Fear: Friend or Foe?

I disagree. Fear should not be feared. Fear should be embraced. If you can learn to befriend fear, you can unlock unlimited potential for yourself. Being aware of your fears, from the rush of adrenaline you get from a life or death situation to even the smallest hint of butterflies in your stomach from nervousness, can help you to understand when fears are legitimate and when they are holding you back from opportunity.

Fears always vary by individual and by perception, but it could be a fear of change, fear of failure, fear of expectations, etc. Don’t let fear take away the life you envision for yourself. Fear you can create and destroy, but an opportunity passed is an opportunity lost.

Many times a fear does not spring out of nowhere. It is said that the only fear we are born with is the fear of falling; the feeling of free fall in the pit of your stomach; the feeling of no control; the idea that there may be nothing at the bottom to break your fall. This concept can be taken literally or figuratively and as we develop, that single fear can very easily spawn a variety of other fears. They all root from the fear of the unknown. You would gladly fall if you knew you would end up okay. You would take a leap off a cliff if you were strapped to a bungee cord; well, that is assuming you trust that the bungee cord will save you from hitting the ground at the bottom. For those of you that would not jump off a cliff, even with a bungee cord, the fear is simply rooted in the fact that do you not know for certain you will end up okay at the end of it all.

One of the first college classes I ever took was an Entrepreneurship course. I learned so many great things through the entrepreneurship program that I was involved in, but the most important thing I ever took away from any class was this one simple idea during summer school classes before my first semester. My professor was clearly an Entrepreneur himself and prided himself on being an innovator and early adopter. Every class he would bring some new form of technology or new “toy” that he had just bought and show us all the cool things it could do. He encouraged us not to be afraid of new and disruptive products or ideas. He urged us to embrace them and become advocates of them. Many times, he said, you may fail or find that it wasn’t the smartest investment because a few versions down the road they will have fixed all the issues and flushed all the kinks out of the original product, but people will remember your successes more than your failures. Latch yourself onto one success before anyone realizes it a success, and your peers will loyally come to you for advice with future products or ideas in that realm.

            That professor had some pretty disruptive ideas himself and he was never afraid to share them. During one particular lecture, he was rambling on about some story that didn’t interest me too much, so I found myself spacing out here and there. As I was doodling in my notebook, pretending to take detailed notes on his personal story, I heard him say something in the background of my mind, “Do something every day that scares you”. After I heard it, I didn’t really acknowledge it as anything, and went back to tuning him out and finishing what I thought was a really nice drawing of a palm tree on a beach equipped with not two, but three nicely positioned coconuts. I tilted my eyes up towards the clock and seeing that class was about over, I started to collect my things and my thoughts to take off to the next classroom.

            Some time had passed and that single lecture was just a small fractional moment in time compared to the several other lectures I had attended since then. I couldn’t tell you if I remember much from that one lecture or not, but based on my inability to remember even if I remember, I think it’s safe to say I had totally blanked it.

            After a late night of recreational fun, we marched over to one of the best places to eat on campus, but there was an interesting item on the menu that I had never had: a regular hamburger topped with a hefty slop of peanut butter. Many of you may have had this type of burger before, but when I first heard about it, it was a very foreign idea to me. It just sounded weird. A group of us filed into the packed little restaurant one evening and as I perused the menu, I couldn’t decide what to get. One of my good friends from way down the bar said, “Get the Peanut Butter Burger!”

            I immediately rejected the idea. I quickly responded, “Sick. No way.” and closed the menu. That’s when something strange happened. Something in my brain clicked. The sounds of the restaurant went to a lull. Time seemed to slow down as the obnoxious laughing and yelling that surrounded me turned to a muffled sound of silence and something in my brain said, “Do something every day that scares you.”

             When the sound returned to normal and everything was back in real time, I decided to go for it.

            “You know what? I think I will get the Peanut Butter Burger. Bring it on.”

            Was I nervous? Yes. I was nervous. It just didn’t sound appetizing to me and I was pretty ready to chow down, but part of me said, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

            The risk was that I would be out about $10 for a meal, which for a college kid seemed like a big deal. As we waited for our food, the anticipation was building. What if this was the single worst decision I have ever made in my life? What if simply mixing the sweet and salty taste of creamy peanut butter with a slab of beef and vegetables is so against the laws of nature that space and time will simply fail to exist? I was really hoping my life wouldn’t end with me starving to death after a failed meal attempt. When the burger was placed in front of me, I dove it head first without giving my mind time to question itself. I have to say it was the single most deliciously scrumptious item of food I had ever tasted. It was so good that by the time I was on my last couple bites, I was scrubbing the plate with my bread trying to soak up every last bit of that hot and creamy peanut butter. Then I got to thinking, “What if I had passed up this burger?”

            What if I had let the fear of the unknown or the social norms and expectations of our cultural food choices dictate my dinner that night? I might have had a decent meal, but I would never have experienced that unforgettable night. How many other decisions have I made not to jump into opportunities based simply on my own fears or the expectations of a social right and wrong? From that point on, the phrase I would start to live by would become:

“Do Something Every Day That Scares You”.

            It started as something very literal. Every day I would do something that really scared me or that I had always wanted to do, but never actually dove into it because it was different than what I was used to. Some days I would have to look for things that scared me, just so that I could do those. I would jump off of rooftops into bodies of water, drink or eat crazy concoctions of food and drink that sounded horrid, or stand up to and question hard-ass professors. If it scared me in any sense, I did it, but this mantra isn’t about being reckless and stupid. This mantra has a deeper philosophy than that. Doing something every day that scares you is about seizing opportunities. Doing some of those clearly off the wall scary things made me more aware of my fears. Instead of fear becoming something that I cowered against and avoided, I embraced it. Fear became more of a friend than an enemy. I could sense even the tiniest inkling of fear within myself and if I sensed that, I knew it was something I had to do. It started out as just proving a point to myself, but it turned out to be one of the best mantras anyone could live by if you want to reach your greatest potential. It started out as big off the wall adventures, but then I started applying it to other aspects of my life; my personal life, my professional life, my day-to-day menial tasks. When we initially think of fear, we might picture ourselves watching a horror flick and jumping out of our seats or we might imagine our hearts racing as we sweat bullets from our foreheads, but I had become so aware of my fears that I was sensing fear on a very subtle level. Whenever an interesting speaker attended a lecture, part of me was slightly afraid to approach them and introduce myself. When I felt any kind of butterflies in my stomach, I considered it fear and knew I had to confront it. I forced myself to talk to everyone that made me nervous.

I networked with endless numbers of entrepreneurs, multi-millionaires, and motivational speakers. It made me realize that all of these successful and powerful people that we consider so unattainable; all of these celebrities that we are so star struck to approach; the CEOs, the warlords, the presidents of the world are all just people. We build them up in our minds when they are no different than you or me. They are still just people trying to find happiness in the world. Don’t get me wrong, some of them will have superhuman egos and will refuse to give you any time of day, but at least if you try you can leave empty handed with that. If you never try, who knows what opportunity you have just passed on?

            Some of my most memorable experiences can be attributed to doing things that scare me. Many of these “scary” things have become big parts of my life. Looking back at many of them, without having pushed myself to do something every day that scares me, my life might be very boring. I may not have had all the opportunities that I’ve been introduced to and I very easily could be stuck in a miserable life. Maybe confronting your fears can change your life too.

Today, I don’t actively search to do something every day that scares me, but whenever I have a decision to make or whenever there’s a possible opportunity, I ask myself, “does this scare me?” and then I ask myself, “Can an opportunity come out of this situation”. 99% of the time the answer is yes to both questions and when that happens, the choice has been made for me: I have to pursue it. Typically, the more scared you are, the bigger the potential opportunity.

What have you done that scares you lately?