Ep 142: Toni Everard - The Hidden Cost of Success

Most people think they're afraid of success.

But what if you're not afraid of succeeding at all?

What if you're actually afraid of what success might cost you?

In this episode, Toni Everard explores the hidden beliefs and unconscious loyalties that often keep people stuck in business, money, leadership, and life. She unpacks why so many ambitious, heart-led entrepreneurs find themselves sabotaging growth, not because they don't want it, but because of the meaning they've attached to it.

This conversation goes far beyond mindset hacks and motivation. It reveals how childhood conditioning, identity, relationships, and the need for belonging can quietly shape the limits we place on ourselves, and how reclaiming your personal power changes everything.

This episode explores:

• why fear of success is often really fear of what success will cost you

• how unconscious stories about money, business, and achievement shape your decisions

• why success can feel unsafe when it's associated with sacrifice, pressure, or losing freedom

• the hidden role family dynamics, relationships, and loyalty play in self-sabotage

• why many people choose belonging over their own dreams without realizing it

• how making yourself smaller to keep others comfortable limits your growth

• the difference between power over others and true personal power

• why visibility, leadership, and influence require deeper self-trust

• how childhood conditioning becomes identity and holds you back as an adult

• why creating success isn't about working harder, it's about becoming the person who can hold it

• how releasing guilt, fear of judgment, and emotional responsibility for others creates more freedom

• the powerful question that can transform your relationship with success:
"What do you believe success will cost you, and is it actually true?"

If you've ever felt like you're working against yourself, struggling to grow your business, or holding back from the life you know you're capable of creating, this episode will help you uncover what's really underneath, and show you that success doesn't have to come at the expense of your freedom, your relationships, or who you truly are.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome back to the Coaching Circle. And, I'm gonna be talking about something today that I see that comes up a lot, and it's definitely something that I've had to work on for myself. and it's something that sits underneath so many of the challenges that people have when they're in business or around money and leadership and visibility and life in general, to be honest.

But what we often hear people talk about is fear of failure and fear of success. And although those things appear in some forms, what I've really come to notice after working with hundreds and probably thousands of clients over the years is that it's not that people are afraid of success itself, it's that they're generally afraid of what they believe success will cost them, right?

[00:01:00] What it will require them to become, and what they think they might lose along the way. And this is really important because whenever it is that you say you want something, to bring something into your life, you're going to have to let go of something in your life, because you can't just keep bringing in, in more things and holding everything.

Something will ultimately go that you'll spend less time, money, attention on. And, so when people say that they want more clients or more income or more freedom, even more influence, right? Or a bigger business, then there's often this other question running quietly in the background which says, 

"What will this cost me?
"What will I have to give up?" 

And doesn't necessarily need to be financially, it might not be financially at all. Could be emotionally, relationally, like, how you relate to people. Could be, your life personally. But until that question is answered or until your mind finds a way to make it okay for you, you end up finding yourself stuck between what you say you want and 

[00:02:00] what you're actually willing to allow yourself to have.
Now, and this is really important because it can show up in different contexts in life, and you might have been in a stage of life before where perhaps you were in a particular job or something like that, and, or a particular relationship or whatever, and you had all of the things that you thought you wanted, but then maybe there was a big change.

Or maybe then you started your business and in a different context, it doesn't feel as easy to be able to cre- create that. And the, the most I see this in is really when people start businesses and their relationship to, business and money. And so what we have to look at is, what are the stories that you've learned about success?
And everyone has, been exposed to some, some examples of success. And the question is whether those examples made success look, attractive to you, or whether it looked in some way dangerous.

[00:03:00] Now when I say dangerous, we should make a difference here. There's a difference between fear and danger.
fear is, our perception of things and danger is like you're in actual, actual danger, and there's a big difference. And so, maybe you watched your parents work constantly and never seemed to enjoy life, or maybe you saw business owners carrying huge amounts of stress, or, maybe you watched people make money while sacrificing their health or their relationships or happiness.

These are definitely stories I've seen. I had a story, like my dad was in business, and I swore at one stage in my life that I would never be in business after watching my dad be in business. I had to do a lot of coaching with myself around that. I've had other clients telling me about, their concerns about, the, their relationship and what they've seen with their parents, like divorcing and, one parent going on 

[00:04:00] And having a  new relationship and getting a lot of success in business.
and, a lot of fears around what might happen that could go wrong that you've seen. And, so, it's really important that we understand what it is these things that we've seen and what success looked like, especially in your younger years, and that can help you understand why you might resist it.

So, you might be saying you want more income, but your mind unconsciously might be seeing that as more pressure. Or you might be saying, you want more clients, but underneath your mind's saying that sees, that's gonna be overwhelming. and so, even growing your business, a lot of people talk about when they say growing their business, their fear is that they're gonna be just be working all of these hours and have less freedom but the challenge isn't success itself, it's the meaning that you've attached to it, and it's also realizing that creating success is really about your own development, right?

[00:05:00] There's no fixed, like, model of what success looks like. It's that you're growing into the person who creates success that works for you. And so this is why growth can feel unsafe, and I see it a lot, especially with, really heart-led business owners and service providers and coaches and, practitioners and therapists.

And many of them really want to grow, but when we dig deeper around what's holding them back, they're worried about what growth actually means. and will it mean that they lose their freedom or not have enough time for their family, or will they become exhausted or, like, literally wear themselves out, especially people that are, like, body workers and things like that were they gonna spend their whole life working? And so, if success is associated with sacrifice, then of course there's gonna be some resistance, and, and your mind's gonna try to protect you from an outcome that it believes is undesirable or that's gonna cause you more discomfort. 

[00:06:00] So the solution isn't forcing yourself to work harder.
This is the real key thing. The solution is creating a different model of success, and one that actually supports the life that you want, and one where success doesn't automatically mean more effort. and so you really wanna be creating a business especially that supports your lifestyle rather than consume you.

And this is really important, and you'll hear me talk about this a lot because business is a big part of our personal evolution, and the ease at which you can master business and the structures of business is the ease at what you'll create for, for yourself in your life around your time and your money and your energy, is we've gotta be understand the structure of business.

And the better we can do that, the more success you can have with less strain on yourself. Now, the thing when I talk about having a successful business though, that is a really important part of this.

[00:07:00] And that is that your success is directly correlated to your own personal power. Now, when I say power, I talk about power and authority a lot because it applies so much to people who, especially in business.

And when I say power, I'm not talking about power over other people, and this is where a lot of people reject power because they're like, "Oh, I don't wanna be one of these horrible people that's, like, got power over others." But true power is power over your own reality, power over your own life and being able to create what it is that you want in your life.

So that's really the ability to make decisions and to trust yourself, and to create, rather than waiting for permission. Okay? Nobody else is gonna tell you that success is okay. You have to tell yourself. And for many people, that's very uncharted territory, and, especially if you grew up learning that being powerful was risky because most people were conditioned, with fear, right?

[00:08:00] Children are easier to control when they're in fear, but it does not empower people to grow up and create what it is that they want when they're conditioned, to do what they're told or else. And so, if creating what you want and going after what you want attracted criticism or, created conflict for you or got yourself in trouble at some stage, then even as an adult, unconsciously it's gonna feel like going after what you want and being really visible in that, in your own ambition, can really feel uncomfortable, and it can feel like something bad is going to happen.

But this is the thing that, we have to realize, is that if your success makes other people uncomfortable now, that's not your responsibility. You're not stopping them from creating success for themselves. The only reason they'll be uncomfortable about it is because you're doing what they wanna do,

[00:09:00] And so you wanna turn into an inspiration for them, not limit yourself to make them feel better in their own pity party of their limitations So the really important thing is that you have to know that if you wanna grow your business and be more successful in business, you're gonna have to be seen, like be more visible, and be seen as someone going after what you want. Okay? You're not gonna be able to do it quietly where nobody knows who you are. You're not gonna do it as the best-kept secret. and so that's the conflict that people often have. And so, the more successful you become, the more naturally your influence increases, and it requires you to trust yourself more deeply as well.

And that means that you need to lead yourself. You need to lead yourself, and then ultimately you'll be leading others. And so if you've been spending years making yourself smaller to keep other people comfortable, that can feel really confronting as well, right? 

[00:10:00] And this is what leads me to my next point around loyalty.
And this is the loyalty that nobody really talks about because they're usually unaware of it. But this is, is super interesting because many people think that they're holding themselves back, but what often is actually happening is that they are being loyal to the relationships and the stories that they have around them. Okay? So they might be loyal to their family stories around business and success and money. they might be loyal to their friendship groups and, what's possible with their friends. They might be loyal to their old identities. That can be a real thing sometimes, like saying goodbye to your old self can feel really weird, to step into, your new successful self.

People can be really loyal to the people that they love, so in relationships you might be loyal to the dynamics of what's been already standing in your relationship.  

[00:11:00] So making more money or being more successful or being more visible or having more influence might feel like it's going to have an impact on your relationship And, and ultimately, we have to remember that as children, we learned how to stay connected, right?

We learn how to stay connected because it's a very human thing, that people want to feel connection and they wanna feel belonging. And we learn what gets approval, right? We want to, people to approve of our choices so that we stay connected. So we learn what keeps us safe, and sometimes that means, becoming overly responsible for other people's stuff, other people's feelings.

Sometimes it means keeping quiet. sometimes it means that, being the helper, or the one that never really asks for much. And so although those strategies might have helped, worked for you when you were young

[00:12:00] and kept you connected and kept you feeling safe in your situation, these become a problem. These same strategies become a problem when you want to create something beyond the environment that you've been used to. And, and so many people that I speak with are usually unconscious about who they're staying loyal to or what they're staying loyal to, right? That version of themselves that no longer supports the life that they want to create.

And, and so what happens is people abandon their own desires in order to maintain a sense of belonging or loyalty to where they've been And, and so this is what's really important and for you to really consider for yourself, right, is have you been abandoning your own needs and desires to keep other people comfortable?

[00:13:00] Because, when we look at a lot of the fears around success, you often find that, like, losing connection is a big one. Losing connection to people or being judged by people. it's like, it's kind of like if you suddenly you've grown up with people going, "Oh, it's so hard," and, "Money is so scarce," and, "You have to work so hard for your money," and, all of these kinds of things, and then you start living in a completely different way, it can sometimes feel like you're putting it in the face of those people, right?
And going, "Yeah, your story's irrelevant. Your suffering's irrelevant because look at me go." That's not my problem, right? So, people worry about this stuff. What if my friends think I've changed? Or what if I become too successful and people don't understand me anymore? And, and so, a lot of these fears aren't really about money and business, they're about relationships, and they're about belonging, and they're about connection.

[00:14:00] And, and so, people will choose connection at the expense of their own desires without realizing that they're even making that choice. And so the, the result is you end up living a life that reflects everyone else's expectations rather than your own desires And this can be really difficult because, so many people that I work with feel or have this fear of like, "Oh, I'm gonna be seen as selfish if I focus on myself."
And yes, you are supposed to be selfish, right? You're supposed to be selfish. You're supposed to focus on yourself and what it is that you wanna create, and everybody else is supposed to do the same thing. And ultimately, you'll do it alongside of each other, adding to each other's lives without holding each other back.
Now, imagine that. Imagine if you lived in a reality where you got to be an adult, and all you had to worry about was, creating what it is that you wanted to create, 

[00:15:00] and you could trust that the other adults around you would take responsibility for their emotions and what they wanna create.
Sounds like some funky utopia, doesn't it? But that's essentially what we want to move towards. and really understanding this is a big part of the reason why I developed the Turning Point process. now, if you haven't heard me talk about the Turning Point process, I've written a book on it, and you can go to the show notes and order a copy of it.
But it's such a powerful process 'cause it really helps us get back to, the truth of who we are and what we're deserving of. And so at the beginning of the Turning Point process, we acknowledge something incredibly important that is often missing when people feel like they're holding themselves back, and that is to really understand that every human being on the planet enters the world as a completely innocent baby, 

[00:16:00] and that baby does not have to earn love or acceptance or respect.
It's deserving of it, right? when you see a brand-new baby come into the world, you look at that baby and go, "This baby's amazing. It's like the most gorgeous baby I've ever seen. It's beautiful. It's innocent. It's deserving of love and being protected and valued and belonging and, and having whatever great life it wants to have."
like we never, we never look at a baby and go, "Oh, this baby can, be the one that takes responsibility for my emotions." Right? We never say that. We never say that, and consciously no one says that, but unconsciously that's what starts happening. But it's only because people aren't taking responsibility for themselves.

It's not the baby's responsibilities, and it never does become the baby's responsibility, right? Sure, when you have children of your own, you take responsibility for your children and guiding them and loving them and supporting them, 

[00:17:00] but a baby doesn't need to do that for anybody else. Right? A baby's job is to learn how to grow up and be a self-sufficient adult that can create a good life for itself.
And ultimately, partner up and have children is ultimately why people are here. Not that everyone has to do that now, but live whatever great life that you're destined to live in, and to be able to relate to other people in a healthy way, right? To be able to learn from other people. And so this is the thing that we've really got to, to remember, is that we learn all of this conditioning stuff throughout our childhood from other adults who haven't resolved it for themselves.

And as children, we just adapt, and we become who we think we need to be, and we learn to suppress needs. We stop expressing desires, especially if the adults around us don't support them, and we make other people's feelings more important 
[00:18:00] than our own. And we become responsible for keeping the peace and, not creating conflict.

And so over time, those adaptations stop being strategies and start becoming identity. It starts becoming who we think we are. And so the turning point really helps people recognize where they've been carrying those beliefs and responsibilities and, and emotional burdens and loyalties that were never yours to carry to start with.
And it really helps to identify where you began abandoning yourself in order to stay connected to others, because there comes a point where remaining loyal to old stories requires you to betray your own truth. In fact, it, it does right from the start, right? Being loyal to how other people's version of the world generally requires you to abandon your own.

And so we've gotta get really aware of that and stop doing it. It's not your responsibility to, confirm somebody else's limited view of the world. 

[00:19:00] And so the turning point happens when someone realizes that they can honor themselves and create what they want for themselves, and it doesn't mean they're doing anything to anybody else, right? If it triggers anybody else, well, that's that person's responsibility to manage for themselves and see their own growth. And so we realize that we can love people without shrinking for them. We can belong without abandoning ourselves in the process, and we can create success without feeling guilty about it.

And, you can step into your power and be very powerful in your own right in what you create for yourself without taking anything away from anyone else. And so, we can choose to Be responsible for ourselves, right? And not be responsible for everybody else's reactions.

[00:20:00] And this is a big part of becoming someone who can, really hold success, right? Because the truth is that success asks you to have greater capacity at managing your responsibilities, right? Greater self-trust, greater responsibility, greater emotional maturity. and the thing we've gotta realize is that whatever level of freedom or success,
success that you want, will come with more responsibilities, and it's the ease at which you can handle those responsibilities that will give you the feeling of success and freedom. Okay? Because growth requires expansion. If you want to have a bigger business, you're gonna have more visibility, you're gonna have more money to handle, you're gonna have more responsibilities.

And so you've got to realize that you've gotta develop the capacity for those responsibilities, and that comes through doing your own work, and stop being loyal and worrying about what everybody else thinks or does or expects of you. 

[00:21:00] And so this is the type of work that I do help people with all the time, is help them get rid of all of these, either load of worries and concerns of how they think people are going to relate to them.
And so this isn't just about strategy, it's about changing the relationship that you have with yourself. And when that shifts, everything becomes a whole lot easier. Your actions become easier, your decisions become easier, visibility becomes easier, and success becomes easier because you're no longer fighting yourself every step of the way I love having these conversations. 

I hope you're with me so far. But I do want to leave you with this question to consider for yourself. Now, what do you believe that success will cost you? And is that actually true? Like, challenge it. Is it actually true, and is it even your responsibility? or is it a story you've inherited from someone else's experience?

[00:22:00] Or is it something you're expected to do to keep someone else comfortable when it's not  for you to have to do that, right? Other adults are to take responsibility for their own emotions and their own comfort. And so you get to decide what success means for you and how it looks and how it feels. And, and the, the better that you get at really getting honest with yourself around this, then the greater capacity you're gonna have for managing those responsibilities and creating more ease for yourself.

So I'd love to know if this, episode has resonated with you. Let me know. I love it when people come up and let me know that they've been listening and what they've got out of it. send me a message. And of course, if you feel like there's something that, this has brought up for you, you need some help, then reach out to me because this is the work that I do. Send me an email. You'll find all my contact details in the show notes and, yeah. Here's to your success. 

Till next time.