Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

Fear

Do You Feel Like a Failure?

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Do you feel like a failure? How are you choosing to frame “failure”?

Unemployment, slow business, foreclosures, and underemployment are just some of the struggles pressing into the hearts and minds of many today. As debt stares you in the face and the opportunities apparently diminish, the personal repercussions can cause us to lose hope and begin to see our lives as failing.

This situational depression can weigh on one’s spirit to the point of discouragement and negativity if we paint ourselves as failures.

What if your perspective, not your current circumstance, is the problem?

Today’s On-Purpose Minute invites us to stop looking outward and begin looking inward and upward for a fresh approach that holds the key to grasping the present situation and life beyond.

Thomas Alva Edison, the great inventor, saw “failure” as information. (See the video clip “I Haven’t Failed” by my actor friend, Frank Attwood, who portrays Edison.) How many times have you tried and “failed” only to discover you were one step closer to success?

Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, in the movie Apollo 13 is attributed with saying “Failure is not an option,” in the face of saving the crew in space. When failure isn’t an option, then what are the options?

  • Learning
  • Growth
  • Preparation
  • Creativity
  • Exploration
  • Work-arounds

Fresh and exciting options must open up!

When we play scared, we play not to win.

The best we can do is hold steady or lose ground. A shaky self-defeating cycle is set up that once it is in motion can gain momentum and overwhelm us.

Learning to play with reasoned abandon may sound like an oxymoron, but it isn’t. It means that we’re disconnected specifically to the end result, but we’re highly focused on the matters at hand. This frees us to play for the sheer joy and moment, yet aware that what we’re doing in the moment matters. Athletes call it being in “the zone.” It is preparation and hard work intersecting with opportunity.

Truthfully, you’re apt “to choke” the first few encounters, but in time you’ll grow through the experience and be on the way to success. That’s how failures become successes.

Is Fear Avoidable?

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My research with over 850 small business owners reveals that 32% of the respondents say fear is their greatest obstacle to success.

So what is it with fear?

Can we avoid fear? How do we overcome fear? Is fear really, as the old acronym goes, False Evidence Appearing Real?

In this On-Purpose Business Minute, let’s address the question Is Fear Avoidable? After watching the video, read The 7 Most Common Fears Business Owners Face and what to do to conquer them.

The 7 Most Common Fears Business Owners Face

  1. Fear of rejection
  2. Fear of success
  3. Fear of failure
  4. Fear of exposure for who I really am
  5. Fear of looking stupid or incompetent
  6. Fear of what they will think of me
  7. Fear of making money and exploitation

Overcome your fears using the “For PETE’s Sake” Approach described in The On-Purpose Business Minute:

  • Perception
  • Emotion
  • TrainingFIT 4 LEADING
  • Experience

Many fears are unnatural but very real to us.

Generally, for every fear you have, someone probably makes a living from it. So what is it they have that you don’t? Oh, For PETE’s Sake, they don’t have a thing on you. They simply have an abundance of improved Perception, Emotion, Training, and Experience. Your fear is their joy! How remarkable is that?

Dig into this topic more by reading FIT 4 Leading. This is the least known of my books and part of the On-Purpose Leadership Series. At only $10 plus shipping this small but powerful book provides you with strategies to be a better leader of your life for the rest of your life. Use the link to the book to find a free, introductory webcast at our shopping cart or visit the website.

 

Have You Bought A Lie?

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Have You Bought a Lie? If so, it’s time to put it in the trash.

In the video portion of this On-Purpose Minute, I describe the “IABC” four types of lies we hold on to for all the wrong reasons.

  • Image
  • Attitude
  • Belief
  • Concept

Words are creative. Words come to life.

Many of us have had lying or hurtful words spoken into our lives in our innocence and/or in our adulthood. What we do next is up to us. Here are some tips to being whole.

Welcome truth, thirst for it, accept its pain, and embrace its liberation. In helping people to be on-purpose, I frequently come against seemingly irrational and obtuse behaviors from otherwise very accomplished and respected persons even in the face of contrary evidence. It’s their “old stuff” and patterns haunting their present and diminishing their future.

Why?

Words, more precisely lying or hurtful words, spoken into ourtruth lives by those closest to us or in whose care we depend strike hard on the soul. Lies falsely tarnish our self-image, attitude, behavior, or concept.

We pay dearly … for life unless we intervene. Holding on to the wounding is like tearing off a scab day after day and wondering why it doesn’t heal. The first offense is not of our making. The second offense, however, is all on us.

Forgiveness is the key.

Judith and I have an expression about forgiveness. “Forgive now and pray for sincerity to come later.” Forgiving someone who has hurt or offended you can be extraordinarily difficult, even painful, but it is the ONLY pathway I’ve found to MY recovery. It may or may not lead to reconciliation and recovery, but at least the injury stops hurting so much and with time, 99% recovery is possible.

Weighty Matters

Perhaps you think these self-deceptions or denial of damage are harmless? Hardly! They can literally have life and death consequences.

For example, within the health coaching team of On-Purpose Partners, we find the following kinds of Images, Attitudes, Beliefs, and Concepts can prevent clients from being qualified candidates for success in our program.

  • Image: I can’t imagine myself at a healthy weight anymore.
  • Attitude: I know what to do; I just don’t do it.
  • Beliefs: My family has always been big.
  • Concepts: I just don’t get enough exercise.

These mythologies of weight loss are factually inaccurate and crippling to us being in a healthier place. Even clients with the deepest desire to get healthy will scuttle their success unless and until they are aware of their personal mythology and clinging to old wounds that affect their well-being today. Coaching clients to health is more about their life experiences and views than it is our program. The program works, but will the client work the program?

You’ve seen the price of pain! Most of us are emotional abusers of some “drug of choice,” such as food, alcohol, smoking, drugs, shopping, or a host of other addictions. Think there isn’t pain? Ashley Madison had 36 million paid members who knowingly were seeking discreet affairs outside of marriage. Consider the trauma of a divorce, pain to the children, and the lawyers’ bills.

Lies are the words that keep on taking.

Lies we buy make it that much harder to sell our ideas, opportunities, and opinions. Lies steal from our livelihood and sap our worth. Lies corrode our productivity and undermine our careers.

Are you ready to uproot lies with greater truths? It begins by being open to living in truth. With truth comes greater freedom and abundance.

Do you have a coach or a health coach? Then share this On-Purpose Minute with them. Consider giving them permission to help you identify any lies or festering wounds. Ask them to help you work through forgiveness of the offending party, even if it is you.

Counselors and clergy are great sources of recovery. Clergy are especially versed in the area of forgiveness.

Do you need a coach? Certainly we offer life coaching to unburden your image001spirit and health coaching to relieve your joints and back from the physical burdens weighing on you. Contact Judith McCarthy for a free health coaching consultation so you, too, can get to your healthier place.

Are You Owning Your Mistakes?

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Mistakes are inevitable, yet the fixation on perfection in our society is debilitating.

Whether it be lawmakers, bakers, payroll makers, or homemakers, the fear of making a mistake can flatten one’s life into a “safe zone” of mediocrity. Risks and loss are inevitable when one ventures into life or work with a sense of wonder and discovery. You are better off to have a mistake than to miss-a-take at what could be.

It is a mistake to view mistakes as merely mistakes.

Instead, mistakes can lead to retakes and become invaluable guideposts to life and growth of one’s personal growth and leadership. Mistakes open doors to learning or blaze new pathways that might otherwise go undiscovered.

  • “Mistakes” enabled Thomas Edison to discover 9,999 ways a light bulb couldn’t work. And in the process, he developed a reliable means of tracking research and increasing his knowledge of elements.
  • “Mistakes” created the Post-It® Note. “Mistakes” often open doors to new frontiers of thought, use, and development.

Just Say It!

“Yes, that’s my mistake.” These are the four magic words that when said sincerely are your path to a healthier and happier life without the stress and strain imposed by the pride of perfection and the need to be right. It will take practice and some hard swallowing, but you’ll be amazed at how much simpler life becomes.

Problem ownership is your best chance to open the door to mercy, grace, and forgiveness. The risk of owning up has a downside of consequences, but it also has the upside of building trust and rapport. In practical terms, when the mistake is out in the open versus covered-up, a solution or fix will happen sooner and with less cost.

Take Your Mistakes Like A Leader

When we make a mistake, our natural reaction is to be defensive. We retreat and distance ourselves from the mistake and then look to whom we can pass off the blame. Shedding responsibility for a mistake may momentarily soothe the psyche, but each pass of the buck creates a self-inflicted bite upon one’s soul.

Admittedly, most of us prefer to cover our mistakes under a blanket of embarrassment, shame, or self-pity. Stopping dead in our tracks at our mistakes to point fingers at people, circumstances, and systems invites a bitter and negative stronghold to enter our emotional and spiritual system. We’re stuck in a self-imposed unhealthy manner of living that taints every aspect of our lives. Now that’s a tragic and true mistake!

Compounding our initial mistake with another more sinister mistake knits a habit of ill-fitted denial into the fabric of our lives.

Do this too often and we live in a straitjacket of fear of failure and bitter close-minded defensiveness. In time, the fear of exposure arrests our maturity and so we become the very thing we fear most—a dull and ordinary blank slate of a person with no distinguishing quality. We live small (which is different from living humbly). Repeating these actions and circumstances reinforces a debilitating pattern and fuels a vicious cycle of defeat.

Lincoln memorial cent, with the S mintmark of ...Image via Wikipedia

A Penny For Your Thoughts

Life need not be this way. Instead, what if mistakes are friends in the form of hard lessons? They’re not roadblocks, per se, but guideposts revealing a better way to navigate life. Mistakes can help us know who we are and what we’re called to be about with our special gift of time on the planet.

Mistakes are an odd currency of redemption. Their true value comes with a cost in the form of a workout where we have to face ourselves. Throwing “good money after bad” is viscerally upsetting. We’ve been given an intellectual and spiritual capacity to rise higher and dig even deeper to strengthen our condition regardless of the proposed outcome. It only requires us to admit our mistake and gain the clarity and opportunity to set things right—stronger and better than before in some cases.

Wisdom is often the byproduct of mistakes, provided we invest in processing the lessons to be learned. Here’s where a mentor or coach can help us reflect and grow. If you’re seeking that mentor or coach, perhaps we can help you?

Are You Like A Fly On A Window?

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We construct our lives as best we can, yet it is hard to see the boundaries and borders we’ve created around us. Certainly, some enclosures provide protection and support. Yet, some barriers are self-inflicting and limit our life with an unhealthy—even an unnatural—manner and lessening result that leaves us being off-purpose.

It sucks to be stuck in life.

Heart WorkOn July 12, 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev with the words, “Tear down this wall,” and the world soon changed. Look at your own life and ask, If President Reagan were to speak to me, what walls would he challenge me to tear down in my life?

Are you ready to stop banging your head against the window pane of life? Do you see the life you imagine, but an invisible barrier prevents you from getting to the other side? Now is the time to do the hard work of your heart work.

Are you ready to do your heart work but you don’t know how?

Here are some ideas:

Visit our online bookstore for more ideas.

Why Am I Fearful?

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Does fear interfere with your life, business, or career?

What’s your fear? What are you fearful of? Where in your life do you say, “I am afraid of … ,” yet you know it is a hang-up—not a danger to your life or limb?

Would you like to be at a place where you can say, “I am not afraid” … and mean it? Read on!

Fear, like pain, is partially designed to be our friend, not our foe.

  • Fear keeps us from being in harm’s way.
  • Fear protects us from injury, peril, and even death.
  • Fear provides for self-preservation.

This is our good or helpful fear.

Bad or harmful fear debilitates our inherent motivation and destroys our confidence. The ripple effects beyond oneself can damage relationships, opportunities, jobs, finances, and more.

  • Fear can be an occupying foe taking up unjust strongholds in our spirit, mind, and body.
  • Fear can lead to anxiety that spawns a panic attack that triggers the fight or flight reaction.

This fear is unhealthy in every aspect.

Fear is not to be necessarily avoided; it is, however, to be understood.

Fear is a God-given guidepost to growth and healing. Facing fear, however, is not a solitary endeavor. Be wise and seek the help of a professional counselor or therapist skilled in working you through your fear in a progressive manner.

Why bother?

If you’re locked in unhealthy fears, your aspirations and dreams are muted.

When fear prevails it is hard to be on-purpose.