Most of the people you interact with will secretly or publicly, want you to fail.
It sounds counter-intuitive at first, but even if your success or failure has no impact on their everyday life whatsoever, people will still enjoy seeing you fail or give up.
Interestingly, this is very common.
Don’t rely on the support of others
Do you want to quit smoking? Your fellow smokers will come looking for you at the “coffee break”: “Oh boy, that’s right, you’ve quit. Don’t you want to come down anyway?”
Are you starting a diet? It will be the in-laws who will ask you: “why don’t you take some more cake? It would be silly to leave that alone.”
Are you going back to night school? There’ll always be some “great buddy” who’ll ask you out: “You can miss a class, can’t you? Just this once?”
Sounds familiar right?
When you wish to undertake or act in a general way to improve yourself (resuming studies, stopping smoking, starting a diet, practicing sports…), you are full of enthusiasm, willingness and happy to share your initiative.
But if you expect support from others, you will quickly become disillusioned.
When starting a business, you will struggle to get funding or even open a simple business account. No one (banks/administration/supplier will make you any gifts. Suppliers will ask you to be paid in cash, Banks will ask to be given lots of guarantees, administrations will ask you for yet another document before your company is up and running, etc..
As an entrepreneur, you will get support from other entrepreneurs; as an athlete, from other athletes; as a student, from other students; as a former smoker, from former smokers, in short, from everyone who has experienced or is experiencing change; and hopefully, from your closest friends and family. But still, beware of friends and family, sometimes they also want you to fail unconsciously.
Why this behavior?
I suppose that to see someone acting is to remember that you don’t act, and is therefore somehow uncomfortable. By seeing the person who acts failing or giving up, we would validate the fact that we did not act as the right behavior and therefore go back to our own comfort zone of not acting.
Moreover, enjoying the setbacks of others can also be a silly form of distraction or federation of a group (e.g. the endless conversations at the coffee machine).
Did it happen to you as well? Remember when you heard that Great Company Ltd. the company that some guy you knew from school went bankrupt, you were kind of happy it failed right? At least you probably understand why now.
Fewer friends, less drama
Important is for you to be able to find the right people around you. Those who want you to succeed.
Not everyone around you is evil. Sometimes even people who really care about you will want you to fail early so that you are not too disappointed or because they want the best for you. For example, if you drop school at 16 years old to build a company, your parents will probably want you to fail quickly so that you can go and study. Which for them seems like a better path.
Find people who share your positive mindset and who understand what you are going through. Building something is never easy so we all need support where we can find it.
