Understanding the Fear of Success: A Personal Account

In this discourse, I shall elucidate the paramount theme of personal accountability and the challenges associated with maintaining consistency in one's endeavors. I candidly express my recent struggles with motivation, acknowledging the detrimental effects of personal issues on my commitment to producing this podcast. Furthermore, I reflect on the notion of the "fear of success," which has hindered my ability to engage fully with both my podcasting and professional obligations. To remedy this, I resolve to adopt a more disciplined approach, vowing to record and share episodes with greater regularity, irrespective of the time constraints I may face. As I navigate these sentiments, I also explore the complexities of interpersonal relationships and the societal divisions that arise from differing perspectives, advocating for a more understanding and inclusive dialogue among individuals with disparate beliefs.
Commencing with a personal introduction, the discourse navigates the complexities of motivation and consistency in content creation. I express my sincere apologies to the audience for the inconsistency in my podcasting schedule, attributing this lapse to personal struggles that have manifested as a profound disinterest in engaging with my work. The candid admission of these challenges marks a pivotal moment in our conversation, as I articulate the internal conflict between ambition and the paralyzing fear of success that has hindered my professional endeavors. I resolve to overcome this inertia, emphasizing the pressing need for discipline in my creative output, a commitment that I intend to uphold irrespective of the time constraints that my life may impose.
The discussion transitions to a more somber reflection on personal loss, revealing the emotional toll of familial bereavement. I recount the recent passing of both my nephew and a childhood friend, which has compelled me to reevaluate the relationships that have ebbed away over time. This narrative serves as a poignant reminder of the impermanence of life and the importance of nurturing connections with those we hold dear. Through this lens, I ponder the inevitability of change and the necessity of maintaining friendships despite the passage of years and the divergence of life paths. Such reflections not only humanize the podcast but also invite listeners to contemplate their own relationships and the value of reconnection.
The final segment delves into the divisive landscape of contemporary politics, wherein I express my bewilderment at the prevailing polarization that characterizes public discourse. Observing various media outlets, I highlight the stark contrasts in reporting, which seem to exacerbate societal divisions rather than foster understanding. I advocate for a return to civil dialogue, emphasizing the significance of respecting differing viewpoints and the detrimental effects of animosity stemming from ideological differences. This assertion culminates in a call for unity and understanding, urging listeners to embrace diversity of thought as a means of cultivating a more harmonious society. Thus, the episode encapsulates a journey through personal introspection, the ramifications of loss, and a plea for greater empathy in a fragmented world.
Takeaways:
- In this episode, Gray Haired Dave candidly discusses his struggle with consistency in content creation.
- He openly apologizes for his lack of regularity and expresses a desire to improve.
- A significant theme involves his reflection on personal challenges affecting his motivation and productivity.
- Dave articulates the importance of maintaining relationships despite the passage of time and changing circumstances.
- He emphasizes the necessity of confronting one's fears, particularly the fear of success, in order to advance.
- The podcast concludes with a reminder to engage positively with others and to embrace diverse perspectives.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- eleven labs
- ABC
- Whoopi Goldberg
- Chuck Schumer
- Trump
- Fox News
- MSNBC
- CNN
- Gray Hair Productions
00:00 - None
00:13 - Introducing Gray Haired Dave
02:49 - Overcoming Inertia: A Commitment to Consistency
03:53 - Reflections on Lost Connections
09:49 - Navigating Political Divides
12:07 - Reflections on Beliefs and Society
Welcome to five minutes with Grey Haired Dave.
Speaker AHe has gray hair, has a gray beard and wears glasses like the guy in the artwork.
Speaker AOh, and the guy in the artwork's better looking.
Speaker ANow here is Gray Haired Dave.
Speaker BOh, folks, what did you think of that?
Speaker BI know I asked this question every time, but that intro was from eleven labs and I like them.
Speaker BI may go in today and create some new ones.
Speaker BI hope you're doing well if you didn't get this.
Speaker BThis is Gray Hair Dave and I'm here to talk to you today about things I want to talk about.
Speaker BI don't know what they are yet, but I'm going to talk about it.
Speaker BThere's a break in the schedule, so I have time.
Speaker BI.
Speaker BI want to apologize to you for not being as consistent as I want to be.
Speaker BAnd it's not fair to you.
Speaker BIt's not right.
Speaker BAnd I'll be honest, I've had some, had some personal issues in my head that have just made me not want to do this.
Speaker BAnd it's not that I don't want to do it, it's that I just, I've lost that spark to go out and get, get started again.
Speaker BAnd I don't like that.
Speaker BIt's not cool.
Speaker BIt's not cool, dude.
Speaker BIt's just not cool.
Speaker BAnd I don't want this to be something that takes me from recording every week and goes to just this mix match of, well, here and there and I'll record one week and not the next.
Speaker BIt's the same thing I'm going through with my business.
Speaker BI've.
Speaker BI've been off of work from, for now, going on for at least seven weeks, going on eight.
Speaker BAnd I've really not done much.
Speaker BAnd I know that there's phrases out there for what I'm going through or conditions or whatever you want to call it, the new word of the day, you know, and I figured it out.
Speaker BI think it's fear of success.
Speaker BI think I've got a good idea and I know it'll work.
Speaker BAnd I know there are people out there who would use my services and I'm not getting out there and doing it out there trying to find them.
Speaker BAnd that's good.
Speaker BYou're not in business if you're not doing that.
Speaker BYou're just a hobby.
Speaker BAnd I don't want this to be a hobby.
Speaker BI want this to replace.
Speaker BSo this is why I've got to get back in gear with this and do it once a week.
Speaker BAnd no more excuses if that means doing it at 1 o'clock in the morning when everybody is asleep, I go do it at 1 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker BIf that means getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning to go do it, that means getting up at 6 o'clock in the morning to go do it.
Speaker BNo more of this goofing around, right?
Speaker BI'm the only one who can make me serious about this, make it mine.
Speaker BAnd I want to do that.
Speaker BSo thank you for hanging around.
Speaker BOkay, I've still got the last recording I did which was like a week and a half ago and I'm going to put that out today.
Speaker BSo I'll put two of them out today or one today and one tomorrow.
Speaker BThey'll come out.
Speaker BThis is number 145 folks.
Speaker BSo I'll put them out and I'll get them edited and get back into my editing and, and get very back to being good at that.
Speaker BAnd we'll go on.
Speaker BNow for my next subject, let's move on.
Speaker BLet's get past days belly aching life.
Speaker BI remember telling you I lost my nephew back in last month and that was tough on me and I know it was tough on my brother and my other nephew and everybody that knew him and loved him, which was so many people just, just finally getting to a point where I was doing a little bit better.
Speaker BAnd I get another text message from my brother, my four brother, he gets, gets all the notifications and he's kind of in charge of getting him out there.
Speaker BBut one of my, my childhood friends passed away this week.
Speaker BLast week.
Speaker BI'm sorry, last week?
Speaker BI'm recording this on Tuesday, I think it happened last Thursday or Friday.
Speaker BAnd we had lost touch, hadn't talked in years and years and years and years and years and years.
Speaker BWe grew up in the same neighborhood on the same block.
Speaker BHe lives like five or six houses down from me.
Speaker BI mean we played, we did all kinds of things together.
Speaker BWe were in the same grade at school and you know, he was a good kid, he was a good grandfather and a good father is what I understand.
Speaker BAnd I don't know because when I moved away from Port Huron, which is where we all grew up.
Speaker BBut when, you know, when we all, when I moved away from Port Huron, I never went back to live like a lot of people did.
Speaker BAnd I lost touch with all those people.
Speaker BYou grow, you go to different, you just do.
Speaker BYou, you go to different places in your life.
Speaker BYou, you, you, you grow and you move on.
Speaker BIs that right?
Speaker BNo, but it is part of life.
Speaker BAnd I don't want to.
Speaker BI'm not saying anything bad about him or me.
Speaker BWe both could have tried, but we both found different friends and different lifestyles.
Speaker BWe did.
Speaker BWe both found different lifestyles and different groups to be a part of.
Speaker BAnd I feel bad about that.
Speaker BI don't stay in touch with my friends from back when I was growing up, back when I was in high school or even grade school and middle school or just junior high school, as we called it.
Speaker BI just don't.
Speaker BAnd that's, that's bad on me.
Speaker BBut a lot of time has passed and I don't know that it's worth worrying too much about.
Speaker BMaybe it is.
Speaker BMaybe I should be.
Speaker BI should be.
Speaker BSo if you're out there and you're a friend of mine from years past, I'm sorry, you know, send me a message so I know where, how to get a hold of you.
Speaker BBecause I don't know how to get a hold of most of you.
Speaker BI really don't.
Speaker BNot without going through my brother.
Speaker BAnd that's just wrong.
Speaker BSo anyway, there's also social media and I could, I could reach out.
Speaker BBut anyways, here we go onto the next subject.
Speaker BLet's get over that.
Speaker BLet's go into the I would I've come to, to know in this podcast as the last three or four minutes of Politics.
Speaker BI was, I was watching TV yesterday for a little bit and I still watch that show on ABC with all the women in it, including Whoopi Goldberg.
Speaker BAnd now I think they've got a new enemy, Chuck Schumer, who's a Democrat on their side because he changed his mind on not wanting to shut down the federal government over the budget.
Speaker BAnd it makes sense because it's just going to make the Democrats look worse if they continue down the road they're on and they're going to want to shut the government down.
Speaker BIt's not going to hurt us, you know, it's going to hurt them.
Speaker BAnd you know, so some of these people are upset with him because he's now concerned about it and what's he doing?
Speaker BAnd now is he coming around to the Trump side of world of the world.
Speaker BAnd we all know he's not, that's not who he is.
Speaker BJesus.
Speaker BBut anyways, that's what's going on with that.
Speaker BBut yeah, they find something every day.
Speaker BAnd I, every once in a while I will turn on, I'll turn on Fox News just to see what they're saying.
Speaker BAnd they're, they're pretty pro Trump.
Speaker BAnd then I turn over to MSNBC, and they are pretty much all negative TRUMP 100% of the time, which I find hilarious to watch.
Speaker BAnd then, you know, I go over to like, cnn and CNN is trying to build back what they've lost because their, their integrity was, was smirched, as is an old phrase.
Speaker BBut it was, it was a God.
Speaker BIt was tainted because of all the things that said they said and done.
Speaker BAnd they didn't do some nice things, they said some nasty things and, and they got, you know, they got their butt caught in the door and it slammed shut.
Speaker BThere's another phrase we use for that, but I'm not going to use that on here.
Speaker BSo it's fun to watch them not so much implode, but just it's how.
Speaker BHow have we gotten this way again, is how.
Speaker BI keep asking this question and I don't know the answer to it, and I don't know that I want to know the answer to it that much, but I keep asking.
Speaker BIt's how do we get this way?
Speaker BHow do we become so divided that if you don't believe what I believe, you are absolutely wrong and I have to hate you.
Speaker BThere are people I know who don't believe what I believe.
Speaker BI don't hate them folks.
Speaker BI love them because they're friends or their acquaintances and they have their own opinion.
Speaker BAnd that opinion is just as important to them as mine is to me.
Speaker BI have friends.
Speaker BOne, the husband is, is one way and the wife is another.
Speaker BSo one's a Republican, one's a Democrat.
Speaker BHow they, how they live together, I don't know, but they do because they believe in more than one point of view.
Speaker BAnd there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Speaker BIf we could get back to that in the world.
Speaker BThere's nothing wrong with having more than one point of view.
Speaker BIt doesn't mean that I have to be killed or have to die because you don't believe what I believe.
Speaker BThat's horse plucky.
Speaker BIt is.
Speaker BGrow up.
Speaker BIf you don't believe what I believe, you're not going to die because of it.
Speaker BYou know what I'm saying?
Speaker BIt's, it's like everybody's over there now.
Speaker BIt's like, oh, my God, he doesn't believe what I believe, he's got to die.
Speaker BBaloney.
Speaker BGod, just.
Speaker BIt's crazy, out of control, and I don't see it getting any better.
Speaker BAnd it's gonna have to soon, folks.
Speaker BSomething's gonna have to break.
Speaker BSomething is going to have to say, enough.
Speaker BSomething's gonna say Oops.
Speaker BOkay, let's take this back a bit and not be so ultimately, ultimately PO'd.
Speaker BI don't know.
Speaker BSo those were my topics of the day, folks.
Speaker BDon't forget.
Speaker BIf you got questions or concerns or a comment, please feel free go to my website.
Speaker B5 minutes with gray hair Dave calm.
Speaker BThat's the number.
Speaker B5 minuteswithgrayhair Dave dot com.
Speaker BLeave me a comment on the contact Me page.
Speaker BOr you can tap that little microphone in the bottom right hand corner.
Speaker BLeave me a message.
Speaker BAlso folks, if you know somebody who doesn't know what a podcast is, do me a favor.
Speaker BShow them how to find one.
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Speaker BShow them how to follow.
Speaker BSubscribe.
Speaker BAlso, smile at somebody you don't know today, folks.
Speaker BYou will make their day and they'll make yours.
Speaker BSo on behalf of Gray Hair Dave here at Gray Hair Productions, you all have a great day and we'll talk soon, I promise.
Speaker BBye.