I recently stumbled upon this interview with former NFL star Bill Romanowski, and the ending both staggered me and also resonated with me. The article was a look back at his crazy career and the insane training and work that went into it. Here’s what he said when he was asked why he did it all.
Once, after knee surgery in the off season, he was back in the gym four hours later with anesthesia still drifting through his head.
What was driving him? “A fear of failure. The fear of not being good enough,” Romanowski says. “In professional football the competition is so intense. ‘Is he good enough? Is he fast enough? Does he hit people hard enough? Does he get hurt a lot?’ I didn’t want that to happen to me. I didn’t want to lose my job.”
Bill Romanowski
It’s easy to laugh this off as a Football Guy being a Football Guy, which is partially what it is. But I’ve had such similar thoughts in my own life and career. I pretend as if I’m driven by a desire for achievement or so I can create good stuff for other people. That I operate out of rest, peace and joy. But the reality is often closer to fear of failure and the terror of being found out as incompetent than I would ever care to admit.