A speaker traces how childhood praise for being smart created a fear of failure that made him avoid real risks, even while appearing successful through sports, Ironmans, and selling a company. He started Unbreakable Wealth to finally push past that fear and play without holding back.
When you are a kid, if you get a lot of praise for being smart, the consequences for failure start to stack up because it becomes ingrained as part of who you are. I am smart, so if I fail this math test, that must mean that I'm not smart anymore. So every time you do something and achieve it and you get a bunch of praise for being smart, you kind of ingrain this fear of failure of like, uh-oh, well then I better not do anything that could jeopardize this place where I'm getting a source of praise and adoration. Throughout my whole life, whether it was from sports, you know, doing Ironmans, flying jets, starting and selling my company, I've always held a little bit in reserve. I've always set goals. Like I said, before I even started, I knew that I could do it. And it's resulted in some great wins and some great successes. And I'm very proud. But there's always been a part of me in reserve. And when I started Unbreakable Wealth, I committed to saying, I want to feel what it feels like, truly play full out and push myself beyond any limitations and see what I can create.
