But Love said he's actually afraid to fail. And that surprises me because the majority of the time you hear folks say they're not afraid, yet Love has been a success story his entire young life.

He suggested that comes from his perfectionism; he's always trying to do everything the right way. Perhaps when you set the bar so high for yourself and you're still achieving your goals, than maybe there's no such thing as failure, so he has no idea what he could possibly be fearful of.