Responding with enthusiasm to failure is the opposite of fear.

​Running has taught me this. Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm. 

With running it's literal. When you fail, you either lay down or you get back up and run again. You hide from the starting line or you put the toes of your Brooks right up against it and say, bring it on. You either see failure as "the end" or "once upon a time."

There's a difference in the kind of people who lay down and those who get back up. 

The people who lay down, they lay down because they didn't accomplish "something" they hoped would set them apart. They didn't experience a victory they hoped would define them. These are people who allow "something" to beat them. 

The people who get back up - put that toe against the line - they are people who are setting out to be someone, not achieve something. They are people looking to be defined by an attitude, not a victory. An attitude that says, I was bad enough to try it once, oh be sure, I'll be bad enough to try it again. 

Responding with enthusiasm to failure is the opposite of fear. 

Enthusiasm knows no failure. In fact, it might delight in it. Enthusiasm jumps at the chance to remake failure into an attitude of "oh no you don't." 

Fear looks to remake failure into a belief of "oh no you can't." 

The key is understanding success isn't some end point. It's a journey. And failure along the way, well that's probably the surest sign we have that our journey is one that is making us the best person we can be, even if that means we don't achieve everything we think we want to achieve. 

We can look to the end of life and ask, do I want to say I became the person I was called to be, or that I achieved everything I ever wanted to achieve. 

Only one of those is worth being enthusiastic about. Only one of those sees failure as the beginning, and not the end.