Conquering Fear of Failure in the San Francisco Bay Area
In the past few weeks, I’ve found myself having conversations with my clients, colleagues, and friends about an inspiring talk by Graham Weaver, a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business and founder of Alpine Investors. I’ve listened to the lecture, which Weaver calls How to Live Your Life at Full Power, several times. I’ve sent it to a few of my clients who live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area to get their take on it. And I’ve discovered a few things about myself through the process.
Weaver’s lecture begins with a personal story. As luck would have it, he found himself on a trail run in Napa in his late twenties after sneaking out of what sounded like a very mundane conference. I can relate to that. While he was running on the trail, Weaver heard a voice he described as his “inner truth” telling him to leave his unfulfilling corporate job and try something new. And he decided to listen to it.
As a psychotherapist, this inner voice is something I discuss daily with my clients
According to Weaver, the voice he heard that day is one that’s constantly engaged in battle, one that can rage within each of us at any given moment. The first voice is the survival instinct that’s been with us for tens of thousands of years, injecting fear, doubt, worry, and anxiety, and threatening to kick start the fight or flight response at a moment’s notice. This voice is fear, often referred to as our inner critic.
The second voice, the one Weaver heard on his trail run that day, has been referred to as our intuition, source, God, the universe, our soul, our true self, and our inner wisdom. This voice is more likely to be experienced viscerally in the body, according to Weaver, but it’s often much quieter and harder to make out. Weaver explained that in order to live at full power, we need to access this second voice.
So how do we quiet that first voice so we can access the second?
Like myself, Graham Weaver is no stranger to the San Francisco Bay Area. He teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and he lives, works, and writes from the home he has made here. When I first moved to the Bay Area in 2008, the fair market rent (FMR) for a two-bedroom apartment in San Francisco was $1,592 per month. As of 2024, it’s approximately $3,783 per month (as set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, HUD). San Francisco is known to be the most expensive city in the country. The stakes are high. Fear of failure can loom large for those who call San Francisco home.
Many of the clients I’ve worked with over the years have described themselves as “high achievers”. They’re familiar with fear, their inner critic, and that elusive second voice that guides them back when they’ve strayed too far from their path. Most have made a home for themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. Coming from a variety of backgrounds, some have simply referred to themselves as “competitive”, “type-A”, or overthinkers. Others have sought therapy after being diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
My clients work in healthcare, tech startups, large corporations, hospitals, and academia. Some sought me out while studying for exams that would determine if they could apply for a coveted spot in the graduate, medical, or law school they were aiming for. Others have been dancers, musicians, and artists who conquer their fears daily before stepping on to a stage, performing in an orchestra, or showing their art. In one way or another, everyone in my life is searching for a way to turn up the volume on their second voice in order to live life at full power. So how do we do it?
To conquer our fear of failure, Weaver asks us to make three promises to ourselves
Promise one: Get unstuck.
To put it another way, Weaver advises us to “take the nail out of your head”. Weaver’s nail-in-the-head metaphor is based on a video he references, written and directed by Jason Headley called It’s Not About the Nail. In the video, a woman is venting to her partner about various ailments. “There’s all this pressure… It’s relentless… I’m not sleeping very well at all and all my sweaters are snagged…”.
The woman turns to look at her partner and we can see that she has a nail sticking out of her forehead. Her partner responds, “ Yeah well, you do have a nail in your head”. This is a lighthearted way to point out that we often convince ourselves – and others – that “it’s not about the nail.” Sometimes we’re willing to talk about anything and everything except the thing keeping us stuck.
What are the nails that get stuck in our heads? Weaver breaks them into four categories:
Bad habits. This can take the form of having a few more drinks than we intended, throwing away that vape pen and immediately buying another one, dating unhealthy partners, lashing out at inopportune times, eating sugary snacks late in the evening that we know will keep us awake with racing thoughts, skipping that class we signed up for at the gym, or spending all the money we were planning to transfer into savings. We all have something to work on, but if it’s becoming a pattern, a habit, or a part of our routine, it could become a nail in our head. One that keeps us stuck.
Unresolved past experiences. This can be the stuck point that brings many people to therapy. It can also be what keeps us away, since we’d rather not talk about it. Many of our patterns start in childhood – dysfunction in our family, an experience of rejection, getting bullied in school, or not feeling good enough. It can be a difficult breakup, a period of unemployment or stagnation, or a choice we now regret. Any experience soaked in shame can dig its way deep into our psyche and find a way to hold us back.
“Rules” or “assumptions”. We can also get stuck based on expectations. Maybe we haven’t achieved what our parents expected us to achieve. Perhaps we’re not living up to the dominant narrative about where we should have gone to school, the career we should have had, the person we should have fallen in love with. Shoulds can be born of external expectations, but many of the rules and expectations we have for ourselves come from within. Whether these narratives are based on a family or religious tradition, cultural expectations, or on our own assumptions about the right path, they can keep us paralyzed.
Fear that keeps us stuck. In my opinion, this last bucket can overlap with the other three or it can become a monster of its own. We can stay in a situation we know we don’t want to be in – a job, a relationship, a city, or a mindset – for years or decades if we don’t address the fear lurking under the surface. Self doubt can take the form of “What ifs?”. What if I make the wrong decision? What if the alternative makes me feel even worse? What if the truth is that there’s something wrong with ME and I’m just going to end up in another bad situation? These are the types of questions that can keep us up at night, spiraling into indecision.
I appreciate the humility and curiosity Weaver brings to his students in asking why this is so hard, because it is hard. There are so many ways fear can keep us paralyzed and immobilized. Two of the barriers he addresses directly are:
1. We haven’t admitted to ourselves that we have a nail in our head
2. Life is going to get worse first before we get to the other side of the fear, because change is uncomfortable
There’s a lot of work we can do on our own to conquer our fear of failure, but many of us have blind spots that keep us from being able to see the nail in our own head. We inadvertently find ways to hide the nail or build walls to protect it. Sometimes it’s just easier to look elsewhere, or to point the finger at someone else. Sometimes we need a little help to move through denial, towards some form of acceptance so we can pull ourselves out of whatever it is that’s keeping us stuck.
San Francisco can be a difficult place to be, especially for anyone taking a big leap like leaving an unfulfilling job or an unhealthy relationship. Even with a moderate amount of savings, many in San Francisco live with the fear of losing everything. I’ve heard some version of “What if I can’t afford to live here anymore?” from so many clients and colleagues – those early in their careers to CEOs, medical doctors, and doctorates. Breaking up with a partner can mean losing a rent-controlled apartment. Changing course can mean taking on huge risks.
For many, that bad habit can feel like the thing allowing them to hold it together. They ask, “how can I possibly focus on giving this up right now?” I recently looked up a gym for a client that offered a $120 monthly membership prior to the pandemic, and found that it’s now skyrocketed to $350 per month. Fresh, healthy foods can feel inaccessible. The cost of therapy, like everything else here, is expensive. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s going to be difficult. There are resources like Open Path available for those who need affordable counseling, but many will rely on family and friends for support. Others inevitably feel alone in their journey.
Whether we can find a way to get honest with ourselves on our own, or if change is sparked by honest feedback from a friend, a partner, a mentor, or a therapist, it’s going to get uncomfortable. It could feel much, much worse for a while. It’ll take time. The first promise Weaver asks us to make is to get unstuck. “Everything you want is often on the other side of what you fear right now… that’s where your work is”. Once we’re ready to do the work, we can move to the second promise.
Promise two: Follow your energy (not your passion)
Weaver explains that the second promise begins when we follow our energy, not our passion. He describes the difference between doing something for which we have little energy, something that feels like a grind and absorbs our energy, with spending time doing something that gives us a tremendous amount of energy. He explains that the advice to “follow your passion” can be harmful. It’s built on a few assumptions: that we have only one passion, that we’ll know what it is when we’re in our twenties, that we’ll do it for the next 40 years, and that we’re supposed to know how to follow it.
Instead, Weaver suggests that we follow whatever it is that’s giving us energy right now. “Energy is the language of your soul”, he explains; “Our second voice talks to us through energy”. It shows us things and people and opportunities that will give us even more energy. If we have many paths in mind, we can choose one and pull in other threads like writing, teaching, or playing a sport or an instrument. Weaver provides a few fantastic exercises that can help us get honest about what sparks this energy, before we get to the third and final promise.
Promise three: Go all-in, now
At this point we may have one foot in and one foot out, according to Weaver. We may hesitate, wondering if this is the right time, never fully committing. He warns that two of the most dangerous words our inner critic can use to convince us to hold back are “not now”.
We can find reasons to put off what we know will give us energy. We might make a list of things we’ll accomplish first. We might dream up an ideal time in the future when things will all be perfect. “This is just fear in another form”, says Weaver. He suggests a few exercises to overcome our fear of failure. We can get our fears out of our subconscious mind where they can do the most damage by writing them down or speaking them aloud. He also suggests asking ourselves what we would do if we knew we couldn’t fail.
In his lecture, Weaver talks about how he was able to overcome his fear of failure to eventually teach at Stanford. He described how the conflict between the two voices in his head dissipated when he stopped wasting energy fighting himself by not going all-in. He made and kept these three promises to himself.
What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Contact me if you’d like support in conquering your fears.
