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#1998 "Scared and Courageous" - Harps · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get it him. It's Harps. Welcome to another installment
0:03
Speaker 1: of the show. Have your bloody terrific. It's probably Monday.
0:05
Speaker 1: Well it's coming out on Monday. So if you're hearing
0:08
Speaker 1: this on Monday, happy Monday. If it's any other day,
0:10
Speaker 1: happy day, Happy bloody every day. In fact, let's have
0:13
Speaker 1: all the days good. Let's do that. Ah. I saw
0:20
Speaker 1: Tom Cruise the other day. Who is He's a cat,
0:24
Speaker 1: isn't he? He's an interesting character, isn't he anyway? Irrespect
0:27
Speaker 1: of what you think of him, he's kind of Yeah,
0:31
Speaker 1: I was I was going to be judgy, but I
0:33
Speaker 1: am interested by him. I think he is at times weird,
0:36
Speaker 1: is at times brilliant, fascinating, clearly talented. But he does
0:41
Speaker 1: say some things that I don't agree with. But he
0:45
Speaker 1: also says some things that make me want to lean
0:47
Speaker 1: in a little bit. And he was talking on something
0:51
Speaker 1: that someone sent me about not being afraid of being afraid,
0:57
Speaker 1: and I thought, I like that. I like that expression.
0:59
Speaker 1: I like that of being okay with fear and being
1:04
Speaker 1: able to put up your hand and go, hey, I
1:06
Speaker 1: get scared all the time, or I get scared sometimes,
1:09
Speaker 1: or I'm scared regularly, or it's something that impacts my
1:12
Speaker 1: life and my thinking and my choices and my emotions.
1:15
Speaker 1: And you know, I guess that pretty much everybody that
1:22
Speaker 1: I talk to at some stage, we when I sit
1:25
Speaker 1: down and we go deep on something, or we're just
1:27
Speaker 1: even having coffee, But if we talk about life or
1:29
Speaker 1: career or kids, or growth, or health or well being
1:32
Speaker 1: or the meaning of life or purpose or any of
1:34
Speaker 1: those light things, we eventually come back to something which is,
1:39
Speaker 1: you know, in the ballpark of fear. And it might
1:42
Speaker 1: be a manifestation or a symptom of fear, like overthinking
1:45
Speaker 1: or self doubt or self loathing, or apprehension or avoidance,
1:49
Speaker 1: or a whole bunch of things that can be linked
1:54
Speaker 1: to some kind of fear. And so human humans are fear.
2:00
Speaker 1: It's always been part of the human experience. We've always
2:03
Speaker 1: been all of us and will always be scared of something.
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Speaker 1: We might be more or less scared over time, the
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Speaker 1: thing that once terrified us might not down the track,
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Speaker 1: so that thing that was scary is no longer scary.
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Speaker 1: In fact, the thing that we're scary, for example, public speaking,
2:21
Speaker 1: might be something that over time, with work and skill
2:24
Speaker 1: and improvement and all of those things and cognitive shifts
2:27
Speaker 1: you become really quite fond of or even not only
2:31
Speaker 1: does it not give you fear or anxiety or any
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Speaker 1: of those negative emotional things, but it gives you joy,
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Speaker 1: It gives you pleasure, It connects you to other people,
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Speaker 1: it gives you it's provided you with growth and development
2:45
Speaker 1: and insight and all of those things. So we can
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Speaker 1: the same person can go from being scared of something
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Speaker 1: to somewhere in the ballpark of the opposite. But there
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Speaker 1: will always be things that scare us, and that is
3:00
Speaker 1: part of this human experience. And some of those things
3:02
Speaker 1: that scare us should scare us. Some of those things
3:06
Speaker 1: that scare us in built evolutionarily. They've been there for
3:11
Speaker 1: a long time. The evolutionary purpose of fear is it's
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Speaker 1: a survival mechanism, you know, fight, flight, freeze. It's there
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Speaker 1: to protect you from whatever the real or perceived or
3:23
Speaker 1: potential threat might be. It's not a new thing, and
3:28
Speaker 1: it's not a thing that's going away. But I guess
3:30
Speaker 1: the thing that I'm most interested in. And again I'm
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Speaker 1: not an expert in this field. This is me talking
3:38
Speaker 1: to you, Me a guy who's been scared a lot.
3:41
Speaker 1: And continues to worry about things or be scared of things.
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Speaker 1: And it's always hard to be objective about you. You
3:49
Speaker 1: being objective about you, me being objective about me. But
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Speaker 1: I think overall, I'm less fearful than I used to be.
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Speaker 1: I still have fear, I still worry about things. I
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Speaker 1: can still ruminate or obsess a little bit. But I
4:02
Speaker 1: think I'm far less influenced or controlled or limited or
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Speaker 1: held to ransom by my fear than I once was.
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Speaker 1: I think I've always been This might sound arrogant, and
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Speaker 1: if it does, I apologize. I think I've always been
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Speaker 1: a little bit brave, though, because I've always been prepared
4:23
Speaker 1: to do things that scared me. Not everything that scared me,
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Speaker 1: of course, But I think for me understanding that because
4:30
Speaker 1: I wasn't the super talented, gifted, you know, any of
4:33
Speaker 1: those things kind of human, you know, I didn't grow
4:36
Speaker 1: up being exceptional in any way. I knew that if
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Speaker 1: I was going to succeed or grow or learn or
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Speaker 1: evolve or become a better version of me, or end
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Speaker 1: up not broke, or end up in a career I
4:48
Speaker 1: hopefully loved, or end up in a physical condition that
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Speaker 1: was healthy, I knew that I would have to do
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Speaker 1: hard things, uncomfortable things, things that I was unfamiliar with,
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Speaker 1: things that were uncertain, things that were for me unknown,
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Speaker 1: and in summary, things that scared me. And you know,
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Speaker 1: I don't think there's a three step plan to overcoming fear. Also,
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Speaker 1: I don't think all fear needs to be overcome. Of course,
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Speaker 1: there are some things which are healthy fears. Hey, don't
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Speaker 1: walk in front of the car, don't put your hand
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Speaker 1: in the fire, you know, don't do that dumb shit.
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Speaker 1: Probably don't walk home late at night in a dangerous
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Speaker 1: area by yourself. These are probably wise things to embrace.
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Speaker 1: But then there are those other fears that can be
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Speaker 1: that can be debilitating unless we offset that fear or
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Speaker 1: we lean into that fear with a little bit of courage.
5:46
Speaker 1: And so I guess the idea is well for me,
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Speaker 1: the idea and personally and for those that I've worked with,
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Speaker 1: has not been to overcome fear, but to understand it,
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Speaker 1: to understand it and from where it arises, and what
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Speaker 1: we can do about it, and what we can't do
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Speaker 1: about what's in our control and what's not in our control.
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Speaker 1: So I might be fearful about what might happen the
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Speaker 1: next five ten years in the world on planet Earth.
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Speaker 1: What the fuck is going to happen? I don't know
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Speaker 1: right now. It's kind of scary. It's kind of scary,
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Speaker 1: and I could I don't, but I could probably start
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Speaker 1: reading everything, listening to everything, watching everything, absorbing all the
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Speaker 1: stuff that's going on around the world, everybody's opinion, both sides,
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Speaker 1: all sides, whatever, and I could be pretty much stuck
6:36
Speaker 1: in some kind of analysis paralysis with you know, by lunchtime.
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Speaker 1: But I know that that one doesn't resolve anything. It
6:43
Speaker 1: doesn't fix anything, it doesn't change. I am not single
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Speaker 1: handedly going to change the destiny of mankind or probably
6:52
Speaker 1: anything in particular, to be honest, but you know, I'll
6:55
Speaker 1: still keep speaking up and having a crack. But what
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Speaker 1: is better in terms of managing emotional energy, my psychological energy,
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Speaker 1: my physiological energy around fear is to pay attention most
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Speaker 1: to the things that are in my control while acknowledging
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Speaker 1: the stuff that's a bit scary and being okay with
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Speaker 1: being scared. Tom Cruise, I'm not scared of being scared,
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Speaker 1: And that fucking weirdo does some incredible shit in his films,
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Speaker 1: and so I think it's in the intentional and conscious
7:27
Speaker 1: choosing of to lean into the fear, to do the
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Speaker 1: thing that scares us, to lean into the potential failure.
7:37
Speaker 1: You know, let's hope we don't failure, but maybe we
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Speaker 1: can reframe the failure as a lesson or growth. We're
7:43
Speaker 1: scared of the unknown. We're scared of being alone. We're
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Speaker 1: scared of what are we scared. We're scared of rejection.
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Speaker 1: We don't want to be rejected. We want to belong.
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Speaker 1: We want someone or something, an organization, a group, a religion,
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Speaker 1: a person, a dog, a pet, a cat, you know,
8:01
Speaker 1: a partner. We want someone to love us and want
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Speaker 1: us and need us. We want to belong. We don't
8:07
Speaker 1: want to be a fucking island in a sea of humanity.
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Speaker 1: We're terrified of that. And sometimes we're like, oh, fuck,
8:13
Speaker 1: I wouldn't mind being an island. Two people drive me nuts.
8:16
Speaker 1: That's cool until that actually happens, and we're social creatures.
8:22
Speaker 1: Where social creatures, we need love, we need connections. So
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Speaker 1: the inherent fear that many of us have are being
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Speaker 1: rejected and being alone and being unseen and being unwanted
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Speaker 1: or being you know, not desirable on some level to
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Speaker 1: someone These are normal and completely understandable fears, fear of embarrassment,
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Speaker 1: fear of pain, fear of an uncertain future, fear of
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Speaker 1: people figuring out who we are, who we really are,
8:56
Speaker 1: and hopefully you know, most of us are okay, we're
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Speaker 1: not terrible humans. Where we're not perfect humans. We're flawed humans.
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Speaker 1: We're trying. But I think some of us think way
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Speaker 1: worse of ourselves than anyone else ever would or probably could,
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Speaker 1: because we're so scared of them discovering what goes on
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Speaker 1: inside our head. We're so scared of them seeing behind
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Speaker 1: the curtain or behind the mask. And we are who
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Speaker 1: we are, and that doesn't mean we can't change or
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Speaker 1: be better. But this is an ongoing thing. It's trying
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Speaker 1: to navigate life through the myriad of you know, corporate
9:38
Speaker 1: things and personal things and interpersonal things and health things
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Speaker 1: and academic things and social settings and opportunities and problems
9:50
Speaker 1: and fuck ups and all of this normal stuff. In
9:53
Speaker 1: the middle of that, we're constantly dealing with things that
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Speaker 1: scare us or can scare us. And so not to
10:02
Speaker 1: be trapped in fear or controlled by fear or driven
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Speaker 1: by fear, but to go fear is going to be
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Speaker 1: a constant in my life and the volume will go
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Speaker 1: up or down. It could be a one out of ten,
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Speaker 1: this scares me, it could be an eleven out of ten.
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Speaker 1: I'm fucking terrified of this thing. I feel totally paradised, paralyzed.
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Speaker 1: I can't breathe, you know, for me over the years,
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Speaker 1: even now, like even right now, I'm going to be
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Speaker 1: one hundred percent honest, even right now, and I try
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Speaker 1: to be one hundred percent honest if I but like
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Speaker 1: in this moment, part of me, a very low level
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Speaker 1: part of my awareness has gone. Is this bullshit? Is
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Speaker 1: this okay? Will they like this? Will they hate this?
10:48
Speaker 1: Should I have done? Should I have picked another topic?
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Speaker 1: Is this relevant? Am I explaining this in a way
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Speaker 1: that makes sense to people? Will this build connection? Have
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Speaker 1: people turned off already? Am I explaining thing in a
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Speaker 1: way that is understandable? Or I just fucking babbling on?
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Speaker 1: So in almost anything that we do for me, there's
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Speaker 1: always a potential problem or hiccup or something that I'm
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Speaker 1: aware of that there might be low level fear wrapped around.
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Speaker 1: While right now I don't feel overwhelmed by fear, but
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Speaker 1: there's a very low level fear with everything that I do,
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Speaker 1: whether or not it's corporate speaking or putting a post
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Speaker 1: up on Instagram, or whether or not it's helping someone
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Speaker 1: or serving somebody, that I might be giving someone the
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Speaker 1: wrong fucking advice, or I might be speaking a language
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Speaker 1: that people don't connect with, or I might be heading
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Speaker 1: down a path that just is in the path that
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Speaker 1: my leaders, listeners or followers want to go on, right
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Speaker 1: and that on that journey. And so this is all
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Speaker 1: just normal stuff. But I think be mindful that you know,
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Speaker 1: fear can save your life, fear can destroy your life.
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Speaker 1: You know, if I really pay attention to that wisdom,
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Speaker 1: that kind of that's interlinked with that kind of rational fear,
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Speaker 1: the rational fear that, hey, Craig, this is you putting
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Speaker 1: all your eggs in this, for example, this corporate venture
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Speaker 1: or this commercial opportunity. You know, you're sixty one, you've
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Speaker 1: got a few dollars, you've been moderately successful, maybe taking
12:31
Speaker 1: ninety percent of what you've gotten throwing it into that
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Speaker 1: thing that you're not really passionate about anyway, Maybe that's
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Speaker 1: not a great idea. Maybe that fear, maybe that apprehension,
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Speaker 1: maybe that anxiety, maybe that little kind of emotional alarm
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Speaker 1: bell that's fucking banging in my head is there for
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Speaker 1: a very good reason, and it's that very sound and
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Speaker 1: rational fear that's going to keep me out of trouble
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Speaker 1: moving forward. So there is good fear, there is rational
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Speaker 1: there is empowering fear, and there is disempowering and destructive fear,
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Speaker 1: you know. So for me, I've been scared of, like
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Speaker 1: many of you are, uncertainty in the future, rejection, growing up,
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Speaker 1: being you know, rejected, and all that crap which everybody
13:21
Speaker 1: does to an extent of being found out, that imposter
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Speaker 1: thing that I've spoken about many times, of people figuring
13:27
Speaker 1: out he's really not as smart as he likes to
13:30
Speaker 1: think he is, and bibbity bobby boo, here he is
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Speaker 1: that of I'm not only of failure but also of success.
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Speaker 1: Like that's such a weird one. People think, why on
13:40
Speaker 1: earth would anyone be scared of success? And I think
13:45
Speaker 1: for some people, with success comes. And I think it
13:52
Speaker 1: varies from person to person, because I think pressure is
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Speaker 1: a self created thing. On many levels. It's stimulated, stimulated
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Speaker 1: by what happening or triggered paths by what's happening in
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Speaker 1: the external world, but it's an internal world production like
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Speaker 1: I my story, my fear, my self doubt, my overthinking,
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Speaker 1: my obsession, my rumination is turning up the volume on
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Speaker 1: my fear. But for many people, they succeed and then
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Speaker 1: they're scared of not being able to maintain that success,
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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, people have put them on
14:25
Speaker 1: a pedestal and people think they're amazing, and people think
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Speaker 1: they're great, and now they're exactly where they aimed to be.
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Speaker 1: They've reached the goal. They're making lots of dough, or
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Speaker 1: they're making some dough there. And it doesn't necessarily need
14:36
Speaker 1: to be something grandiose that everybody sees. It might be
14:40
Speaker 1: within a building company, or it might be a photography
14:43
Speaker 1: business that you have, or whatever it is. But then
14:46
Speaker 1: then we can get to the point where we think,
14:48
Speaker 1: what if it all goes away? What if I lose
14:50
Speaker 1: the money, What if I lose the momentum? What if
14:52
Speaker 1: I do a shit job? What if people discover that
14:55
Speaker 1: I was kind of lucky, not brilliant, and they figure
14:58
Speaker 1: out because I do the next thing, and the next
15:00
Speaker 1: thing is not as good as the last thing, And
15:03
Speaker 1: that's all anybody sees. So it's not unreasonable that that
15:07
Speaker 1: people have both this fear of failure but also simultaneously,
15:14
Speaker 1: if not simultaneously, eventually of success. So I guess the
15:21
Speaker 1: outcome of fear depends like, what is the end result
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Speaker 1: of your fear? What is the end result of my fear? Okay,
15:31
Speaker 1: so we're all scared, we all get scared of shit.
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Speaker 1: We do dumb shit, we do smart shit. Some fear
15:34
Speaker 1: is good, some fear is bad. Sum's life destroying, some's
15:38
Speaker 1: life saving. But I guess that one of the important
15:41
Speaker 1: questions is, so what's the byproduct, what's the outcome? What's
15:46
Speaker 1: the net result of your fear? And I guess that
15:52
Speaker 1: depends on what you do with that fear. If what
15:56
Speaker 1: you do with that fear is sit on it and
15:59
Speaker 1: you let it build an emotional and psychological and behavioral
16:02
Speaker 1: prison for you that you stay in. You're now in
16:05
Speaker 1: your own self created fear prison because you're too scared
16:10
Speaker 1: to try anything, or do anything, or say anything. And
16:13
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, by the way, that any of this
16:15
Speaker 1: is easy. This is not criticism. This is just how
16:18
Speaker 1: we work. I know many people, including myself, at times,
16:22
Speaker 1: which have overthought and underdone things. A thing many things
16:28
Speaker 1: for a very long time. But when the outcome of fear,
16:33
Speaker 1: if I'm scared of something, but I realize or I
16:36
Speaker 1: believe that that might be that course that I'm scared of,
16:39
Speaker 1: that action that I'm scared to take, that decision that
16:42
Speaker 1: I'm scared to make, that conversation that I'm scared to have,
16:46
Speaker 1: if I truly believe through all of that fear, I
16:49
Speaker 1: actually need to do that thing to break through. I
16:52
Speaker 1: actually need to do that thing to get where I
16:55
Speaker 1: want to go. I can't get where I want to
16:57
Speaker 1: go without dealing with this fear without negotiating this emotional
17:02
Speaker 1: and this psychological anchor that I drag around with me
17:06
Speaker 1: every day. I need to lean into it, and I
17:10
Speaker 1: will be scared, and I will be scared, and that
17:13
Speaker 1: is okay. And guess what often, very very often. I
17:20
Speaker 1: think Paul Taylor mentioned a quote on this show once
17:23
Speaker 1: and it was something like he was referring to some
17:27
Speaker 1: legit research and it was something like, outed for every
17:30
Speaker 1: hundred things that people worry about in the future, so
17:34
Speaker 1: things that they fear happening in the future, ninety two
17:38
Speaker 1: I think it was ninety one or ninety two of
17:40
Speaker 1: the one hundred never happened like ever, Right, So they
17:43
Speaker 1: invested all of that energy in all of this shit,
17:48
Speaker 1: like the majority of things that never happened, and of
17:52
Speaker 1: the eight percent that do happen, I think it was
17:55
Speaker 1: something like the majority of that really was little more
17:59
Speaker 1: than speed hump. It wasn't the catastrophe or the major
18:02
Speaker 1: problem that they thought it would be. And then the
18:06
Speaker 1: one or two percent that was actually quite a problem
18:10
Speaker 1: they got through anyway. They got through anyway, and it
18:13
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't a total devastation. And so, you know,
18:19
Speaker 1: we stuff happens, you know, this external word sits worlds, situation, circumstance, environment,
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Speaker 1: other people, you know, Korea, academia, relationships, all that stuff,
18:30
Speaker 1: you know, and then the internal world, we're processing it,
18:32
Speaker 1: we're thinking about it, we're ruminating on it. We're trying
18:35
Speaker 1: to figure out whether or not it's good for us
18:37
Speaker 1: or bad for us us, whether or not we like it,
18:39
Speaker 1: whether or not we want to do it or don't
18:41
Speaker 1: want to do it. And in the middle of that
18:42
Speaker 1: is emotion and beliefs and values and fear and anxiety
18:46
Speaker 1: and self doubt and trying to rationalize things. And then
18:50
Speaker 1: we end up in this state that might be empowered
18:53
Speaker 1: or disempowered. And sometimes you know, we need to move
18:56
Speaker 1: forward in faith and belief, maybe the faith and in
19:00
Speaker 1: yourself or someone else or something else. But drowning in
19:07
Speaker 1: our fear is definitely not a way to move forward.
19:10
Speaker 1: I think the Stoics said something like, we suffer more
19:15
Speaker 1: in our imagination than in reality. We suffer more in
19:19
Speaker 1: imagination than in reality. And it's so true. It's so true.
19:24
Speaker 1: And that's not to say that there are not real
19:26
Speaker 1: problems and real catastrophes and real damage. Of course, we
19:31
Speaker 1: know that we're not pretending that life's a Disney movie.
19:35
Speaker 1: We're not pretending that we're not pretending that shit isn't hard.
19:38
Speaker 1: We're not pretending that people don't get cancer, and that
19:41
Speaker 1: wars don't happen and bad shit doesn't happen to good people.
19:45
Speaker 1: We're not pretending that we realize that, we know that,
19:48
Speaker 1: we acknowledge that. We're talking about day to day, you
19:52
Speaker 1: and me living, doing our thing, wherever we are, whatever
19:55
Speaker 1: we do, whatever relationship we're in or not in or
19:58
Speaker 1: want to be in, or you know, our colleagues, our workmates,
20:01
Speaker 1: our family, our friends, all the things that we need
20:05
Speaker 1: to do to live our best life. In the middle
20:07
Speaker 1: of that, there's always going to be challenged, there's always
20:09
Speaker 1: going to be peaks and troughs, there's always going to
20:12
Speaker 1: be fear, And so I think it's important for us
20:15
Speaker 1: to see fear as information rather than the enemy. So
20:23
Speaker 1: this is, oh, this is interesting. What is this about?
20:28
Speaker 1: What is this fear about? Where does this come from?
20:31
Speaker 1: Or what is this apprehension? What is Why am I
20:33
Speaker 1: avoiding this thing? Why am I not doing this thing?
20:36
Speaker 1: Why when I know that I should stop doing that
20:40
Speaker 1: thing that's bad for me, do I keep doing it?
20:45
Speaker 1: Or why do I not do the thing that I
20:48
Speaker 1: know I should do? What's the fear around? That's what's
20:51
Speaker 1: keeping me trapped in a behavioral groundhog day that's more
20:56
Speaker 1: destructive than productive. Why am I doing that? So fear
21:02
Speaker 1: is not the enemy. Fear as part of life. And
21:05
Speaker 1: like Stephen Covey said in his book, seek first to Understand,
21:08
Speaker 1: he wasn't talking about this, but I think that's not
21:10
Speaker 1: a bad sentence to insert seek first to understand. And
21:13
Speaker 1: this is one of the ever present challenges. I believe
21:15
Speaker 1: with all things personal growth, all things psychology, all things
21:20
Speaker 1: human behavior is for us to understand the thing that
21:25
Speaker 1: we're trying to manage, the thing that we're trying to navigate,
21:28
Speaker 1: be that a person, be that a situation, be that
21:31
Speaker 1: a destructive habit. I think the starting point is insight
21:35
Speaker 1: and awareness and information. How can I navigate the thing
21:39
Speaker 1: I don't understand? What is my fear? Why am I fearful?
21:42
Speaker 1: Where did this come from? If I can understand it
21:47
Speaker 1: logically and rationally, I can do something about it. I
21:50
Speaker 1: can build my courage muscles. Just like you take your
21:54
Speaker 1: body to the gym or the running track or wherever
21:57
Speaker 1: you exercise or work out can take, you can take
22:02
Speaker 1: your brain and your emotion and your mind to that
22:05
Speaker 1: training ground of life where you just you just keep
22:09
Speaker 1: showing up, you swipe your card, you walk in, and
22:12
Speaker 1: you just go and put yourself in a situation where
22:15
Speaker 1: you've got to build, You've got to grow, you've got
22:17
Speaker 1: to learn, you've got to evolve. Because you're lifting those weights,
22:21
Speaker 1: you're working against that resistance of fear. You're working against
22:25
Speaker 1: that apprehension and that self doubt and all those fear
22:28
Speaker 1: related states and emotions. I want you to also think about,
22:33
Speaker 1: maybe think about how you contribute to your fear, like,
22:43
Speaker 1: is this fear logical or irrational? Again, no judgment in
22:50
Speaker 1: that call. We're just trying to open the awareness door.
22:54
Speaker 1: Like I know, there have been things with me over
22:57
Speaker 1: the years that have scared me or derailed me somewhat
23:00
Speaker 1: that were illogical fears. There's no logical reason to be
23:06
Speaker 1: scared of that thing, but nonetheless I was. And you know,
23:13
Speaker 1: I guess one of my friends is terrified to fly.
23:21
Speaker 1: And there's no judgment. It's a guy, and he travels
23:25
Speaker 1: for business and whenever he can, he'll any time he
23:29
Speaker 1: can take any option other than a plane if he
23:32
Speaker 1: can drive there, even if he's got stuff in Sydney,
23:34
Speaker 1: he will often drive to Sydney rather than catch a
23:36
Speaker 1: one out flight or whatever it is. And I've spoken
23:40
Speaker 1: to him many times in loving caring way. I go, dude,
23:42
Speaker 1: you know that you're more likely to die in your
23:44
Speaker 1: car than in a plane. And he knows all the data,
23:47
Speaker 1: he knows all the statistics, he knows the probability, and
23:50
Speaker 1: he also knows that statistically his fear is irrational, but
23:55
Speaker 1: nonetheless it's there. And so you know, I've over the
24:00
Speaker 1: years been working with him on that a bit. You know,
24:03
Speaker 1: It's not something that's been a big project, but just
24:05
Speaker 1: something we go back and forth on, and in my
24:09
Speaker 1: very bro science kind of evaluation, I would say his
24:14
Speaker 1: fear has gone from pretty much a ten out of
24:17
Speaker 1: ten where he couldn't almost just couldn't do it, and
24:20
Speaker 1: now his fear is about a three. He flies pretty regularly.
24:23
Speaker 1: He doesn't love it, he doesn't enjoy it, but it's
24:27
Speaker 1: not paralyzing anymore. But I mean, getting on a plane
24:31
Speaker 1: is still getting on a plane. You know, there's still
24:33
Speaker 1: some risk. That's not like there's no risk, but there's
24:36
Speaker 1: much lower risk statistically anyway. But nonetheless, So how did
24:40
Speaker 1: he start to turn down the volume? How did he
24:42
Speaker 1: start to mitigate that fear? How did he start to
24:45
Speaker 1: manage that fear rather than being managed by the fear?
24:48
Speaker 1: While he just started scared, He just started scared. He
24:53
Speaker 1: was scared, and he started He got on the plane scared,
24:57
Speaker 1: He went to the airport scared, endured that whole fucking
25:01
Speaker 1: flight scared, and then he worried for the next three
25:04
Speaker 1: days while he was doing meetings and conferences and whatever
25:07
Speaker 1: in Sydney, worried about the plane. He didn't worry about
25:10
Speaker 1: his presentations. Or his work or the out he worried
25:12
Speaker 1: about the fucking our twenty minute flight that was going
25:15
Speaker 1: to happen on Friday or whatever it was. So but
25:19
Speaker 1: this is, you know, this is part of the human experience,
25:21
Speaker 1: is that we have the opportunity, like, we don't need
25:24
Speaker 1: to go. I'm just terrified. I'm scared of that. That's it,
25:27
Speaker 1: because when we go on, we're also then saying, well,
25:30
Speaker 1: I'm not in control. It's in control. The fear is
25:32
Speaker 1: in control. I am not in control of whether or
25:37
Speaker 1: not I can get on a plane. The fear is
25:38
Speaker 1: I can't control it. Well, we can't switch it off,
25:43
Speaker 1: we can't go right, I'm ten out of ten fearful
25:46
Speaker 1: of this thing, whatever the thing is. And now hang on,
25:49
Speaker 1: let me just breathe deeply. Fuck now, I'm a one. No,
25:51
Speaker 1: that's not happening. But what we can do over time
25:56
Speaker 1: is we can decrease that number because we have experiences.
26:02
Speaker 1: We did the thing that scared us. We don't die,
26:05
Speaker 1: and we desensitize ourselves somewhat to that thing, and so
26:10
Speaker 1: we contribute to our own fear. Many of us anyway,
26:14
Speaker 1: with perception, with storytelling, with catastrophizing, with ruminating, with overthinking,
26:20
Speaker 1: with making assumptions, and then we take something that may
26:25
Speaker 1: be a little bit true or maybe not true at all,
26:28
Speaker 1: and we turn that thing into an internal catastrophe where
26:33
Speaker 1: we've just we've taken something that we really do not
26:38
Speaker 1: literally need to fear, but now it's a big part
26:41
Speaker 1: of our story. And so back to seek first to
26:45
Speaker 1: understand and being choosing to be courageous, I mean encourages
26:52
Speaker 1: it literally a choice. Fear is not a choice. You
26:55
Speaker 1: can't choose to be not fearful. If you're fearful, I'm
26:58
Speaker 1: not critical of you fearful about things perhaps you shouldn't
27:02
Speaker 1: be fearful of Well, I'm not critical at all. That's very,
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Speaker 1: very common. I think everybody, me included still as we
27:09
Speaker 1: all have something that's kind of dumb, but we're scared
27:12
Speaker 1: of whatever it is or it's but on a level,
27:15
Speaker 1: maybe it makes sense. But the challenge for us is
27:18
Speaker 1: to try to live our best life, to explore our
27:21
Speaker 1: talent and our opportunities and our resources and our genetic
27:25
Speaker 1: potential and our intelligence, our brain so that we can
27:30
Speaker 1: in the middle of the apprehension and the fear and
27:33
Speaker 1: the self doubt, we can still choose to be courageous
27:37
Speaker 1: and move forward anyway. The challenge ain't to be fearless.
27:41
Speaker 1: The challenge is to be scared and brave, to turn
27:45
Speaker 1: down the volume on the fear, to go where we grow,
27:49
Speaker 1: to not be held ransom by our fear. It can
27:54
Speaker 1: be a training ground where we grow, learn, evolve, gain understanding,
27:58
Speaker 1: inside awareness and confidence. Or it can be the thing
28:02
Speaker 1: that derails us. Don't let it derail you.