Fear Amputates Opportunity. Here’s A Way To Embrace and Tame It.

If You’re Human…

Needles of fear prick your skin, inside-out. Salty beads bubble up and bloom. Two perked ears hear a thumping heart.  A pie-hole, normally wet, goes desert dry.  Breathing quickens.  Imagination, formerly confident, runs rogue, bad things loom dark and certain.

Fear robs your future, if you let it.

What Do We All Fear?

1. Rejection.
2. Looking lame, inexperienced and unworthy.
3. Saying the wrong thing, awkward interaction.
4. Disapproval.
5. Opportunity amputation.
6. Not knowing what to do or when to do it.
7. Not knowing the answer, looking stupid, ignorant and out of touch.
8. Success.
9. Failure.
10. ______________________________

Fear-feelings are normal.  If we allow our fear-feelings to paralyze us, they’ll rob us of our future.

What Actions Activate Fear?

• Making the prospecting calls you know you should.
• Asking hard, important questions.
• Fast follow-up.
• Pre-qualifying for ability, motivation and time-frame.
• Embracing, learning and sharing new methods and tools and mindsets.
• Saying NO.
• Scheduling personal time.
• Maintaining boundaries.
• Speaking your mind.
• _________________________

Any of the above may incite a riot of fearful-feelings.  Oddly paradoxical, fear is good. Fear is good because it signals we’re about to leave our comfort zone.  Fear is a barrier.  The average and ordinary allow their fears to paralyze their progress. How we face our fears is the difference between a pretender and a contender, a contender and a champion.  We must make friends with fear. Or at the very least, we need to feel the fear and act anyway.

Humor me a bit further and let me share a Car Crash story with you.

What To Do When We Feel Fearful?  Act Like Danica Patrick races.

Do you drive?  Through your windshield and down the road, have you witnessed cars crashing? In the flesh or on TV, have you ever seen race cars crash in a explosive spectacle of angry flame, twisted metal and car part shrapnel?

When rolling-up on a fresh car crash, civilians react intuitively, professional race car drivers are taught to respond counter intuitively.

Generally, we respond to fear like civilians respond to a car crash.  Here’s what I mean.  When we’re driving down the road and we see cars crash in front of us, intuitively we slow down and cautiously steer our away around the accident.

Professional race car drivers are taught to react counter intuitively.  At 187 mph, race cars  careen around the track within inches of each other.  When cars collide, crash shrapnel explodes in every direction.  Race cars drivers are taught to react counter intuitively when they see a crash.  They are taught to hold a steady speed or accelerate, and steer their car directly into the center-point of car crash.  Why?  Because at 187 mph, if they slow, they’ll get run over, causing a horrific chain reaction, multi-car pile up.  If a race car driver instinctively attempts to steer around the crash, odds are, instead of avoiding the wreckage, they’ll drive directly into the exploding shrapnel or side-swipe another driver.

When you feel fearful, acknowledge it, suppress your intuitive desire to brake and steer around what’s scaring you.  Instead, like a professional race car driver, respond counter intuitively, speed forward and face directly into what’s scaring you – take action.

Do WE Win By Facing Our Fears?  Sorta.

Let’s face it. When we feel the fear and take action anyway, from time to time we’re gonna crash and burn.  Our metaphorical knees will scrape and scab, our left eye blacken, maybe a chipped tooth, certainly our pride will sting and our ego bruise.  So what, it won’t kill us, it will simply make us more prepared, more experienced and ultimately, more successful.  If we professionally press forward when amateurs brake and swerve, we win.  I think the saying, “Fail Faster – Succeed Sooner” is the perfect mantra for facing, embracing and conquering our fears.  Say it with me now — out loud — Fail Faster, Succeed Sooner.

Lastly, We Don’t Have To Learn All Our Lessons The Hard Way.

Professionals train and perfect-practice (practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect-practice makes perfect).

Let’s do this:

1. Grab a black ink pen and yellow legal pad.
2. Write down the things you fear, the situations, the questions, etc..
3. One by one, create an action plan that will give you the confidence, expertise and mindset to overcome or eliminate your individual listed fears.
4. Simply train and practice for a professional outcome, when you feel the fear, face directly into it, take action and learn from your mistakes.

If you do this, you will prosper. Honest, you will.  Try it and experience winning for yourself.

Thanks for reading.  Share with a friend.  Cheers.

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