Why brilliant people fail?

Yesterday afternoon I was in a rugby meeting, and the ball got
rolling with discussion about a question I got from a player
about his fear of stepping out of his older brother's
shadow... of taking action on what has evolved into his
passion.
He's young and wants to go into business and learn how to
manage and run a growing organization with the dream one
day of going into either politics or journalism. He also
wants to lose over 10 kilo’s and keep it off for good
because he wants to be taken seriously, and knows that he
is seen as weak by many people.
And it makes him feel weak, too, knowing that he hasn't
been able to control his food urges and be super healthy.
Wanting to be a leader of people, he said he knows that
he must get in control over himself before he can lead
others effectively.

I told him that those are huge ambitions that would
require total dedication, confidence and the ability to
stare fear in the face and squash it... take its power away.
Because there is very little in life that can stop you
from doing things you truly want to do.

Big goals and dreams are just like small ones except that
there are more steps, they take longer and when you get
closer, the risks are higher. Because in life, when you
want something very cool, you are probably competing with
other people... they want the same thing you do.

Or they just don't want you to succeed, and remind them of
their mediocrity... how they aren't going after their
dreams. Dream stealers. These are people you want to stay
away from.

Every big goal you could have has its own risks.
You can tick-off family and friends who don't want you to
change, grow, get new friends that aren't like them, and/or
they don't want you to move away.

Their wrath can come out in a lot of strange ways.
The big thing is when you endure failures, or get slowed
on your journey toward success (at anything), you will be
criticized... sometimes mercilessly. Often this hammering
can come from inside your own family...the exact people who
are supposed to be on your side.

You must push on.

If you fall down or get derailed enough times on your path
toward your dreams, your reputation can take many massive
hits. And ooooooh, it can hurt.

Make you want to quit.
Criticism can HURT.
But it won't kill you. And it does not have to stop you.
There can be other things to fear...
Loss of money and security.
Loss of physical health, in the form of injury or even the
risk of death.
But you can keep going in spite of the risks.

Now, I've seen many people take stupid, unnecessary risks.
I've taken my share of ill-advised gambles.

But there are two ways of handling failures (mistakes,
setbacks, errors, accidents, delays).
They can either stop you, where the only thing you learn
is that you are never going to reach your objective...
OR, they can make you more determined, teaching you dozens
of lessons that you use to win in the future.

It's always our choice.
Because if your life is the same now as it was 5 or 10
years ago, it's fear that made it that way.
If you are on the path to having a life, in 5 or 10 years,
that looks about the same as it does right now, it's fear
that will make it so.

Because every day we are given choices.
Most people can be pretty much whatever they make their
mind up to be. The average person has scary high
potential. But the average person uses hardly any of it.
Either you stare down fear, and go after your biggest
dreams every single day, or you do little and end up with a
meaningless life.

Releasing the fears that are stamped on us when we are
children is the key to unlocking your unlimited potential.
Shrinking the lifelong fears that have kept you small,
unimportant, unappreciated, underutilized, and way too
often unwanted or unloved can be so easy.

It's all in how you communicate with yourself.
When you change the way you communicate with yourself,
through your habitual, moment-by-moment mental pictures,
your affirmations, the questions you are posing to yourself
all through the day... when you make yours similar to the
people who are now doing what you want to do, then your
days will magically get better.

Because doing what you need to do to make those dreams
come true, in all areas of your life, mental and physical
health, education, relationships, spiritual, career,
financial, will become natural. Easy.

A snap.