Mark Cuban on Success and Motivation

After reading this post by Mark Cuban at blog maverick, I've been thinking about success and failure. And in particular, about how fear can be such a big barrier to success. A lot of people don't like to talk about, or acknowledge fear, but for many of us, fear is a big part of our lives.

Fear of failure. Fear of ridicule. Fear of confrontation. Fear of risk. Fear of self-disclosure. Fear of success. These are all fears that can immobilize us, stop us from trying -- even when the negative results of failure are minimal.

As Cuban says, if you get it right once and achieve success, the failures won't matter much. Babe Ruth, Reggie Jackson, and Sammy Sosa all held the record for most strike-outs in a season more than once in their career. But they're much better remembered for being being home run hitters -- they're all in the All-Time Top 10.

Successes tend to be proportionately related to attempts. The more often you try -- including the times you try and fail -- the more successes you'll end up achieving. In most cases, failure isn't a total disaster. Success should be your goal, but fearing failure to the point where you don't even try achieves nothing.

One way to deal with a fear of failure is to look at it for what it is. What specifically are you afraid of? What will happen if you fail? Once you've figured that out, it's often possible to get rid of the fear, or at least go on in spite of it. It's not always easy to do that, but just because it's not easy doesn't mean it isn't worth trying.