Page 23 - Marky Stein - Fearless Career Change_ The Fast Track to Success in a New Field (2004)

Overcoming Your Fears

that launches her out onto her own? Do we call her first attempts
“failures” just because she ends up on the floor? Of course not, and
neither does she. She gets up and tries again! I’ve heard the story
of Thomas Edison, the genius who invented the lightbulb, many
times. According to the story, Edison’s friend approached him and
said, “Why in the world do you stay in your laboratory, trying time
and time again to make that thing work when you’ve failed a thou-
sand times already?” Edison purportedly answered, “No, you’re
wrong—it’s been 10,000 times, and I’ve succeeded every single
time in finding yet another way not to make a lightbulb!” Think
how many millions of households and factories might have had to
manage with candlelight for another hundred years had there not
been a man as brave as Edison. He truly “reframed” the meaning
of the word failure into something more like a “lesson”—and a suc-
cessful one at that. The fear of failure can be so constricting that
you lose the confidence and the ability to take risks—and you must
have both qualities if you’re going to make a successful career
change. My bet is that, even if you don’t have confidence now or
you are hesitant to take a risk, there was a time in your life when
you were unafraid. We’re going to uncover some of those times in
the next exercise.

For the first exercise, take a look at one of the fears you listed
above, and ask yourself these questions in relation to that fear.

1. What is the worst thing that can happen if I change careers?
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2. What’s the best thing that can happen?
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3. How likely is it that the worst thing will happen?
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