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    How to face the Dragon and live happily: instructions to overcome fear of failure
    How to face the Dragon and live happily: instructions to overcome fear of failure
    How to face the Dragon and live happily: instructions to overcome fear of failure
    Ebook116 pages2 hours

    How to face the Dragon and live happily: instructions to overcome fear of failure

    By L. J. Fox

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    About this ebook

    Fear of failure is the dragon of our age. We have shouldered this condition for generations, a burden that hassles us and that undermines every decision we make. How do we overcome fear of failure? And what does failure really mean?

    From the three-headed monster to the fire-breathing dragon, this book focuses on failure and the fear that surrounds it from a different standpoint: It provides reflections and tools that can be used to turn each crisis into an opportunity - not without a touch of humour - and exposes the true nature of failure, opening up new brighter perspectives.
    From the “utopia complex” to the “theory of the strawberry ice-cream”, the purpose of this book is to reveal the winning outcomes behind every failure, boosting our self-esteem and our confidence in the future. To achieve this goal, the author follows the examples of famous people and successful entrepreneurs, so to provide some real tools to protect ourselves from the uncertainty of destiny and to develop the ability to look at the brighter side of life.

    Opening the doors to a new philosophy, failure becomes the equivalent of a domesticated dragon, far from monstrous, whose goal is to teach us not to lose our bearings on the path to self-realisation.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherL. J. Fox
    Release dateOct 14, 2014
    ISBN9786050327144
    How to face the Dragon and live happily: instructions to overcome fear of failure

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      Book preview

      How to face the Dragon and live happily - L. J. Fox

      To my past and future dragons.

      You give life its flavour. 

      L. J. Fox

      HOW TO FACE THE DRAGON AND LIVE HAPPILY

      Instructions to overcome fear of failure and to achieve your goal without losing your bearings through stormy waters

      © 2013 L. J. Fox

      TO BE OR NOT TO BE

      We all are in the same boat, no exceptions. All of us, living in an age of great enterprises, big opportunities and sensational discoveries, we all bring on our shoulders the awareness that we can make the climb and with it the fear of what would happen if we didn’t succeed. Slipping is not considered, that is not the way things should go. From the day you were in the cradle they fed you on dreams that you now deserve to fulfil. Roads should be all clear, steps should be self-evident and happiness should be at your fingertips. And sometimes the world is just like this, for some people: surprisingly it opens doors for them where there were only walls. How can they do it?

      What is their secret? How do they foresee that they are crossing the right door, how do they always manage to choose the path to self-realisation? How can they know where they are going? The answer to all these questions is very simple, and at the same time very difficult to accept. 

      They don’t know it. Not even the wisest people on Earth know what their destiny will be, let alone the final result of their actions, they have an idea – just like you. The difference is that, no matter how dreadful, they don’t let the unknown paralyse. Considering it just as a simple matter of faith would be wrong, cold logic can get you to the same conclusion. Certainly faith can help, but it’s not necessary to believe in an indefinite God to take a trembling step towards the unknown, because that is what it’s all about. Failure is something that we basically ignore, which is exactly why the idea of it frightens us so much. The absolute zero, not getting to any result, having to start again from the very beginning. What scares us the most is the fact that we can’t even imagine how badly things could go.

      To be or not to be, wrote Shakespeare. To try or not to try, we ask ourselves. And yet it is the same question, from the old monologues of Shakespeare to the doubt that hassles us – modern Hamlets – today: the point is that one always fears what they don’t know.  Whether we like it or not, fear comes from the simple unmistakable fact that failure seems something truly evil, a tragedy to avoid, a three-headed monster, a Lovecraftian unnamable horror, ubiquitous, almighty, worse than Jack the Ripper the days he woke up in a bad mood, a bloodcurdling creature the most dangerous bowel-ripping Alien’s monstrosity is nothing compared to. In other words, worse than the worst possible being. 

      You want to know how to overcome fear of failure, you want to know if there is a way. Sure there is. But, first of all, you need to ask yourself a question. What does it really mean to fail? And, above all, do you remember one authentic failure – a failure worthy of the name – in your life?

      Our ability to imagine is one of the most incredible gifts of human beings, but every one of us has come to the moment when, as children, we were forced to admit that there was no blood thirsty demon under our bed. Fear of failure is real, sure it is, but I like to think that our age is finally coming to understand that even the most evil of all evils has a beating heart, and that every story is different if you change the point of view. Therefore an ogre becomes the prince of his swamp, the evil queen a woman with a broken heart and the desire for an happy ending, a dragon an overgrown pet and, well, who knows, even failure might simply be a misunderstood creature.

      There is a way to find it out, let’s take its story and change the perspective.

      1. FAILURE PUT UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

      1.1 A CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE

      Now I’ll start a discussion that might seem a little absurd to you, but bear with me, I think it’s worth a try. Indeed, you need to be a bit of an extremist to change perspective – you need what we might call a shock therapy. At worst you will lose some time, all things considered it seems like the exchange is in your favour, don’t you think?

      And here we are, we have failure in our hands, let’s put it under the microscope. Let’s find his weaknesses. If we learn to understand it better at least fear will diminish. I imagine it as a little black creature with scales all along its body, a small dragon in miniature, but curled up like a hedgehog. In short, kind of a thorny dot. And this little scaly being has ruined more lives than the notorious australian cone sea shell. I think he earned himself a bit of curiosity.

      What do I mean by changing perspective? Let’s give an opportunity to the fire breathing hedgehog, and to its eternal friend, the mistake, attached to the scales like a sucker fish to the cuticle of a sea turtle. Before crucifying it, let’s give it the benefit of the doubt: what is failure? And what is a mistake?

      Let’s start from here. Define mistake, and don’t cheat. Do not read further!

      …

      …

      …

      A mistake is a useless, detrimental and unforgivable action. No, just kidding. But now that you thought about your definition, I want to give you my change of perspective. A dear old friend of mine has always told me that experience is the sum of our mistakes. To this day, I have never been able to find a better definition, and, moreover, I started seeing a very interesting parallel between what’s experience and what is life. Ultimately both of them are there to be lived. Anyway, going back to the mistake, if we consider that definition as truthful, the essence of mistake becomes probably easier to understand.

      A mistake is an opportunity - to gather experience or, if you prefer, it is an addend in your sum.

      We can call it a comma, a mistake is that break at the end of a sentence that can change its sense. And failure – have you already grasped it? – failure is the full stop. The sentence is done, and

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