Shift your focus to something positive every time you find your thoughts, words and emotions not in alignment with being positive. Example is you failed a test so you give up rather than take it again. Instead focus on what you can do to ensure you pass that test next time.
The Fear of Failure is one of the most common restraints that holds people back from pursuing great ideas. Imagine if we could become totally free from the fear of failure. Imagine what we could then manifest and create. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who can share stories and insights from their experience about “Becoming Free From the Fear of Failure.”
As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Robin Ann Stoltman.
Robin Stoltman is America’s #1 Intuitive Parenting Expert and Healer, Author, and podcast host. She is the founder and CEO of Healing for the Soul+ LLC. Her mission is to teach busy Moms who have experienced trauma how to unlock the power of their own mind to have anything they want.
I earned a director’s award from the nation’s only accredited college of hypnotherapy, Hypnosis Motivation Institute, where I also earned my diploma in hypnotherapy. I am a certified Usui Holy Fire Reiki Master in addition to other certifications I have with over twenty of them being related to mindset behaviors. I have been featured in many media outlets such as Giddy, Authority Magazine, Thrive Global, several podcasts, two books and many others. I am a statewide resource for mental health in South Dakota’s 211 resource Helpline.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
I was inspired to create my company, Healing for the Soul+ LLC after surviving multiple childhood traumas, a severe brain injury and then having Minnesota Child Protective Services steal my first son at just four days old without any court orders or proof.
It was from my own personal traumas I decided to start seeking out ways to heal as traditional ways of medications and talk therapy were more harmful than helpful. I have met other people who found the same to be true for them regarding traditional methods. This experience gave me the ability to help other people know there are other ways to heal they may not have otherwise thought of.
People in general need to focus on the true intention behind the results they are wanting from whatever modality it is they are seeking help with. Example of this for me is my true intention was to help myself heal from the trauma that Minnesota Child Protection caused to me and my family.
I never planned to help other people or start a now thriving mindset focused company from my own healing journey as an intention when I first started taking classes for hypnotherapy. The intention for the business aspect came from seeing the need to help other people release their trauma and other un-healed emotions. Now I help people in releasing negative emotions, anxiety, and self-limiting beliefs related to all of life’s challenges.
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
The most interesting story from my career is how many people believe that hypnosis is different from “guided meditation”. Hypnosis and guided meditation are the exact same modality. The intention is what matters behind it and how well the person is educated in their field of practice. Anytime someone is playing music in the background and there is talking that is hypnosis.
It is a natural state we all go into several times a day which is why we have “day dreaming” or we miss the exit when driving. That is hypnosis. It’s our brains way of conserving energy. I get a lot of questions and a lot of myths I dispel in my profession thanks to movies and stage hypnosis shows.
The lessons it has gave me between dispelling myths and questions I get is people in general do not understand the full power of their own mind. Anyone can make their life better simply by shifting what they choose to focus on. Complaining about others who have money and success we desire pushes it further away from us. Law of attraction proves this point.
Once you become aware of your thoughts and actions and or lack of actions as a result as that created your current reality as that is the first step towards the healing process of making a firm decision you deserve more out of life. You can control your emotions and thoughts 100% of the time as get more of whatever you focus on.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
My first character trait that has been the most vital for my success is my belief in God. There was time in my life I left God. I will never go back down that road again. Having the belief of someone being greater than I am being able to do more than I can to help guide me in life has been my biggest factor to my success. Research has proven many times the importance of belief of someone or something greater than ourselves determines a lot on our success and ability to overcome life’s obstacles.
My second character trait is the ability to prove other people wrong. Let me explain. When the doctor told me I could not have children due to diagnosis of infertility I decided that no matter what happens I am willing to die to have at least one child. Little did I know the power of my own mind in 2008 as by 2013 I was pregnant with identical twins. I miscarried in January 2014. The story behind this is now I have been pregnant a total of eight times, with five living children, with another one to be born in August 2022.
That ability to prove others wrong really is the ability to prove myself wrong. Most people know this as reverse psychology. Proving my ego wrong into questioning my own thoughts and actions as it is a tool to empower myself to do what I am told I cannot do. I used self-hypnosis among other methods to become pregnant naturally after fertility drugs did not work. I was unaware of all the methods I had used to conceive at the time until I started unpacking the exact methods I use, and it has worked for other couples to conceive.
My third character trait is the ability to keep going no matter what happens. My husband and I our first living son being stolen at four days old in Alexandria, MN on July 16, 2015 by Minnesota Child Protection without court orders or proof is the perfect example of having the ability to keep going no matter what happens. We fought together, we lost together the one son for now.
Together him and I have made it through two miscarriages, out of state moves and more than any other marriage I know of as we fought together. 80% of couples split after one child loss. That ability to keep going no matter what is what keeps us going. It’s the fire within our souls we all have knowing to give it one more day when we want to quit. I have asked myself plenty of times when I am having a rough day, “what did I do to overcome the last situation I thought was hard?”
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the concept of becoming free from failure. Let’s zoom in a bit. From your experience, why exactly are people so afraid of failure? Why is failure so frightening to us?
People are afraid of failure based on childhood. It is our parents, society, and peers that limit you and along with the decisions you choose from these limits placed onto you before age eight. In my example I have is the fear of having money is just as common as the fear of not having money. It is the way your parents talked about money and the way you chose to take in their beliefs surrounding money.
If Mom had a business in a network marketing company or some may know it as multi-level marketing. She did not make any money in it or if she did make some money that was not enough to pay bills. If your Dad was yelling at Mom about not having enough money to pay the bills from her self-employment your decision as a child maybe to be against network marketing.
You may now view it and or believe it is a pyramid scheme or “get rich quick” scheme based on the thoughts, and emotions you had and saw at the time from this interaction growing up. You may take on that fear of failure as well subconsciously not realizing where that fear of failure stemmed from.
The fact is network marketing and or multi-level marketing (mlms) are not a pyramid or get rich quick scheme. It is performance based like selling auto or life insurance is. It is purely based on the person’s actions or lack of actions that create wealth in their business. When people fail in network marketing or any business, they are unaware they have to first focus on personal development to become successful in it along with treating it like an actual real business that it is.
This failure can be frightening as society in general frowns down upon people who they view are not successful. Society places high value of “success” equals wealth, abundance and does not generally view relationships, or having a steady place to live as success for examples. This creates more shame of being a mistake that the child inside of you would have learned from the example I gave. That it is better not to do anything that could lead to failure.
The child in my example grows up to be an adult as has successfully learned in their programming from that one experience that it is to best to avoid failure at all costs rather than being able to learn from the mistakes.
That emotional pain of failure is too much to handle emotionally based on the programming from childhood. People must focus on the intention they are setting and remind themselves daily of their end goal they are seeking. That is why having a “why” is vital to success. Without a solid why for any task in life including relationships, failure is guaranteed when things get hard. This lack of why leads to unhappiness in jobs, relationships, etc.
What are the downsides of being afraid of failure? How can it limit people?
The downsides of being afraid of failure is not living up to your full potential. It is similar to deathbed regrets that you have. It is the I wish I would have done more in my life than what I did. The fear of failure truly limits people in their career, family, number of children they want, how much money they make, what relationships they have as it ripples out into everything. The fear of failure stops people from knowing they can heal from within.
That fear of failure tells you need this medication to have lower blood pressure. For example, that diet you did, you failed after one day or thirty days later so it’s better to keep taking that medication rather than find another way to lose weight. That is based on your programming as a child that it is better to give up and fail rather than do it again.
All diets are the same the mind thinks as a generalization based on what the person perceives to be “true” in their surroundings until it finds something better that does actually work. Dealing with the root cause of why a person has the weight on and truly does not want to lose it is what I help people with in dealing with failures from the past.
This is why weight loss is a billion-dollar industry as its truly a yo-yo industry that does not address the root cause of the eating problem or the past failures in lifestyle habits involving food. I am not saying to stop medication. I am saying this is an example of the fear of failure showing up. The mind will always take the path of least amount of effort to avoid having to work on the real problem that caused the issue. This is what really limits people is avoiding the emotional root cause of any problem.
In contrast, can you help articulate a few ways how becoming free from the free of failure can help improve our lives?
Becoming free from the fear of failure will bring in success and that can trigger a fear of success in some people. To prevent underlying fear of success its best to address both failure and the success. It’s asking the fear of failure in a pros and cons list format giving both sides a voice like in parts integration out of neuro linguistic programming (NLP) to have both parts offer the greatest good as to what the pros and cons are to the fear which allows the mind to achieve the highest good of releasing the fear of failure.
Breaking free from fear of failure will allow you more money, productivity, eliminates procrastination to name a few and in return giving you peace, joy, happiness, and or anything you desire. This does take time to consistently work on that fear of failure. Breaking free from failure is amazing as you will accomplish more than you ever thought possible.
We would love to hear your story about your experience dealing with failure. Would you be able to share a story about that with us?
I have had plenty of failures in my life like most people. I have been in network marketing for over ten years prior to starting, Healing for the Soul+LLC. I started in Tupperware. I love Tupperware for me personally I did not like to sell it as much as I thought I would. I have moved onto other companies. I realized I would earn a quick start reward like jewelry or a car flag from the company then I would stop. It was the fear of what if I succeed in this company only to lose what I built in it. It was from my own healing journey I realized this fear of failure and or success came from childhood.
As a child I loved Barbies. I wanted her dream house and I never got it. As an adult doing the inner child work giving myself in hypnosis (guided meditation) that time my parents (divorced when I was three years old) did not give as they had to work outside the home or every other weekend I had to go to other parent’s house. It was not Barbie’s dream house I wanted as a child. It was my parent’s time I needed.
My biological Dad was always willing to buy me things as a child versus give me his time. In hypnosis I gave myself time to play barbies using my imagination as that is imagery. Once I gave the inner child, Robin, the time to play Barbies that my Dad did not give me as a child it allowed me to break that fear of success.
How did you rebound and recover after that? What did you learn from this whole episode? What advice would you give to others based on that story?
I had a dual fear of success and failure that did stop me from achieving more. I have worked several times on both fears with my wonderful hypnotherapist and mentor, Palmer Belvins, who owns, Blevins Hypnotherapy and Pawo Mindfulness. He helped me realize how both the fears I had were triggering each other and how the inner child, Robin, needed to get what she wanted in order for me to move on.
Self-care as an adult I am willing to give myself every day as that is the compromise my inner child, Robin, and my adult self was willing to do to break free from fear of success. We all have an inner child who did not get something and that does keep us stuck in our adult life until we choose to address it.
The fear of failure for me stemmed from a bet I made in school with a classmate who knew something ahead of time in gym class that I was unaware of at that time when we placed that bet. I got in trouble with the school at home and I learned to doubt myself, second guess myself, that no matter how many successes I did have that I would lose it all or be in trouble.
That for me was the fear of failure the start of how it happened. That fear of failure has played out many times in my adult life. I decided to remove that self-limiting belief and decision I had made based on that one event after discovering it.
It sounds ridiculous that something that small at the time as a child would affect me as an adult looking back. To the child brain that was a significant event that got stuck in my subconscious mind. I learned until I view the “failure” as feedback there is not a way to stop that event from re-occurring later in life as a different format. I had to take the learnings from it as an adult who can reason logically, and understand mistakes happen and that is okay.
Failure is feedback same for mistakes we need to learn from. We all can learn from mistakes as it’s how we learn same for children. Beating ourselves up is learned from our parents and our environment as a child which is not helpful at all as an adult. It can stop us from a potential higher success later in life. It is nothing to be ashamed of when we admit our mistakes and learn from them.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that everyone can take to become free from the fear of failure”? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Become aware of the self-talk. If you think you are a failure your brain (subconscious mind) will gladly show you every time you have failed.
- Become aware of the people you are around in how they view you and what they say about you. Negative people, places, music, social media, etc does contribute to your failure and or lack of success.
- Shift your focus to something positive every time you find your thoughts, words and emotions not in alignment with being positive. Example is you failed a test so you give up rather than take it again. Instead focus on what you can do to ensure you pass that test next time.
- Be willing to do whatever it takes to break free from failure knowing the other side is success. Napoleon Hill aced the definition of the most powerful way to beat failure or anything negative in life is to find a small number of members for your mastermind to learn from that build your character up.
- Have a positive support person or a small three-to-four-person mastermind. This is in the Think and Grow Rich book, by Napoleon Hill. I highly recommend his book to anyone who is serious about wanting success and wealth. I do have a small mastermind myself that includes Palmer Belvins (my hypnotherapist), Glen Henderson (Father figure I wish I had growing up; who is my business partner), and my husband of over 10 years, Jeffrey Stoltman Jr that I have had all our wonderful children with.
Jeffrey reminds me of all the testimonials I have and the work we have done for our own business. He reminds me when I feel like giving up it is not an option. These three men I mentioned combined have pushed me beyond my comfort zone into success to break free from failure ultimately changing my life. That is the key to my long term success of having my ability of being willing to do whatever it takes to achieve my goals and asking for help to ensure my goals are met.
The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.” Based on your experience, have you found this quote to be true? What do you think Aristotle really meant?
It is possible to fail in many ways in life from relationships to careers to self-care. Albert Einstein “failed” the lightbulb we all now enjoy after he learned 10,000 ways it did not work. He had plenty of people telling him to give up. People can only become true failures when they quit giving up on their dreams or goals rather than finding out a different way to make it work. The main cause being the lack of self-development (self-investment) as all business problems is a reflection of personal problems.
Aristotle’s quote is accurate. The only way to succeed is never give up. Most people quit three feet from their goal every time. Guaranteed failure is giving up and quitting not thinking of another way to get the results they are seeking. Everyone can have the life they dream of without the fear of failure. Very few people are willing to do the work that is required to achieve it. That is why only about 5% of the world’s population are millionaires and or billionaires.
They are the ones who refused to quit. They are the ones who overcame their own fears by choosing to invest in themselves versus complain about their life like so many people love to do. They are the ones I am thankful for so I can learn from the millionaires as without them no one would have a job or a path to learn from.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Read, study, and apply Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill. Study successful people as they leave clues behind what they did to achieve it. Become aware of your own root for the fear of failure and eliminate it with a qualified hypnotherapist like myself who attended college studying the behaviors of the mind.
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 😊
I would love to meet Steve Harvey in person, that would be the most amazing gift. Steve Harvey has saved my life more than once with his YouTube videos of Motivation. To thank him and have him personally give me hope to never give up on getting my son back would be one of the best gifts I could ever receive in this world.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
The best way to follow my work online is to subscribe to any of my social media channels: LinkedIn , Facebook business page: Healing for the Soul, Instagram: thehealingforthesoul, Healing for the Soul Podcast, and my website: https://healingforthesoulplus.com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.