Fear is Self Limiting or Self Defeating

Whether it is marriage, a career, a business or school; the fear of failure often leads to behavior which short cuts real success and ultimately leads to either to a stagnant mediocrity or a complete disaster.

Between my first post-college job at International Paper Company and attending graduate school at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), I went to Europe for a five week journey. In the second week of the trip, while riding the bullet train from Venice to Florence, I noticed the headlines of the newspaper of a fellow passenger. The headline declared; "Il Tragedio Spazio". It was January of 1986 and later that day, I would learn more about the explosion which destroyed the space shuttle, "Challenger".

The cause of the shuttle failure was quite simple, hot gas from the engine exhaust had leaked sideways against a fuel tank until the fuel in the tank overheated and the tank exploded. Why the disaster happened is not as straightforward.

The shuttle is a highly engineered system and Morton-Thiokol designed the "O" rings that created seals in the engine exhaust system. It had designed these rings to create a seal and maintain it across a range of temperatures, as specified by NASA. The engineers that designed the system knew that at cold temperatures, the rings lost their ability to create a seal as they became hard and brittle.

In the years before the disaster, NASA had fallen from the eminence it had achieved in the 1960s. The shuttle fleet had been prone to both incessant delays and been perceived by the public as expensive and unnecessary. To reinvigorate its image, NASA opened spots on the shuttle to foreign astronauts and representatives of the public. The January 1986 Challenger launch was going to be broadcast to school children across America as the first "teacher" in space was on board and with all eyes watching, it would show NASA to be the competent and efficient agency it sought to be.

As the weather forecast for the launch window became clear and record cold temperatures were possible, behind the scenes the engineers at Morton-Thiokol began to raise warnings. The investigation would show that NASA, anxious to avoid another "delay", had pressured Morton-Thiokol to sign off on the safety of the launch. Within Morton-Thiokol, there had been pressure applied to the engineers to sign-off as well. The NASA administration's fear of looking bad in the public eye, Morton-Thiokol's fear of angering an important customer and the ripple of fear in saying "no" up the chain of command led to a preventable disaster.

Most "fear" based decisions do not lead to war or disaster but they have negative impacts that are tangible.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, failure and learning go hand in hand. Yet we treat failure as something to be avoided at all costs. Those who can not accept their own failures and learn from them are condemned to mediocrity. What should take weeks, takes years or never happens.

Math is an area where I have always been somewhat proficient. Although I struggled with calculus in college as it was boring memorization, I started using statistics as a quality professional and obtained an MS in Applied Statistics. Years later, I ended up teaching three different math and statistics courses at SUNY Empire State College.

My "adult" math students were typically full of fear regarding math. Many had failed math in either high school or earlier in college. Many only took my course because they needed one math course to graduate. After years of teaching in this environment, I realized that I could really help my students, if I could diagnose their specific math deficiencies early in the course. The quickest way to do this was to have the students attempt to solve problems of various difficulties and show their work. No matter how I explained the reasoning and that the correctness of their answers had no bearing on their course grade, there were a handful of students who simply would not do the exercise. They were not willing to expose their deficiencies to me even if it interfered with their ultimate success. Nearly all of these students did not complete the course. The projection of our fears stops not only stops reasonable risk-taking but also stops much growth and learning.

One final aspect of fear in its full expression is cheating. Whether in sports, politics, academics, business or relationships; individuals who let their fear of failure overwhelm their good judgement are incredibly prone to cheating.

When the cheating is ultimately exposed to the public eye as regularly happens, the failure they hoped to avoid is often multiplied ten or a hundred fold. What is often most apparent to outsiders is the sheer stupidity of the "cheaters" actions as the potential rewards of cheating are grossly outweighed by the downside implications of their actions.

In a week or a month, the cheater destroys their reputation, which has often taken decades to build. If others, have been complicit, their individual and corporate identities are quite often destroyed as well.

None of us are immune to fear of failure and I certainly am not. When you sense that your fears are exerting their influence by either limiting your deep desire to act or keeping you yoked to a spirit and wellness destroying situation, you need to step back and get some perspective.

Finding a wise counsel or someone who can be a true sounding board is key. A "true" sounding board will neither let you plunge off a cliff nor will they tolerate excuses that let you off the hook for being a responsible, moral and ethical adult.

I love the Ridley Scott movie, The Kingdom of Heaven, which tells the story of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and the legendary Muslim General Salahadin who battle for control of Jerusalem at the end of the first crusade. In the movie there is a discussion between, Balian, the new Baron of Ibelin and one of the Knights of Hospitaller, a religious and military order.

Balian is questioning what he sees occurring and is trying to be a good follower of Christ. The Hospitaller Knight has spent many years in Jerusalem defending the city and helping the poor and distressed pilgrims who go there. The knight advises him as follows:
"Holiness is in right action, and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness, what god desires, is here [in your head] and here [in your heart] and by what you decide to do every day, you will be a good man - or not."

Fear of failure not severe moral defect, is the reason many of us fail to take "right action". Courage is ultimately about taking action in spite of our fears not the elimination of fear. Living a meaningful life, also requires living a life of goodness and each and every day is an opportunity to express your values and beliefs or deny them.

As Dr. Shin-Ichi Suzuki (see my earlier blog) reminds us, the only difference between the capabilities of our strong hand and our weak hand is daily attention and practice. Ten years from now, with daily attention and practice, you will have made amazing progress in terms of both overcoming fear and living a life of goodness if you work this path.

You will have also shed much of your self-limiting behavior and created the capability and opportunity to create something of meaning in your life.