Lessons From The Dragon’s Den’s Robert Herjavec Part 21

December 24, 2010

“Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt” – William Shakespeare

I have a friend who I occasionally attend music concerts with.  We’re both die-hard fans of a particular band.  We used to see their live shows any chance we had.  This band broke up about 8 years ago and so it seemed we might never get a chance to see them again.

The band recently announced two re-union shows.  The first show is to be on a weeknight in St. Catharines, Ontario (about a 45 minute drive from where I live) and the other show is to be a few days after that on a Saturday in Toronto.

I asked my friend if she wanted to see the Wednesday concert in St. Catharines in addition to the Toronto show I knew she’d attend.  She declined, citing she had to work the next morning.  It’s not the first time she’s made this excuse.  She will not even risk losing perhaps a few hours sleep for one night to have an experience we both truly enjoy and which we may never happen again.  Why?  She’s the type of person who is so focused on only thinking in terms of drawbacks and what could go wrong about this situation that she blinds herself from the much greater positives that will result from such a small sacrifice.

In fact, it’s probably true that my friend has NEVER once stayed out late on a weeknight in the 15 years she’s been a school teacher.  So she doesn’t even realize that people like her who almost always get enough sleep suffer little the next day and bounce back very quickly when deprived of sleep for only a single night.  But her unwillingness to even try it once prevents her from realizing this.

I find this situation similar to fear.  When we overcome our fear about something and give our all to trying to overcome whatever we fear we realize afterward that our fear of negative consequences was far more than what actually did happen.  Fear is the mind killer!

Filed under: Inspiration

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