What Happens When You Play It Safe
The fourth in the 6-part series: Be Fearless; Step up and Play Big
Woody Allen once said “If you don’t experience failure now and then, then you are playing too safe”.
Once you get into the habit of playing it safe, you next begin to use with increasing frequency what I have found to be the most deadly and dangerous four letter word in our daily vocabulary – “can’t”. This is when you talk yourself into all of the things that you believe that you “can’t” do.
When you reach this point, alarms and warnings should be sounding. You are actually shrinking your capabilities. Eventually others (and you) will expect less from you and you will easily meet those lower expectations.
Over the years, I have coached or mentored 100’s of executives and business leaders to eliminate the devastating effects of the word “can’t”. When they said to me “I can’t”, my initial response was always “why not”? The discussion that followed generally led to discovering how the individual could stretch their capabilities – only if they were committed to doing the work to get to that place.
Step 4: What Happens When You Play It Safe