Success Begins Within

I had a friend who built his career on having been nominated for a major award. BIG award. But I noticed he was easily angered, and reactive, and fragile. A lot of boasting, a lot of certainty about things that frankly, have little objective reality. And I wondered why he was like this, why he literally STALKED me when I was discussing positive attitudes toward life, and work and life balance.

Anger is a mask over fear. Because he so easily slipped into anger, I wondered: with all of his success, what did he have to be so frightened of?

I saw him at the award ceremony, where he was waiting to see if he’d won. And in contrast to the other nominees he was dark, cynical, as if he would be insulted by either a loss OR a victory.

What in the world would produce this? In time, he blew up our friendship, which was predictable. But WHY was it predictable?

And it occurred to me that there was one circumstance that would explain it. HE FELT LIKE AN IMPOSTER. Perhaps, I thought, the accomplishment he’d been nominated for WASN’T REALLY HIS. I’m being deliberately oblique here, but what occurred to me is that if he didn’t feel pride of ownership in the work he’d been nominated for, which was responsible for making him a HUGE amount of money as others crowded to be near him…

If, for instance, one of the other people on the project was actually responsible but for some reason hadn’t taken credit…THAT would do it. He would feel like a fake, a fraud. Every time someone praised him…