Hey man, I like your post and I can recognize myself in it, but I disagree as well.

If someone doesn't do something because his friends discourage him, I'd say that he doesn't want it bad enough or that he has confidence issues.

You said it yourself: "You looked for outside validation". Being stealth would only fix the symptom, not the cause.

I have this problem myself. Fixing the cause is tough. I have been following the easy (symptom fixing) way in a certain part of my life, but that doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do...