You Did It— Now Go Do It Again

Heres the most important lesson you can learn from your past.

- Jason Feifer

I WAS AT A BAR a while back with MICK, a successful DJ who spins for celebrities and big brands, and we were discussing his future. He has ambitious plans to expand his business, but like any entrepreneur, he’s also concerned: Can he pull it off? What if he isn’t equipped for the next steps?

A day earlier, I’d heard a different example of that same fear. A friend in media was considering changing jobs and asked for my advice. She’s a rock star at her publication. “But at this new job, I’ll just be another employee,” she said. What if she can’t repeat the success she has right now?

Dig into anybody’s future plans and you’ll hit some version of this anxiety. It’s always there, aching and sometimes paralyzing. If we indulge it, we turn down amazing opportunities. We sacrifice our futures to cling to the past. We lose. And that’s unacceptable. The only way forward is to overcome this anxiety—and to do that, we first need to understand it. So let’s put the question another way. Let’s see it for what it really is.