The Stoic philosopher, Seneca, wrote: "Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future." If His words still ring true today because FEAR is still the #1 determinant of your career satisfaction and success.

Your fears dictate what you value and how you manage your most precious resources (time, money, energy), your fears set your tolerance for dysfunction and disrespect in the workplace, and most importantly for high-achievers and those who aspire to leadership, your fears throttle your motivation to disrupt the status quo on behalf of yourself, your colleagues, your clients, or your customers.

And perversely, the harder you work to avoid the things that scare you, the more they control your success, and the longer it takes to build a satisfying and successful career.

Don’t Work For The Wrong Reward

The five fears I hear about most often from my high-achieving clients are: (1) fear of being found out as failure or a fraud; (2) fear of killing the vibe and losing critical support, (3) fear of making the wrong call and being blamed for it, (4) fear of unleashing the resentment and rage they have been harboring, and (5) fear of succeeding in a way they won’t be able to handle.

But before any client articulates these fears to me, they've already been running some rapid cost-benefit analyses in the recesses of their brain - usually for months and sometimes years! - and the majority of their calculations have led them to keep working for the wrong kind of reward, or what I call the survivor's high.

The survivor’s high is the rush of relief you feel when you complete a deliverable on time but with minimal creative risk. It’s the buzzy exhale you release when you’ve spoken diplomatically in a high-stakes meeting and received no pushback.

But emerging research shows that your brain can perceive those sensations as the reward itself and, over time, actually drive you to seek out more false wins, where you show up but play it safe.

Start Building A Fearless Mindset

To avoid finding yourself two or three decades into a career that feels safe and unsatisfying, you need to look beyond standard development plans and start doing some deeper work.

Deeply visualize the satisfying and successful career you’ve always wanted in vivid detail, so you feel more emotionally connected to your end-game.
Find a skilled coach who can help you isolate the specific thought-feeling-behavior patterns that keep producing your survivor's high and keep you playing small.
Identify the scariest voice in your head that pipes up whenever you consider facing your fears at work, and keep a journal of what they say and what scares them the most!
Learn how to intercept fear and coach yourself into new beliefs that are personal, inarguable, and fearless.
Complete a series of simple yet significant actions to train your brain how good real wins feel, so it can pursue more of the highs that make you wonder what else you might be capable of!

This kind of deep work takes some courage and commitment, but when you do it with a partner, it’s much less scary and much more effective!

And because 2026 is just around the corner, and the only thing worse than chasing the survivors high is watching big opportunities pass you by, you might as well get started!