“O

February    7th

FEAR    IS  A   SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

“Many   are harmed  by  fear    itself, and many    may have    come    to  their   fate    while   dreading    fate.”

—SENECA,    OEDIPUS,     992

nly the paranoid survive,” Andy Grove, a former CEO of Intel, famously said. It might be true.
But we also know that the paranoid often destroy themselves quicker and more spectacularly than
any enemy. Seneca, with his access and insight into the most powerful elite in Rome, would have seen this
dynamic play out quite vividly. Nero, the student whose excesses Seneca tried to curb, killed not only his
own mother and wife but eventually turned on Seneca, his mentor, too.
The combination of power, fear, and mania can be deadly. The leader, convinced that he might be
betrayed, acts first and betrays others first. Afraid that he’s not well liked, he works so hard to get others
to like him that it has the opposite effect. Convinced of mismanagement, he micromanages and becomes
the source of the mismanagement. And on and on—the things we fear or dread, we blindly inflict on
ourselves.
The next time you are afraid of some supposedly disastrous outcome, remember that if you don’t
control your impulses, if you lose your self-control, you may be the very source of the disaster you so
fear. It has happened to smarter and more powerful and more successful people. It can happen to us too.