Exaggerating Your Fear

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Two Sides of Fear

Fear is both a positive and negative; there is good fear and bad fear. The fear that says don’t move in for a closer look at that snake is a good one (at least for me). The fear that says don’t chase your dream because catastrophic things will happen would be what we call a bad fear.

Appearing Real

Even a bad fear can seem very real to us in the moment. It can seem so real as to become paralyzing. In yesterdays post, How Fear Holds You Back – The Good and Bad, we talked about the acronym of FEAR, False Evidence Appearing Real. That’s the whole point; we are either presented with a false set of facts or, more commonly, create our own false set of facts to define reality. That protective impulse in our minds fights dirty and will use whatever means at its disposal to convince you to avoid any kind of risky situation; whether you are risking life and limb or simply risking financial ruin. If left unchecked, our mind will take us to the extreme, defining earth-shattering, negative events born out from every positive step we take towards achievement of our goals.

How in the world do you beat that? How do you overcome you mind’s tendency to pull you to the extreme?

Take Fear to YOUR Extreme

According to an article by the University of Florida Counseling and Wellness Center, it’s simple. Go to the extreme on your own. If you are able to take the fear to the extreme outcome in your conscious mind, you can get there before unconscious mind does. The advantage of doing this means you have control. Here’s how I get there, but it requires a little set-up first.

Define the fear in specific terms. What exactly is the fear that haunts your mind? For example, some people have what is called a Fear of Success. While there are several forms of it, one is a version of low self-esteem. You could be afraid that if you achieve success and become well-known that everyone will discover what a fraud you are. Until you can define you fear in terms like that, you can’t move on to the next step, which is
Note your self-talk. When those fears pop up, what are you saying to yourself? Studies have shown again and again that the most important thing is not what others say about you but rather what you say to yourself about you. Look for trigger words and phrases that signal that decline into a negative self-talk.
Take the scenarios you have been imaging to the extreme. Go as overboard as you want to go! Make it ridiculous! Outlandish! Keep pushing it until it becomes absolutely absurd! Using our example above, what would happen if you were discovered to be a fraud, that you don’t really know what you are talking about?

Well, of course, it would make new internationally. Lesley Stahl of 60 Minutes and Wolf Blitzer of CNN are wrestling on your front doorstep for priority rights to the expose of your downfall! Norman Vincent Peale says you have no hope! The whole Earth’s rotation has reversed itself resulting in catastrophic events around the world all due to your error! Martians have invaded! The Borg are trying to assimilate everyone due to the weakness you have created through your grievous error! The Devil himself……well, you get the picture.

By taking it to the absurd extremes, you not only get yourself to lighten up a bit, but you put perspective on it as well. You can then question what the likelihood of any of the imagined circumstances actually occurring.By the way, one thing that helped me was to simply discover that others, even the very famous, typically feel the same way. How do you think Les Brown felt when he was giving motivational speeches while living out of an empty office? Yet, today, Les is one of the foremost motivational speakers, commanding large audiences and big fees and making a positive impact in thousands, perhaps millions, of lives.
Change your self-talk. Remind yourself that you ARE prepared to do this, that you will learn from your failures, that you are intelligent and resourceful. Talk about how much of a difference you will make in people’s lives when you are able to share with them what you have to offer. Write it down if necessary and repeat it every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to bed. Don’t just read it, say it out loud and with emotion. This helps embed it in your mind.
ACT NOW! Don’t wait for your mind to create new fears and new situations, go to work right away to do something positive towards you goal. Nothing kills fear like positive action.

Action Plan

What is your BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal)? What is the one big fear that is keeping you from moving on it right now? Apply the process above to it.
Come back here and tell me how you did. Or, if you want it private, call me at 321-355-2442 and let me know.

How Fear Holds You Back – The Good and the Bad

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The Basis of Fear

According to Psychology Today, fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger. If we didn’t feel it, then we could not protect ourselves from legitimate danger. Life and death can hinge on our fear and our reactions to it. Our survival rate would be extremely low if not for the fear that helps us to regulate our behavior during moments of crisis. Fear is not our problem.

Natural Functioning of Fear

Our problem comes when the fear engine kicks into high gear, often due to past experience. Almost all fears we have of situations that are not life-threatening are what psychologists call “conditioned response“. Something happened somewhere in our past that now triggers a fear response in us. On a basic level, for example, an experience I had with a snake has led to a dislike and sometimes fear of snakes. I don’t shriek and run the other way, but I am also not likely to approach it. When I go camping with our Boy Scout troop and I happen to spot a snake, someone will invariably ask me what kind of snake it is. My response is always,

“I don’t know, I did not get that close!”

On another level, past experiences with risk situations that led to devastating results can create conditioned responses in us that lead to fear. People with Reactive Attachment Disorder develop an overwhelming fear of bonding relationships with people because of past experiences where trusted relationships betrayed them or took advantage of them or abused them. Others, on a lower-level, have a past romantic relationship that ended badly and avoid future romantic relationships. An employee encounters a boss who berated them or humiliated them when they came up with a creative idea and develops the fear of making a contribution.

Unnatural Fear

Even more so, our mind has a natural tendency to protect us in every situation, even to the point of creating scenarios that don’t even exist just to keep us from placing ourselves into potential danger, whether real or not. Fear and resistance build up. Every time we go to stretch ourselves – to push out of our comfort zone, to take a risk – we start to imagine all the things that will go wrong. We will be publicly humiliated. The newspapers will carry front page headlines documenting our failure. Our boss will fire us. Our family will disown us. Our friends will make fun of us. We will sit on the curb broke, destitute, with no future prospects and no hope. This one failure will destroy us!

You see where it goes. The more we focus on it, the more our fears run away with the perception of what will happen. Many like to reassure people by saying that FEAR is simply

False Evidence Appearing Real

While not entirely accurate, it’s a good start towards working on our fears. When we understand that often our fear is based on situations that are imagined, we can begin to put them into perspective. Once we regain perspective, it becomes easier to work past the fear and take the risks we need to take to succeed in life. So the key is not to conquer fear, because we can’t. Fear is a natural part of our body’s system and we cannot get rid of it. What we can do is learn to manage it, to work with it, and work beyond it.

In the posts the rest of the week, we will examine ways in which we can manage our fears and be productive.

Action Plan

What are some ways you deal with fear now? Post your comments here so you may be able to help others.

Are You Wasting You? Finding Purpose in the Unique You

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Find the Unique Sweet Spot

How do you get to the point where you can truly embrace the weirdness, or uniqueness if you prefer, that is you? This is a real solid challenge. We know it is because you and I can look around us and see people who have no clue even that they are unique, let alone what that uniqueness is. It is demonstrated in the way they jump on the latest fad as if they were missing the bus. They line up for hours to buy the very latest iPhone or gadget, gotta wear the latest fashion, toss down the most recent popular drink, or try the latest adventure.

When I was in college I applied for a job as a bartender at a local bar. When I told the manager I had no formal training, he waved aside with his hand in the air, and simply told me

“read Playboy every month and learn the featured drinks. That’s what these guys are gonna come in and ask for if they don’t want a beer!“

That’s a great example of how the majority of people simply will allow themselves to be led around, told what to like, what to drink, what to feel, and what to do. But you and I don’t desire to be that way; if you did you would have quit reading this several minutes ago. So how do we escape the trap of being like everyone else and be who we really are? Even more to the point, how do we do it in such a way that we add value to others and make a living and a life doing it?

Unique Awareness

Being unique, being weird, requires a special awareness of yourself that most others don’t have. It means you need to spend time identifying and understanding your gifts, unlocking your passion behind them, and reflecting how to best use those gifts to add value to others. See, we are all born with gifts that were bestowed upon us to be used to provide something unique in this world; something that only we can do. That gift is designed to be used for a special purpose. There is at least one someone waiting for us to come along and share that gift with them to make a difference in the world. Some of us will directly influence a small number of people, maybe even one. Some, like Zig Ziglar, John Maxwell, or Tony Robbins may affect thousands or millions. The point isn’t how many but how you will influence them. So, identifying those gifts and learning to maximize them is the first step in preparing yourself to make that impact. That’s your purpose.

Applying Your Purpose

Once you have identified your gifts, it is imperative that you learn more about them and how to optimize them. You also need to learn the various ways in which your gifts can be used. The emphasis here needs to be on ways to use your gifts that benefit others. God did not give you a gift to use only on yourself; he blessed you so you can be a blessing to others. You must find that one way to use your gifts that allows you to provide maximum benefit. It will based, at least partially, on background and life experiences. We do not go through life randomly, even if we did not navigate it. Every job, every experience, no matter how unrelated, prepared us for that one way that we will have the most influence. Don’t de-value what you have done in the past just because it does not relate directly to what you want to do now. It was preparation. It was shaping you and molding you into what you are to become.

Now the real hard work begins. You have to do the work of actually applying it. You have to spend time EVERY DAY developing and honing those gifts. This is the start of a perpetual journey of growth. It never stops until you have reached the point of not being able to learn anything anymore. I mentioned in a previous post about Teddy Roosevelt that when he died they found under his pillow a self-improvement book he had been reading. Teddy knew that your entire life is a growth journey to challenge yourself to become more than you were yesterday.

Be a 1%er

That sounds overwhelming, but you can break it down into an easily manageable system. Focus simply on growing yourself by 1% a day. Committing yourself to being a 1%er means that over time you grow exponentially one day building on the next and at the end one year you have grown yourself OVER 365%! Remember that: become a 1%er.

No Weaknesses

And let’s make this a little easier: STOP WORKING ON YOUR WEAKNESSES. Conventional wisdom has always told us to identify our strengths and weaknesses and then work to improve our weaknesses. It is non-productive to focus on our weaknesses because if we work hard we can at best become mediocre at them; while at the same time we neglect our strengths and won’t prepared to get the most out of them. Focus instead on your strengths and your gifts. Overcome your weaknesses by finding others whose have strength where you are weak and team up with them to meet your goals.

The I in Team

That leads to the last point of this, which is what John Maxwell always reminds us of

One is too small a number to accomplish anything!

We are meant to be dependent upon others and work together to achieve great things. None of us is as smart as all of us. So while building upon your gifts you should also be building your team. Find people who have character you desire and are ready to buy into the vision of what you want to accomplish. Walk the path together and share the journey and share the treasures. Start it by being truly unique.

And remember, UNIQUE and UNITE both begin with UNI, meaning one. By developing your uniqueness and finding unique others, you can UNITE together to have a singular impact on this world.

A journey like that is worth starting today!

Follow your passion, not your pension – Denis Waitley

Action Plan

Start identifying your unique gifts. There are lots of tools to help you here. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and DISC are a good start, but look to other less scientific tools as well, such as Stand-Out by Marcus Buckingham and StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. I am also a big fan of the Fascination Advantage Test by Sally Hogshead. I have tried them all and find these three to highly accurate and consistent. You may have to purchase a book for the access code to some of these, but it is well worth it.
Think back to ways you have used those gifts in the past. Which times did you find yourself getting the greatest results? The greatest joy? When did you get lost in the moment while using your gifts? This will help you identify how you should use them.
Plan and schedule your daily growth of those gifts. Remember the 1%.

Too Much You? Extreme Unique

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YOU Overboard

Is it possible to be too much you? Is it possible to embrace your uniqueness – your weirdness – to such an extent to where your repel instead of attact?

Extreme Unique Personalities

In High School, I had a friend who was definitely unique and definitely embraced his weirdness. His appearance even caught your attention. He had brillo-like hair, similar to the actor who played Jesus in the movie Godspell. When he got on a roll, his eyes had this wide-open, almost wild look to them. He was funny and made a point to do crazy things. Campaigning for class president in our senior year, he drove his moped into the gym and around the floor and then parked it next to the stage so he could take the podium for his campaign speech. The audience loved it and he was overwhelmingly elected class president.

Too extreme?

Depends on your circumstance.

In an audience of high school seniors, it was perfect. Not so popular with the basketball coach since he just drove a vehicle around on his freshly refinished hardwood basketball court.

In the Central Florida area, there used to be car dealer named Art Grindle. He would air commercials on local television showing some of the cars he had on sale, he would show a poster with the price of the car on it, get excited, and the scream “I’ll cut the price in half!” while he enthusiastically tore the poster down the middle. Sometimes he would jump up on the car or car roof and do the same thing. He made that mistake one time with a convertible. You guessed it, fell right through the roof! The driver bailed out and ran and Art just stood there sticking out of the roof and exclaimed “Look! There’s a hole in the roof! I’ll cut the price in half!‘

Too weird?

Well, in used car circles some use the mantra of “anything that moves metal”. Art was eventually elected to our state senate and served there for ten years. In preparation for that, he toned down his on-air antics a bit. Whether that helped him or hurt him is hard to say.

When Unique is Too Unique

I think you gauge whether your weirdness is too much based on several factors.

Your audience
Your purpose
The circumstance

I have seen many who choose to be unique or just plain weird and take it to the extreme. They go for the polar opposite for no other reason than to stand out and be seen as weird or extreme. This is self-serving; it typically has no other viable purpose than to attract attention. When the focus is on you instead of on what you do and perhaps the different way in which you do it, then it’s not serving your purpose of making you stand out from the crowd; instead it makes you a pariah.

I am in no way suggesting manipulating people by forcing behavior. Of course, I think going to the extreme just to go to the extreme is a little manipulative as well.

The idea here is to simply recognize how you ARE different and instead of hiding it celebrating it. You still have to provide something of value to your client and you still have to perform when the time comes.

What do you think? Is it possible to be too weird? How do you know when you’ve gone too far?

Unique Up Your Niche

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The Business of Being Unique

There is an old kid’s joke:

Q: How do you catch an unique rabbit?

A: Unique up on him!

Silly, but perhaps it has some value for us. For small businesses, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs, there is a big emphasis on finding your niche – the market that is almost exclusively yours. The principle behind it is that if you try to market to everyone or try to be everything to everyone, you end up being nothing to anyone. In the highly competitive marketplace today, especially with the explosion of entrepreneurs, it becomes important to target what you do to a specific group of people. That group becomes your tribe or niche that can be yours and you can dominate that market much more effectively IF you know how to talk to them so that your message resonates with them and presents a sense of urgency.

What I see happen a lot with small businesses is aptly described by Marketing Coach Robert Middleton as trying to run their small business as if it was a big business. Trying to compete with the marketing and organization. It can’t be done. You don’t have their budget or their resources.

The Unique Solution

So stop trying to be a big business. Instead take advantage of what you have as a small business. Part of what you have is the unique culture of your organization. Whether you are a solopreneur or have 50 employees, there are things that are unique about you and your organization. Maybe even a little bit weird. Instead of trying to hide that, celebrate it. Emphasize it! Go out of your way to point it out to your customers and friends. Integrate it into everything you write and say about your business. There are distinct advantages to doing this:

You stand out from the crowd. In the competitive marketplace, you can’t afford to fit in or be one grape in the bunch. You need to be the lone banana.
You become more appealing to your niche. They don’t want cookie-cutter, they want someone with character who will be as devoted to them so they can become devoted to you. They want special!
You will connect better with people, customers and friends alike. There is a whole generation out there that values authenticity. The more you and your organization embrace who you really are, the more people will relate to you and trust you.

So how do you catch a unique market?

Unique up on it!

Action Plan

What is it about you or your company that is unique? What makes you a little weird?
In what ways is that appealing to your target market? What are some possible dangers?
How can you leverage that to connect better with your clients?
How can you integrate it into every communication with people inside and outside your company?