Overcome fear of failure and build resilience from your setbacks!
Fear of failure is one of the greatest blocks to success, in every aspect of life. Jeremy Bloom has been a top male model, three-time world champion freestyle skier, played three years of NFL football and built two successful entrepreneur companies during the great recession of 2008-2009. He has accomplished all this at the age of 29. In an interview I did for a book I wrote, Jeremy shared how he has in his words, “failed more than I have succeeded” and how he learned to overcome fear of failure.
Here’s a four minute video with Jeremy describing his unique perspective on failure and fear of failure.
[vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BRUNDC-bZo”]
Overcome fear of failure -a world champion’s and entrepreneur’s perspective. A conversation between Jeremy Bloom and Dr. TC North
JEREMY
Yes. I think every athlete that’s successful learns it. And it is not because they create it; they learn it out of necessity. They were competing at a time where a thought got in and attached, and they couldn’t let go and it messed them up. It certainly happened to me. And you create that out of necessity. That’s when, I mean, it is part of climbing that mountain. And you learn so much more about yourself in times of defeat, you know, when things… when you don’t prepare right or you don’t perform up to your own standards. And that is when you kind of lay things out and say, …“This went well but this really caught me off-guard. This thought got in my head and it just really messed me up.”
Well, read some books, talk to some people, try some other things, and… you know, it took me a long time to develop those skills.
TC
You ended up doing well.
JEREMY
Well, thanks.
TC
… So you have failed once in your life.
JEREMY
Oh, I’ve failed much more in my life than I’ve succeeded. Much more.
TC
Are you afraid to fail?
JEREMY
No. I love… It’s weird; you know, you can find different levels of failure – but I love the… I don’t look at it as failures. I look at it as setbacks – and I love setbacks because I think every setback gives you an opportunity to separate from everyone else. Because everybody experiences the same setbacks.
But it is the people, or group of people, that can take an experience – whether you messed up, or whatever the case may be – and solve it! It’s like that complicated math equation; saying, “Alright! This is awesome! This is an area where, if we solve this one problem, we’ll be able to get to where we want to go. We’ll take that next step up.”
So I look more… I mean, I love the challenges of those setbacks. And the opportunities that they present.
TC
That is one of my top secrets, by the way: is that world-class have the courage to fail.
JEREMY
Yes. I think the only true failure in life is lessons that you don’t learn. You don’t really fail unless you learn from that. I guess my definition of a failure would be “A setback that was never solved.” That would be a failure to me. Outside of that, there’s not much, you know, in business or sports, that I would look at as a failure, unless you didn’t figure how to overcome that.
TC
Nice. Have you ever been scared? Do you ever get scared as an athlete, or as a businessperson?
JEREMY
Yes, of course. Often.
TC
What scared you? What scares you?
JEREMY
Well, I mean, I was the smallest guy on the football field! You know, I was five-foot-nine, 175 lbs, running around with people that are six-three, 265 lbs, and were almost as fast as I was! So, yes, there’s a lot of fear that goes into that.
But I remember a very defining moment in my life. And it was our defensive line coach, Chris Wilson, when I started playing for the University of Colorado in my freshman year – and I was small! In freshman year I might have weighed 160 – I don’t know.
TC
That’s my size!
JEREMY
I was small! It was right after the Olympics, I was just starting to play college football. I was at training camp and each coach has got this opportunity to talk to the whole group of people for fifteen minutes. He was one of these real like deep-voice motivational type of guy – and, you know, he just… part of his… most of his speech was, “Don’t ever allow fear to get in the way of your dreams.”
And it just hit me so much. And from really that day, for football I never entered… I never stepped onto a football field without willing to sacrifice my own body and… likelihood for the better good of me and the team.
Getting yourself to that point is hard. That’s why I say I very rarely physically felt great because getting your mind to that level – I mean, it’s many steps below war, but the same principles; when you get yourself to say, “You know what? If somebody breaks my leg today, I’m okay with that. Or if somebody – God forbid – breaks my neck, I’m willing to make that sacrifice.”
For me, that’s the only way I could play football – with that kind of reckless abandonment, and just to say, you know, “It’s in somebody else’s hands.”
So, of course I felt fear. But I’d be able to manage it.
