I was thinking yesterday what keeps me from being more successful in my various efforts to create my Napkin Dad transnational mega global world dominating corporation and I think it’s because, cliche of all cliches, I am afraid of failure. What? who me? Not me.  I try all sorts of things. I have done the most outrageous things to get jobs, publicity, girlfriends, wives, kids (well, ok, what I did to get kids wasn’t all that outrageous).  
 
But what I really mean is what this quote is saying. I don’t like being embarrassed. Now, that is funny because anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t get embarrassed easily.  I was raised in a pretty immodest family so being naked never freaked me out. I can talk about any topic under the sun, in most any circumstances, and I won’t become embarrassed. I will try physical or mental challenges that I have no reason attempting. IN general, I don’t think about embarrassment.
 
But here is the key:  I don’t know it’s embarrassment that I am feeling and fearing. All I know is I don’t want to do something. I avoid it. I distract myself. I do work-arounds.  I do it myself instead of asking for help for fear of looking stupid in ways I think the person I am asking would never think I was.  
 
There is one quote I didn’t use this week that I really liked. It’s by Lynn Swann, the famous football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Here it is: ‘Some people play very, very well just so they won’t get embarrassed.’  People tend to be one or the other, the high achiever to avoid embarrassment, or the non-achiever. But I am both, just depends what day it is.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
 
Quote by Scott Adams, 1957 – not dead yet, American cartoonist, creator of Dilbert.
 
One year ago today on The Napkin Dad Daily: Everyone is Kneaded