2615 Why Do We Sabotage Ourselves Just As Success Gets Close? Lessons from a Seminar

 

The Trigger

At a seminar I attended recently, I heard about a psychology concept called “fear of success.” Nobody wants to fail, yet when success gets close, we unconsciously ruin it ourselves.

What Is Fear of Success

According to the speaker, when success approaches, people unconsciously feel fears like:

• Others might resent me
• My responsibility might grow heavier

As a result, they undermine themselves right before success. That is fear of success.

Funny, but Familiar Examples

The speaker’s examples were:

• Someone who searched for six months for an English conversation school suddenly cancels with “maybe it’s not right” just before starting.
• A bride and groom who run away on their wedding day.

It makes you laugh, but what’s interesting is that the person is serious, and finds a perfectly good reason to quit at that moment.

The speaker also said that when a company’s top executive is in this state, the company ends up making decisions that undermine its growth just when it is about to take off.

I Recognize It in Myself

To be honest, listening to this, I wondered if it was about me.

At a previous company, I was transferred to the project department. After that, though, I acted in ways that made me less visible, and stayed away from new work. Even when I became a project director, I could have stepped forward more and things would have gone differently, yet I drifted away from that role.

It wasn’t that I ran away when trouble came. It was that I never really tried to step onto the stage in the first place.

Perhaps the fears the speaker mentioned, that responsibility would grow heavier or that others might resent me, were quietly at work. I can’t be sure. But noticing an invisible frame inside myself was a real takeaway.

In Project Management Too

I felt this could apply to projects as well. Just as the project reaches the final stretch, a decision is suddenly postponed with “let’s consider it a bit more.” Right before release, what had already been agreed is overturned. The reason looks perfectly reasonable at the time.

Of course, not everything is fear of success. But it is worth stopping to look at what is happening in people and organizations when success draws near.

The speaker’s recommended question helps here. Instead of “Why?”, ask “What would happen? What becomes possible?” If we succeed, what happens? What becomes possible? Painting that picture together may make the fear smaller.

As I wrote in my last post, whether you can notice your invisible frames, your paradigms, changes the outcome. Noticing a frame that fears success may be one of them.

From now on, before stepping onto the stage, I want to ask myself: “If I step up, what happens? What becomes possible?”

2614 “Z Generation Is Hard to Manage”: Whose Paradigm Is That? Lessons from a Seminar The Trigger

 

I recently attended an introductory seminar on “Paradigm Shift Communication.” The theme was that invisible frames of values, “paradigms,” determine our actions and results.

What stayed with me most was the discussion of generations.

A Paradigm Is a Frame You Can’t Change Even When You See It

According to the speaker, a paradigm differs from a simple assumption. You can fix an assumption once you realize it’s wrong. A paradigm, though, doesn’t let you change your behavior even when you know it’s wrong. We know eating late makes us gain weight, yet we eat. We read how-to books, yet we don’t act. Such invisible frames, he said, keep results out of reach even when ability and environment are in place.

How Generation X and Generation Z See the World Differently

The speaker described the generations like this:

• Generation X (born in the 1960s and 70s): Raised in an era when hard work paid off. Company and position tend to become their identity.
• Generation Z (born 1995 to 2010): Born with the internet, less influenced by the values of region or parents. Happiness is finding “this is me” and immersing themselves in it. They care little about salary or status, and think of a career as roughly three years. They are also highly aware of social issues.

Is Gen Z Really “Hard to Manage”?

The speaker said “Gen Z is hard to manage” is the paradigm of Generation X, and that the ones truly hard to manage are Generation X itself, with a laugh.

That was a good realization for me. Generation X, who make up much of today’s managerial level, sees Gen Z through the values of the environment they grew up in. That is why they can’t see Gen Z’s strengths: the ability to immerse themselves in something, the flexibility to stay free of old values, sensitivity to social issues. These should be great assets to any organization.

In Project Management Too

This connects to project work. In earlier posts, I wrote about “tailoring,” redesigning how a project runs to fit the situation, and “catch,” receiving the other person’s ball all the way through.

Before judging a team member by my own yardstick, I receive their ball first. The speaker’s way of asking also helps. “Why?” easily becomes a question that blames, so ask “What would happen? What becomes possible?” instead. Once you can see what someone immerses themselves in and where their strengths lie, you can design how to work with them.

Of course, generational labels are tendencies, and individuals vary widely. What matters is not stereotyping by generation, but noticing our own invisible frames.

2613 The Basics of Coaching Is Playing Catch: Receive the Other Person’s Ball Fully

 

The Trigger

I recently read a book (title to be added) that said the foundation of coaching and communication is playing catch. It sounds obvious, but it’s surprisingly hard to practice.

How Catch Falls Apart

Playing catch means throwing balls the other person can receive. Catch doesn’t work when you:

• Throw a fastball the other person can’t possibly catch
• Throw in a different direction from where they are
• Let the ball drop short of them

The Same Thing Happens in Conversation

In conversation, I recognize these patterns in myself. While someone is talking, I start thinking of another idea. I turn their story into one of my own examples. My attention drifts from listening to my own thoughts. In that moment, I’m not receiving the ball they’ve thrown.

What Matters in Coaching

It’s the same in coaching. First, receive the other person’s ball properly. Then return it and complete that exchange. And when the next ball comes, do the same.

In that repetition, the other person comes to feel safe speaking, and starts to organize their own experience and thinking. The coach’s role isn’t to throw fastballs and lead the way. It’s to keep returning balls the other person can catch.

In Project Management Too

The same breakdown in catch happens in project work.

Take a client hearing, for example. While listening, my mind is already on the next proposal or a similar case from the past. Or when a team member says, “I’m a little worried,” I switch the subject to my own experience before hearing what the worry is. In both cases, I’m throwing in a different direction without receiving the other person’s ball.

So I want to keep three things in mind:

• Receive: Listen until they finish, without inserting my own thoughts.
• Return and complete: Summarize back (“So, what you’re saying is...”) and confirm I haven’t drifted from their intent.
• Receive the next ball too: Only after confirming, return a question or a proposal.

It may sound obvious, but I believe requirement mismatches and overlooked small concerns can be prevented through this kind of accumulated listening. As a reminder to myself, I want to make it a habit to receive the other person’s ball all the way through firs

2612:What a 12-Year Break from Golf Taught Me: Change Is Where the Opportunity Is

 

What Surprised Me After 12 Years

I recently played a round for the first time in 12 years, and quite a few things had changed without my knowing.

1. You No Longer Have to Pull the Flagstick

You can now putt with the flagstick left in. The regulations had changed. Before the round, a member asked me, “You might not know this, but...” and that was how I found out. If no one had told me, I’d have pulled the flagstick on the green and putted as I always used to.

2. You Don’t Have to Keep Score Yourself

You enter scores on the iPad mounted on the cart, and after the round they are tallied and printed on paper for you. Putts are counted separately too. The day before, I’d gone to a 100-yen shop looking for a pen that writes well, and checked whether my old scorecard holder would still work. None of it was needed. The course handed me a locked scorecard case at the start, but whether to keep score yourself is now up to each player.

3. The iPad Does the Caddie’s Job

The iPad also shows the remaining distance and the distance to the group ahead. Almost unmanned, it performs the same functions as a traditional caddie. Unmanned carts existed before, but they couldn’t help with pace or tell you the distance remaining, so players bought their own watches or rangefinders. Unless you’re very particular about distances, the cart display now tells you enough to enjoy the game.

When Something for the Wealthy Becomes Available to Everyone

This round reminded me of something. New things and services are often reachable only by a wealthy few at first. Then, gradually, they come down to ordinary people. That moment can be a business opportunity.

Today, a private car with a driver is one example. And in the near future, AI and robots will bring things that are out of reach for most of us now within everyone’s grasp. Think of a personal secretary who manages your schedule and handles your research, or live-in household staff who cook, clean, and do the laundry. Until now, both have been available only to a wealthy few.

When times change, or rules and laws change, what matters is noticing the change and seizing the opportunity. The flagstick rule was the same: without knowing it, I’d have stuck to the old way. Keeping up with change and adjusting your approach to the situation is also at the heart of project management “tailoring.”

The Score

My front nine was a mess (62 on the IN course), but on the back nine (51 on the OUT course) my old feel returned, considering it had been 12 years. I’ll do my best next time.

2611 Connecting Past Experience into a Line: What Coaching Taught Me Through Golf

 

The Trigger

I recently started golf lessons again after a long break.

The last time I played was in 2014, in Cairo, Egypt. After that, I stepped away from golf entirely. This time, as I prepare to go independent and run my own business, a friend suggested that taking up golf again would be worthwhile — and that's what brought me back to the club.

My Self-Taught Years

Looking back, for about 12 years I never once took a lesson — I played entirely on my own instinct. During the years I lived abroad, I was out on the course at least once a week, sometimes two or three times, and my scores held together reasonably well as a result.

But after I moved back to Japan for good in 2006, I could never quite get my game together again. Between the demands of work and less practice time, I eventually put a period on it after that last round in Cairo in 2014, telling myself I was done with golf.

How Coaching Turns Dots Into a Line

This time, I started going to an indoor golf lesson, working with a pro and reviewing my swing on video. It's been two months now.

What struck me through this coaching was how the questions and issues that used to feel scattered — like disconnected dots — started linking together into a single line. As a result, I'm now swinging more consistently, and enjoying it more than I expected.

What I realized firsthand is that coaching isn't only powerful for someone starting from zero. It can be even more powerful for someone who already has real experience behind them — the hard failures as well as the successes — and comes back to be coached with all of that in hand.

Past experience, even past failure, isn't wasted. If anything, it's a valuable asset. Coaching, I think, is what reconnects that asset into something usable again.

A Perspective That Carries Over Into Project Management Consulting

This realization connects deeply with something I care about in my own work as a project management consultant.

I recently updated my own website, and at the heart of it is this same idea of coaching. My clients already carry their own experience — what's worked, what hasn't — and I want to take that experience, not leave it scattered, and reconnect it into a line through the right kind of coaching, then use that as the basis for moving them forward.

A golf swing and the way a project is run may, at their core, be the same kind of thing. The real value of coaching isn't teaching from scratch — it's taking the asset of experience someone already has and reconnecting it in the right way.