Naked fear: are you exposed?

It’s my opinion that for entrepreneurs specifically, the fear of being “found out” is probably stronger than the fear of failure (as addressed in an earlier blogpost). Also known as “The Emperor Has No Clothes,” the Number One on the Entrepreneurial Nightmare Hit Parade is the dream that you’re walking down the street and suddenly you discover that you are nekkid as the day you were born.

Ferverently, you think to yourself, “Perhaps no one will notice.” Lots of entrepreneurs think everyone else is more successful or smarter than they are and live in fear of the world finding out that they are a fraud.

“Fake it ‘til you make it.”

My ears hear, “Blerg, blah, blah blah blerg blah.”

This innocuous little phrase drives me bonkers because it begets a whole lot of unnecessary anxiety. ‘Fake it ‘til you make it’ has been used into the Entrepreneur’s Lexicon to the point where it is destructive and directly feeds into the Naked Emperor Theory.

At what point is is safe to switch off the “make it” portion of the axiom? If you’ve been faking it, at what point does your Ego say, “Okay, Harold; you’re in. You’ve ‘Made It.’?”  The first million? The first franchise? Making payroll without having to eat Ramen?

According to Jedi sage Yoda, “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

According to Kurt Vonnegut, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”

The logical extension of both of these statements is that the act of Being, is. The rest is simply a matter of scale.

Once you, as an individual, have committed to a state of being or a standard of excellence, then you have “made it.” The battle and definition is internal. What you’ve defined as “success” is merely the resultant cumulative effect of sustained performance at (or beyond) that level. The accumulation of benefits, whether that yardstick is fame, wealth, fitness or professional accolades can serve as a barometer.

Once you’ve reconciled yourself to this reality, you can let yourself off the hook. You’ve made it. Besides, as we covered in the post about Envy, your success is your success. It is personal and specific to you.

Your neighbor may define success as a 17 bedroom house and the staff to maintain it. Your success may be altogether different. And neither is superior to the other.

Back to the “naked/exposure as fraud” paradigm: you are enough. Just as you are. Cliché or no, there isn’t anyone else on this planet with your strengths, your perspective or your abilities. If anything, I think that entrepreneurs fear being exposed as frauds because they alone know their capabilities as compared against what they’ve achieved externally. They know when they’re sandbagging.

3 Comments to “Naked Fear: Are You Exposed?”

1. September 27th, 2010 at 8:19 am
   Josh Hughes said

   This post is really what I needed. I really liked the allusion of “The Emperor Has No Clothes.” I think that a lot of what holdes truly talented and successful people back is their own internal fear and self doubt.

   A new friend of mine recently told about his life motto: “If it scares me, and isn’t reckless, I have to do it.” It is a plan I am working on enacting.

2. September 27th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
   molly said

   Thanks, Josh!

   As an attendee of the spring SOBConference in Chicago this past year, I learned a lot about fear (and overcoming it) from listening to presenter Steve Farber. One example from his speech was the OS!M (oh sh*t! moment) = the point at which that you fear that you’re in over your head, but you’re committed to the action.

   Here’s his blog:

   http://stevefarber.com/blog/?s=OSM&x=40&y=9

   I agree with you that internal fear and self doubt are more damaging than external forces. My best wishes to you as you move forward! M.

3. January 16th, 2011 at 3:00 am
   What do Shakespeare and The Matrix Share? | Liz Strauss at Successful Blog said

   [...] or you’re not. I can’t tell you if you are; you just are. As we discussed in an earlier post, ‘Are You Exposed?’ the degree to which you are independent is simply a matter of scale. Continuing, to use Morpheus’ [...]