Success Can Become a Subconscious Mirage

I’ve been thinking about how success and the pursuit of it can be a deception or mirage that blinds us to missing or discounting the red flags of many businesses and families today.

There was a time in which a previous business of ours had moved from the idea stage to producing and then thriving. In the excitement of ideas, implementation, and ensuing success, I began to subconsciously buy into the identity that “I knew what I was doing, and what I was doing was working, and because it was working, success would continue to happen.

This led into the biggest identity deception of all--because of my external success, there was no need to support it with internal self-growth. I was placing my family and my business at risk.

I remember thinking “Why should I read a book, be open to other ideas, prepare for change when I am so successful?”

It strikes me that logically that sounds foolish, you absolutely do want to be open to change, ideas, and personal growth, but my experience and the science shows that our external outcomes-good or bad, can trigger habits of thinking that then create deception in how we see ourselves and situations. This blinds our logic and common sense, and we can miss the red flags or warning signs.

That is exactly what happened to us. Things did change in our business, in the markets, and my focus on the external outcomes, did not prepare me to be open to new ideas, handling the emotions of change and pressure, or how to deal with all of the sabotaging habits of thinking-- we ended up in bankruptcy.

It strikes me that when we are chasing “success” in a business or our family, if we focus our resources on the external events and outcomes, we get temporary energy and excitement, but by themselves these activities are not long-term renewal energy creators for the sustainability of the people within our families or the business, but self-growth, and learning how to shift habits of thinking, and becoming emotionally resilient are.

Our external outcomes will always reflect our attention to our internal self-growth.

If it would serve you to have a discussion about how the subconscious is impacting your business growth, relationships, or how you see or feel about yourself, please DM me.