Author, consultant, and executive coach Russell Bishop helps us determine "are you afraid of success?"

What if you could actually create the success you say you want in life? Could your fear of success get in your way? “The fear of failure is a somewhat common scapegoat in the world of excuses,” says Author, consultant, and executive coach Russell Bishop.

However, when confronting the myriad challenges we face in life, one oft-overlooked limiting factor might just be what some have called the “fear of success.”

That’s the topic we’ll be talking with Russell about on today’s episode of of the Inkandescent Entrepreneur Show on InkandescentRadio.com. I’m Hope Katz Gibbs, your host.

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• Click here to read our cover story on Russell Bishop in the Be Inkandescent magazine.

Are You Afraid of Success?

Hope Katz Gibbs: So among your many accomplishments you were a writer and editor for the Huffington Post where you crafted a series of articles on this topic. In them you suggest that fear of success and fear of failure can be very closely aligned. Can you explain why?

Russell Bishop: On the surface, this notion might seem ridiculous — what on Earth could be scary about success? But if you dig a bit below the surface, you might discover some powerfully limiting aspects of your own mindset, of your own approach to life. Let’s do a little digging.

Consider this question: Have you become accustomed to life as it is for you now? What a dumb question — of course you have, even if what you have become accustomed to is not quite what you would prefer.

Hope Katz Gibbs: We’ve all heard of the “comfort zone,” and most of us have been in a discussion or two about the role of the comfort zone in holding people back. But you believe that most people miss the real power of this notion by wrongly assuming that the comfort zone refers to something about being comfortable.

Russell Bishop: I know this may sound a bit nuts, but hang in there a moment or two. As you think about this for a bit, you may realize that you are typically most comfortable in surroundings that are most familiar.

Even people who engage in dangerous activities like rock climbing will attest that while it’s not so physically comfortable out there hanging off a rock wall, and while the risks can be high, the experienced rock climber can still be quite comfortable, both with the lack of physical comfort as well as with the inherent risk. Why? Because she is extremely familiar with the environment and what it takes to succeed in climbing that sheer wall.

If you don’t particularly like your job or some other aspect of your life, you may also find that you have become comfortable with it if for no reason other than the fact that it is familiar. If this is you, if you grouse about your daily circumstances yet keep returning to them, then you may be a member of what I call the “ain’t-it-awful club.” Members of this club love to engage in “one-downsmanship”: “You think that’s bad, wait until you hear this one.” You may also know this one as “misery loves company.”

Hope Katz Gibbs: You also believe that settling for less is a very individual set of choices and definitions.

Russell Bishop: Right, and if you have the sense that you have settled more than strived for what you want, then it might be worth your while to explore how your fear of success is in the way. As much as you may complain about the job/company/boss, have you become comfortable or familiar with what it takes to get by in your current circumstance — not necessarily to succeed, but to at least get by? Breaking out from the familiar, from what got you here, may not be very comfortable, and it may conjure up some fears or