Fear of Success and the Influence of Positive Mindset

In yesterday's segment I opened with the following reference "American psychologist, Matina Souretis Horner, who was the 6th President of Radcliffe College is known for pioneering the concept of fear of success." An article from March 20, 1972 in Time Magazine indicated that "Even though the number of educated women is at an alltime high, the representation of women in the traditionally male professions is still extremely low. One likely reason for this paradox, says Harvard Psychologist Matina Horner, is that U.S. women actively fear success." The article continued with "The revelation about fear of success came from the one sex "cue" included in the experiment. Horner had modified the familiar TAT (Thematic Apperception Test*) to require males to write about the success of another male, females on the success of a female. Asked to write about a mythical girl at the top of her medical school class, more than 65% of the women associated her success with depression, illness and sometimes even death. Asked to write about a boy in the same position, 90% of the men equated his success with happiness and prosperity. The women obviously seemed afraid of success." Finally, "Horner discovered that women's fear of success increases with their ability, and that the greater their fear, the less well they do in competition with men. She also found that fear of success increases as women progress farther in school, affecting as many as 90% of college juniors." Joining me today to talk about how, and to what degree things have changed since Horner's research was presented in the 1972 article is Ingrid Elfver. Ingrid is one of the world's leading mindset experts, helping women (and highly evolved men) to understand how their current mindset might be hurting their business; why most entrepreneurs struggle to maintain a positive mindset; and how they can develop and maintain a positive mindset – one that can withstand any fear, doubt, challenge, or crisis.