Fear Activation

Successful people are driven by a fear of insufficiency. 

I was listening to a conversation between Chris Williamson and Alex Hormozi where this idea surfaced and led to a conversation about a study where the motivation of a rat was tested by a spring attached to their tail. 

The smell of cheese wafted to the starving rat to see how hard they would pursue it. Then they tested this with the smell of cheese in combination with the smell of a cat behind them. The rats pulled harder with the smell of the cat behind them. 

This study was meant to illustrate how fear is the strongest motivation that we have, bar none. 

Chris backed this up by discussing how most of the successful people he has talked to have either been motivated by not being a piece of shit or a desire to prove someone in their life wrong. 

I have written and talked a lot about finding what motivates you and pursuing it relentlessly. But this small excerpt of a much larger conversation forced me to think inwardly. 

Have I been saying the wrong thing? Have I been setting people up for failure? 

What happened in my life to enter this new state of focus started a little over a year ago. Our dog, Norman, was diagnosed with cancer. It was osteosarcoma and we couldn’t do anything about it as the mass was crushing his spinal cord and the amount of the vertebrae that would have needed to be removed would have left his spine unbalanced and likely would have left him a quadro-ped. 

We had to put him down after making him endure a surgery to ensure it was cancer. 

It was devastating. While I recognized that there was nothing I could do to prevent his cancer, I felt I could have done more to give him a better life. 

This led to a spiral where I couldn’t sleep and all I could think about is if I would ever get to meet my sweet Norman ever again.  

This thought process would result in nothing but darkness and fear. 

The more it happened, the more I explored and realized that I strongly feared that my life was meaningless. 

I’d be sucked into the darkness for weeks, hoping I could get to the point where my loss of sleep would allow me to not visit again. 

The more I was there, the less I wanted to be there so I started confronting it. If we die and nothing happens, what’s the point? Who cares what we do? What does it matter? What’s the point of trying?

Then, an epiphany. 

Who gives a shit. Regardless of what happens, I am going to ensure my life has meaning because I can’t stand the thought of getting to the end of my life without trying - even if in the grand scheme of things it means nothing. 

My greatest fear shifted from life being meaningless to me not giving purpose to my life through my actions. 

This led to more thought over the course of the next year of what I wanted to get done. 

I wasn’t pushed to move right away. In fact, I played a lot of video games in an attempt to numb the pain and avoid the thoughts plaguing my mind - a coping mechanism that I developed from a young age. 

But I ultimately found a direction. To see what I can accomplish in however long of a life I have. 

I have a number of underlying goals to help equip me with the underlying skills to realize this goal but the fear gave me direction and an ultimate outcome that I don’t want. 

With that fear, I will never allow myself to stagnate because I can’t stand knowing that I could be doing something to make something of myself. 

While I have embarked on a journey of intentional growth that will last my lifetime so I can’t definitively state that as a successful person I have been motivated by fear but writing this piece will give both of us the ability to reflect on if I was able to do this. 

I’ll be sure to revisit this concept in the future and I may need your help reminding me in the event that I forget. 

In the meantime, I can definitively say that fear and loss caused me to refine my focus surrounding my goals and has pushed me to start in a way that purely positive goals haven't. 

I still have to avoid distractions and refocus myself but when I am reverting to a less successful version of myself, I am able to get myself back on track increasingly easier thinking about the consequences of me sitting and doom scrolling through my Facebook feed. 

Regardless of the levels of success you feel that you have accomplished, you should reflect on what has been driving you to this point. Have you been setting your sights on purely positive goals? Have you been driven by your desire to avoid fear? 

You may come to recognize that you have been doing both. You could also learn that you haven’t been doing either and have been going through life with minimal direction. 

This is not meant to make you feel bad for your past leading to your present. This is meant to help you harness a potentially powerful motivator to drive you into your future.