Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
If you've suffered with fear, doubt, worry, or lack of
confidence in your life, then this podcast is for you.
In Fostering Success, Doctor Adam Starks, having risen himself from
the foster care system to the pinnacle of success in life,
shares his blueprint in this podcast and interviews inspiring individuals
from around the world. You'll be touched, moved and motivated
(00:29):
by Adam and his guests so that you too can
foster your own success and catapult to the pinnacle of
success in any area of your life. Here's your host,
doctor Adam Starks.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Welcome to Fostering Success. I'm your host, doctor Adam Starks,
and today we are talking about overcoming the fear of failure.
This is just part one. In part two we will
discuss solutions to overcoming that fear, so stay tuned for that.
The fear of failure stems from one or two things. One,
(01:09):
you don't believe that you can pull it off. Maybe
you're underprepared, maybe you don't have the resources, money, time, whatever,
or maybe you have other people depending on you. The
other one is the fear of consequences. What if I
do fail, do I have to if I start a
business do I have to or you know, will I
(01:33):
claim bankruptcy and what does that do to my credit?
And what does that do for my future if I fail?
And those concerns are legitimate, I'm not going to sit
here and say that it's all going to be okay
and paint this rainbows and butterflies. Analysis. You know of
your life. Look, you know your limitations. But sometimes sometimes
(02:01):
you are underselling yourself. And that can be due to
a lack of confidence, or imposter syndrome, or a variety
of other issues. Maybe people have told you all of
your life you can't do it, and you believe them.
Whatever the case may be, your hesitation to move forward
(02:23):
with an idea or your dream is certainly legitimate. And
the people that we look at, like the Elon Musk
or the Richard Branson's or Jeff Bezos of the world,
or you know, any rap star, rock star athlete, sometimes
we look at them and we don't think about the
(02:46):
path that they took to get there and the stroke
of luck that happened once they worked so hard for
what they wanted to achieve. You think about let's think
for one second about the NFL, right, or Major League
(03:07):
Baseball or the National Hockey League. Right, there are several
people who are incredibly talented that don't play for those organizations.
They're not out there making the millions of dollars, because
sometimes that draft is really a stroke of Look think
about all of the flops. It's a chance you are
(03:28):
taking a chance on someone. And those people have sold
themselves well you know, whether it was through an agent,
whether it was through videotapes that were marketed to scouts,
whatever the case may be, but they had to sell
themselves first, and it was just a stroke of luck
(03:49):
that they got picked in the draft lottery, right, And
so you have to look at yourself in that same manner.
How much work are you willing to put in to
achieving your dream? All right? That is another fear is
some of us don't believe that we have what it takes.
(04:10):
And I want to help you overcome that, right. But
giving back to this, there are some people who fail.
They don't get drafted on that day, and so they
have to walk on to the team, all right, or
they have to go to the lower leagues, the minor
leagues and work their way up. So there's more than
(04:33):
one way to get there. Just understand that whatever your
dream may be, there's more than one path to take,
and it's really up to you to do the research
to determine the best path for you. And that can
be the money commitment, the time commitment. You're going to
(04:54):
figure that out. And here's the deal. Failure is part
of that process, all right. If you fail, it is
not fatal. All right? Let me repeat that. If you
happen to fail, all right, or have a setback trying
to achieve your dream, it is not fatal. And I'll
(05:18):
share some of my stories later on and why I
am not risk averse. All right. Maybe I should be
at this point, but I'm not, all right, and part
of that comes from finding my tribe and having a
stellar supportive cast members around me. That being said, failure
is part of the process. Elon Musk failed at one point. Okay,
(05:44):
so they're Richard Branson. And if you don't fail, how
are you going to learn? Everything that you need to
know is not in a textbook? Say you have a
college education and you feel like you're on top of
the world with that the diploma or degree, and you
go out there and just try, you will find out
(06:11):
like I did, the hard way. Not everything you need
to know is in a textbook. There is no substitute
for experience. And here I am, you know, preaching this
message and I have reached the pinnacle of academia. But
I'm telling you you don't need a PhD to begin
(06:34):
your journey. So just marinate on that for a little bit.
Think about it for me, okay, and how that applies
to your life. When I lost my business in twenty
twenty do the COVID, I was devastated, you know. I
(06:57):
slumped into a depression. My family, my community, they were disappointed,
and I felt like I had just let everyone down.
That's the part that everyone fears the most is you
don't want to let people down, and you don't want
to suffer the financial consequences. Obviously, no one wants to
(07:18):
go out there and lose money. No one says, hey,
you know, this may not work, but I'm going to
give it a try. Anyways, most people aren't that reckless
with their decisions, especially when it comes to life changing decisions.
But here I was just wondering what was next, and
(07:39):
I had so many people asking me, oh, Adam, when
are you going to do it again? Are you going
to reopen. Are you going to start another restaurant. Here's
the thing, you know, think about boxing. You lose, you
lose a match, and you know, a boxer loses a match,
he's not going to say next fight is going to
(08:01):
be a month from now. No, Probably what's going through
his head is maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I
should give up, or you know, maybe I should take
a break for a while. He's not thinking about his
next fight. He just failed, he just lost. And that's
(08:24):
what we have to think about boxing UFC. Whatever. If
you lose, it's not about getting right back up again.
You need to reassess, you need to figure out what
went wrong, and then you can schedule your next fight.
And for me, it was a matter of turning this
(08:47):
negative into a profitable business, far far away from a
performing arts venue in the restaurant, which is what I
had before it failed due to COVID and a variety
of other issues I talk about at length, but we'll
(09:08):
get into that later. So I had to essentially rise
from the ashes and reinvent myself because I did not
want to go through that again, even though I learned
so many valuable lessons. But what I could do what
I could do to redeem myself and revive my entrepreneurial
(09:29):
spirit was to start a new business. So I wrote
a book titled Vulture, which will be out in twenty
twenty two. And I developed an app, a business learning app,
and it's gamified so people can learn from my mistakes
and monetizing that will allow me to move forward and
(09:51):
help others avoid the missteps that I had. And I'm
not saying every story should be a feel good story
of redemption and second chances and all that stuff, But
for me, it's about keep keep on, keeping on. Look,
life is hard, and you know, it's full of lessons
(10:16):
and it's full of uncertainties. But if we don't take
that chance with the precious gift that we've been given
to date, then what are we doing here? Right? What
are you doing here? People need your gift. They may
not even know it yet. All right, think about all
(10:37):
of the inventions, the tens of thousands of inventions that
occur every year. Someone takes a chance and because they
believe in themselves, And that's where I want you to
be at some point. Right, it doesn't have to be
a grand gesture, just taking those small steps like taking
(10:58):
a master class in yoga therapy or something like that.
I'm just throwing throwing caution to the wind here. And
I'm a business guy, so I talk about business opportunities,
but it doesn't have to be about starting a business.
Whatever your dream is and whatever success means to you,
think about it in those terms, and you're going to
(11:21):
come out on top. And you know, so many of
us think that success you know, you could take an
elevator to the top, or it's a straight line, straight
and narrow path, and that's just not the case. That's
not always the case. A lot of times it's squiggly lines.
You know, you're you're navigating through the wilderness and the dark,
(11:45):
and you get through the other end of that labyrinth
or that maze and you finally make it. For some yeah,
they have resources, they have rich parents, or they come
into some money and they're able to pour all of
that into what they want to do. Not all of
us are that lucky, and so taking small steps to
(12:08):
prepare yourself and get there will alleviate some of that
fear of failure. But again we'll talk about that in
more detail and another point, but I want to close
with this quote and I think you'll appreciate this from
Henry Ford. Whether you think you can or think you can,
(12:31):
you're right. Until next time, Thank you for listening to
Fostering Success.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
So that's it for today's episode. Head on over to
iTunes and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every
single week to posts a review in iTunes will win
a chance to win the grand prize drawing for a
private VIP day with doctor Adam Starks himself. Be sure
to head on over to Foster Success podcast dot com
and pick up a free copy of Adam's Gift and
(13:05):
join us on the next episode.