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Burnout by Design: How the Bootstrap Mentality is Making the Rich, Richer By Destroying the Competition — You
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Why Do We Believe in Impossible Things?
I’m not exempt from this deepseated belief that the highest form of success is a fiercely independant, ‘I can do everything all by myself’ mentality. Just last week I found myself in tears over an incident involving transporting my youngest to and from an evening activity. (I’ll link to the podcast “Red Lights, Giraffes Kicking Kids, and Redefining Strength: When Being a Good Mother Means Letting Go” down below if you want to hear the whole story.)
The Bootstrap Mentality infects every aspect of our personal lives, our businesses, our relationships, and it’s destroying us from the inside out like a parasite.
Bootstraps: We’re Missing the Point
To pull yourself up by your boot straps is literally an impossible task, try it someday, how quickly do you get off the floor by tugging your shoe?
The purpose of a bootstrap is to firmly enclose your foot in the boot.
And yet the wealthy regale us with tales of their “self-made success.” These are fairy tales. No one succeeds on their own. No one.
The bootstrap they keep telling us to pull on to find success, is actually the noose around our necks.
And we keep pulling it tighter.
Still skeptical? Let me ask you one simple question.
Can you name a single business that can be a financial success without any employees, vendors, or wait for it… customers?
No?
My point.
They didn’t do it alone, and neither will you.
The expression “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” first appeared in the late 19th century, originating from a physics textbook. The book posed the question, “Why can’t a man lift…
