Yet from a higher perspective, everything that is, is only “For now.” “For the time being.” “Momentarily.” You see this theme come up over and over again, and maybe that’s because it applies to everything. It’s about breaking the bullshit of permanence and recognizing the truth of constant change. When you embrace the idea that things are always changing, why would you cling onto anything, including an identity?
Those in a growth mindset love feedback and crave it so much that being told they’re wrong is like being told, “Congratulations! You just hit the jackpot! You were getting bored of things seeming to be too much the same, too stagnant, too consistent in a universe that’s always changing and constantly expanding at this time… but now you’re going to discover the way you can expand even more! Now you’re going to discover a way to let go of whatever you’ve been so you can be something even greater!”
Those in a growth mindset are in alignment with the principles of the Universe. #ItsNotWooWoo #ItsScience #OkItsKindOfWooWoo
Those in a growth mindset seek out new knowledge. They test their current ways of doing things to see if there’s an even better way. They assume their current assumptions of what is and isn’t possible are wrong. They judge their judgments.
Those who choose to be in growth mindset surround themselves with mentors, coaches, and peers to learn from. They especially surround themselves with people who are willing to say, “You’re wrong!” to expose their blind spots. Or at the very least, people who are willing to say, “Here’s an even better way.”
How can one restore this state of being where failure isn’t seen as failure, but only feedback? How does one actually overcome their fear of failure? I questioned this myself, and then I realized the times when I have been able to do this most effectively are when I applied something I call “CSM.”
CSM – My Secret Weapon For Overcoming Fear Of Failure
Those in a growth mindset are willing to learn from the mistakes of others so that they don’t have to make all those mistakes themselves.
However, they’re still willing to make their own mistakes in order to grow. The human need for contribution means you want to contribute something to others. So what if we tap into both needs?
I’ve found when I made my failures not just about my own growth, but about failing in order to help others avoid the mistakes I made, I was able to overcome many of my fears. I was now failing for both my own growth and the growth of those that I cared about, even if those people are complete strangers I’ve yet to meet.
This idea of being willing to fail to help others is how I came up with “CSM.” If you look closely at my story for how I came up with the book “Why You’re Stuck,” it was born out of a desire to use my experience of being stuck to teach others why we get stuck and how to get unstuck. Although I was in the midst of “stuckness” when I came up with the idea for the book, it was the act of documenting my experience to help others that actually pulled me out of that state.
I built my most successful business showing authors how I successfully went from a broke valet parker to a #1 bestselling author by creating a course that was a case study of a particular book’s success. I showed others what to do and not to do.
When I realized my greatest breakthroughs had come when I went beyond myself and took what I was going through as a “game” or an “experiment” or… wait for it… a “case study,” I came up with a concept called “Case Study Mindset.”
You’re likely to be more willing to face fear, including fear of failure, if it’s not just about you. I’m willing to run into a burning building to save a friend.
If fear exists within you, then just get outside of yourself to get outside of your fear.
It is this simple.
Would you face your fears to save those you love? Would you endure discomfort to ease the discomfort of someone you truly love? CSM uses this power of loving others and being willing to sacrifice for them to transcend your own fear.
Let’s look at what “true” love is, as this world often tosses the word around a lot. The need for “love” can be defined as a need for connection. I will give love to get love, meet my needs, and feel good.
This type of love, however, isn’t the kind of love we’re talking about. Anyone can "love" under the condition that it will make them feel good. This kind of conditional “give and take” love will not be enough to transcend fear. You must tap into the “give and receive” love of contribution, of true service to another without needing to get something back.
True love as a human being necessitates potential suffering. You cannot have genuine love for another in this world without either you or them likely suffering when the other is in pain or when they're gone – especially in their death.
True love is an act of great courage. Its beauty lies in the understanding that those who choose true love have agreed, "This love matters more than the suffering we must endure because of it.”
Now you might be wondering, “I thought ‘true love’ wouldn’t have suffering because it’s totally selfless and holds no expectation? Isn’t it only ‘selfish’ love that desires to be close to another person which creates suffering when you disconnect? If you ‘really love someone,’ you wouldn’t hurt if they’re gone because you’d set them free. True love can only ever be joy, bliss, and peace.”
I hear this quite often by people defending the idea that, “True love has no suffering!” when I’ve proposed this idea of suffering coming with love. This is both true and false depending on what point of view you’re coming from.
You see, it’s true from a “higher perspective” that there is no suffering in true unconditional love and it’s only wonderful feelings. The thing is, we’re in a human condition. This means when a human being feels “true love,” it comes packaged together with “human love.”
Does suffering for the loss of a child mean it wasn’t “true love” but “selfish” love?
Does losing the life of a close friend and feeling pain mean you just didn’t “love them truly enough?”
Does seeing someone you love crying and in pain lead you to also feel pain? Does suffering with them mean you don’t “truly love” them?
Does seeing any fellow human being tortured and being powerless to stop it cause you pain? Wouldn’t any well-adjusted human being suffer with empathy seeing such a thing?
I know this may be obvious to many, particularly those more grounded in everyday physical reality. But some truly can’t fathom the idea of “true love” and pain and suffering co-existing. They continuously say to themselves, “Any pain I feel means I’m not spiritual or enlightened or truly loving enough.” This applies to any area of their life. They are so focused on the abstract concept of “true love” that they overlook the practical reality of how it shows up in daily life.
Don’t confuse the perfect essence of something with the flawed expression and perceived experience of it.
You have human needs that, when you love someone, even unconditionally, this love is still felt in the conditional nature of your humanity. You’ll have a need for connection with them. Not meeting the need of being close to those you love will cause suffering, and yet it’s the “true love” beyond all of this that allows you to endure the suffering.
If you are with them, and they are hurting, then you may hurt when they hurt. Does seeing people starving to death and suffering cause your heart to ache? If so, is this actually a sign that you have so much love you feel empathetic?
If you fail to recognize the truth of your humanity, of your weakness, you can make yourself “wrong” for mourning the loss of a loved one or suffering with another you love. You can fail to recognize that “true love” coincides with “human love.”
Without recognizing how the two co-exist, one may say to themselves, “If I feel suffering because of not being with this person or because I know they’re in pain, then I must not actually truly love them because true love would have no suffering.”
Now some may say, “I’m willing to suffer for another.” Yet don’t deceive yourself into thinking this automatically means this is really loving them as much as you could. This just means you’re willing to be a martyr, perhaps to feel connection and significance, and not completely out of unconditional love. To say “I truly love another simply because I’m willing to suffer for them” is, potentially, bullshit. It doesn’t mean you don’t love them, or even love them a lot, but it’s still not a complete “giving and receiving” type of love.
True love isn’t just about suffering yourself out of love for another. True love is about allowing another to receive suffering. It’s about being willing to let others endure suffering on your behalf.
What do I mean?
I noticed for many years I would have a hard time getting close to some people, especially in a romantic relationship aspect. The fear that I had wasn’t mostly that I would suffer and have my heart broken. It was primarily that a bond would be created, and then the other person would end up suffering if I were to break the bond because it didn’t work out.
My biggest fear wasn’t having my own heart broken. I feared having someone else I care about and love having their heart broken “because of me.” I feared I would be the cause of their suffering. I thought it would be “good” to keep from getting too close in order to prevent their suffering. Yet all I was doing was, in a sense, trying to make a choice for them on whether or not they could love me and therefore potentially suffer due to this love.
I couldn’t necessarily control whether I fell in love with someone or they fell in love with me. To “fall” in love just happens and seems to be coming from a place of helplessness, of vulnerability. So in order to exercise control, I would take a preventative approach by not getting too close to begin with. “Better safe than sorry.”
Then I had to remind myself of this sobering reality…
I cannot choose for another if they wish to love me. If they wish to suffer in their love for me, I must be willing to allow them to make that choice to suffer. To deny anyone their “right to suffer” is really denying them their “right to love” since loving often involves suffering.
Now I know this sounds controversial if you don’t get the deeper message. Technically, I didn’t do anything “wrong” by not choosing to allow people to get close to me. What I did do though was cost both them and me the experience of feeling a deeper love. The more I rejected potential suffering, either mine or theirs, the more I rejected love. The attempt to “protect another from themselves” was essentially an attempt to prevent a love from flourishing.
You do have every right to choose who you do and don’t want to love. You have every right to get close or not to get close to someone. Just realize that each of these choices has a price. The price of avoiding suffering at all costs is to avoid love at all costs
This shows up at the extreme when people close off, lash out, or do any other type of destructive behavior to push others away. “I’m going to force them not to love me.” Of course, you can’t actually force another person not to love you. They make that choice for themselves. This idea is about the attempt, the manipulation, and the desire to control others by withholding love, even in a misguided attempt to protect them, in order that they are “forced” into not loving you – and of course, they still may choose to love you anyway.
If one does love you, you can accept or reject their love as is your choice, but if you’re rejecting their love, do you truly love them as much as you could? In a more everyday sense, if someone offers you help out of love, do you turn it down to “not be a burden” and thereby reject their offering of love? You may choose to do this as is your right, but is it really loving to tell another person, “You’re not allowed to sacrifice for me, only I’m allowed to sacrifice for you?” thereby making it one-sided?
It’s when your choices attempt to persuade another’s choices that you must be careful. While it’s fine to try to persuade a person to make a particular choice in their best interest, it would be very dangerous to start to say, “I need to persuade this person not to truly love me.” It’s in the attempt to proactively keep someone from making the choice to love you that you run into problems.
What if trying to keep another from suffering willingly for you is on one level trying to keep a person from loving you?
If loving entails the potential for suffering, the moment you allow someone to love you, you must allow them to potentially suffer because of their love for you. You must be willing to say, “I love you so much that I will allow you to suffer in your love for me.”
Ask yourself, “Do I love them enough to allow them to suffer for me? To allow them to sacrifice for me? To allow their heart to be broken for mine? To allow them to make their own choice to love me and possibly suffer for this choice?”
To give your life for another is love, but never forget that true love means you’re also willing to allow another to give their life for you.
It’s give and receive, remember?
Think of how much you'd sacrifice to help others you love and fill them with joy. Now imagine your "future self" is another person you can help. Another person you can suffer for.
How would your life be different six months from now if you made those same sacrifices to help out your future self and put a smile on their face?
The deception is that sacrificing for others is good, but sacrificing for yourself is bad. Yet if you’re not taking care of yourself as you are now and growing into your greater potential, how can you show up in the world as your greatest self to help others unleash their greatness?
Growth is essentially nothing more than showing love for your future self; the willingness to sacrifice from “present self” for the good of your future self. An unwillingness to sacrifice right now is like being an ass to your future self and screwing them over. It’s like saying, “I’m gonna just be super comfortable now even though it’s totally going to screw you over, future self. Deal with it.” #DontBeAnAss #WhatDidYourFutureSelfEverDoToYou
Would you suffer willingly now out of love for your future self?
If you can find gratitude for how your “past self” hooked you up for your current reality, then from this state you can “pay it forward” and hook up your future self. This is the essence of growth. “What am I grateful for that I’ve done in the past? How can I pay it forward to me in the future?”
I point this out because CSM is about being willing to fail so that you can share your lessons with others so that they can grow. However you will receive the lessons too. This, in turn, helps you grow. It’s an act of love for others and for “future you.”
What does Case Study Mindset look like practically speaking?
A blog documenting one’s weight loss journey.
A book documenting 50 different experiments in one’s online business.
An online journal about one’s coping with addiction.
A YouTube video blog about the ups and downs of being a new parent.
Facebook updates about all the silly things one’s cat does. Actually, not sure if this counts as a case study, but I love silly cat videos so I encourage people to make them and share them with me. http://facebook.com/derekdoepker
Case studies are great when they talk about what works and also what doesn’t work. Even if you don’t share too much about what doesn’t work, if you’re like me, you may find that you’re at least far more willing to try things and fail because it’s all about making a good case study. You’ll be motivated to try new things so your case study isn’t super boring and useless.
Will everyone want to see your case study? Hell no. Some people will think you’re arrogant or stupid for do
ing this. Don’t worry, they’re probably not people you want to party with anyway.
I started writing this book as a case study to share the process of writing and releasing a book with other authors. By creating a case study, it got me off my ass from thinking about the book to actually writing it, trying many new outside-the-box promotional methods, and the rest is history. Or it will be when this book is the most epic bestselling book of all time. #FingersCrossed
Which reminds me, are you enjoying this book?
Sharing a review and spreading the word of how a particular book positively impacted your life would almost be like… a… “case study,” which would be something I’m sure you realize by now could totally rock your socks off. #JustSayin #HintHint #WinkWink #NudgeNudge
Many times people typically don’t want to fail, but most loving people do want to help others, including their future self, and would be willing to sacrifice to do so.
If you’re willing to be the one to fail so others don’t have to…
If you’re willing to sacrifice now to totally rock the world of the future you…
If you choose to be the leader, a trailblazer who ventures forward boldly to uncharted territory to help those who are too scared to go…
This is greatness.
You will be rewarded for it.
Do you choose to be a leader out of love?
“I Don’t Know” And That’s…
Those in a growth mindset are just as comfortable with questions, if not more so, than answers. They can turn confusion into curiosity. My frustration and confusion about why people are so full of shit, myself included, spurs me on a journey to uncover answers from psychology.
Did you notice this book is approximately ¼ questions? Does the constant question-asking get on your nerves because you just want a quick fix set of answers, or are you stimulated by the exploration and uncertainty the questions provide?
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