Latest / Getting After It / 194 - Fear Isn't Telling You to Stop. It's Telling You This Matters.

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194 - Fear Isn't Telling You to Stop. It's Telling You This Matters. · Getting After It

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, before I sat down to record, I had this thought.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, man, how cool would it be to have like a nerd's gummy cluster sponsor this podcast and we could have our own flavor called like getting after it.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be like cherry and uh maybe strawberry, like two delicious things together.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe like strawberry banana.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's been done before.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And like the colors could be, you know, the orange, um, it could even be black, you know, whatever.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: You could serve it at Halloween time, but it would be a delicious flavor.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, uh, all that to say, unfortunately, they're in a lawsuit because I think that the smallest amount of nerd's gummy clusters give you that you're like over limit of your daily arsenic levels.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I will fact check myself on that, but I'm pretty sure that that's true.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's true, here you go.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the the story.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get to it.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Most people seem to treat fear like a stop sign.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's their body's way of saying things like, no, not this.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not now, maybe not ever.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And fear a lot of the times does feel smart.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've covered episodes on different types of fear before.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: But this episode I want to discuss uh a few different types of fear that can at least help you understand where you're at.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: But fear a lot of the times does feel responsible because part of your brain is pulling the brake on something before you wreck, right?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Before you crash into something.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I've stood at enough start lines to know that that's backwards.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because you have to step into that fear.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna go after a race, you're gonna go after a big goal that you have, your body's not gonna want to do it.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna please, it's gonna ask you to please stop.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be polite about it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll create these stories in your head about the worst case scenarios that might happen.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I've also I've also sat at enough dinner tables the night before something that terrified me, with my wife Allie across from me, barely hearing a word that goes on in that conversation because my head was too loud.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fear has showed up many times in my life.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every single time I do something that challenges me or pushes me to do something great.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And every single time it was pointed at something that mattered, not warning me away from something that was dangerous.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna feel afraid before the things that are worth doing.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's a lesson that I've learned in my life, and I believe that it applies to everyone.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the only question worth asking is do you know which kind of fear you're dealing with?
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the Gettin' After It Podcast, my friends.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Brett, and back in Utah, happy to be here.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm excited that you're here as well because today we're talking about fear.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like I alluded to in that opening.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked about fear before on this podcast, how it's an important thing to overcome.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: But today we're not talking about overcoming the fear.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about using fear as a directional compass for your life.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And before we jump into that, you know the ritual.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I don't have a diet coke, I just have a Coke Zero tall boy, which I'll settle for that.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's fine, you know.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers to you guys.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get after it.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not gonna talk about fear like it's some motivational poster.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've heard feel the fear, but do it anyway, and a thousand times before.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that phrase, while true, it leaves out the part that actually costs people.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I think that from my experiences, fear comes in two forms.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: They feel identical in your body, which is why it's harder to move through it, to push through.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't tell them apart, you spend your life retreating from things that you should be running towards.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've experienced both, and I'm still learning to read the difference.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I just have a baseline understanding of them.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's something happening in my own life right now that I'll share towards the end about fear, about me trying to step into it, and having it be a good thing.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saving it for the close because it it'll hit differently once you have the full framework and once you understand it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So stay with me here.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to talk about the night before my first 50k.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the night of my first 50k.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you might know the story, but I ran the Stunner Knights, I believe it was the Stunner Knights Ultra.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a photo of me.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was my first experience of a 50k race.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was in Arizona in July at nighttime, and I loved the idea of running in the nighttime.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it would be something really cool.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm running in at nighttime in the desert.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'd probably see some trancelas, probably see some um coyotes, maybe, which by the way, I heard coyotes in the distance, and it was like a whole pack of them, and it literally sounded like they were just ripping something apart.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: They were screaming and howling.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was a crazy experience, and I'm all alone on this trail by myself, and I'm like, geez, hopefully those guys don't come any closer.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Although I don't think coyotes would really do much.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember the the night of my 50k.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: The race started at 7:30, and my friend and I and Allie, we were gonna go to dinner, um, probably around four o'clock.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so we go to dinner, and I remember all the the only thing I remember from that dinner is I ordered a sandwich.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's really it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: The rest of the time I was there, I can't tell you what our conversation was about, the things that we discussed, can't tell you anything about it, because in my mind, it was so loud.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was just contemplating all the things that could go wrong.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I ran a marathon at this point, I went sub-3 and I knew the pain that that brought, and I couldn't comprehend going an extra five miles, especially when you consider having elevation, having sand that you have to run through instead of a cement, I don't know, or a road.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's a very different thing.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: On top of that, I was running this in July in Arizona, and for those of you who don't know about July in Arizona, it's hell.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's so hot.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: All my life I lived in Arizona, and I just kind of got used to the heat.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: But once I moved up to Utah, and I was up in Utah for about two years before deciding to do this race, completely changed my mind about heat.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do like it, it's nice sometimes, but it's also nice to have seasons.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm Team Utah.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I love my roots in Arizona.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And anyways, I put all these scenarios in my head, like, okay, well, what if my legs stop working at mile 26?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's as far as I've run.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how am I gonna keep going then?
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was scared.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: I really was.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the thoughts were loud.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was things like, did I prepare enough for this?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Will I be able to finish this?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do I have what it takes?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or have I just been lucky?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when everyone finds out that I am a fraud?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fear is articulate, guys.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's a thing that people miss.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it knows what your weaknesses are inside your mind, and it knows how to pull some strings.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you start believing some of those things that your brain tells you.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just make you nervous, it makes it makes a case.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It will argue with you, and it hands you 15 arguments that are very sound for stopping, and every single one of them sounds reasonable.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the key.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I had to show up anyway.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: I went.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I showed up at the start line because I committed to something.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I I signed my name on a line that said, yes, I'm gonna be part of the Stunner Knights 50k.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I told people, and I had built, I had spent months building up to this point, towards one single race.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: That commitment to me was louder than the fear was.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was am I strong enough to be able to put up a counter-argument when my brain is giving me a good argument to stop?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm in the aid station and they're checking my vitals, seeing if I'm even like cleared to run and finish the race.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Am I able to push through and say, no, you know what?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: If they clear me and I'm okay, I'm gonna keep going.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or would I give in to that and say, you know what, I I made it this far, I made it 15 miles in, I don't want to risk my health.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like the that story is all real with me at the aid station and everything.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a completely new, different kind of hard to me.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I finished.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the thing that I learned from finishing that race is I could not have gotten it any other way.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was that fear at the start line was a compass.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I just hadn't learned to read it yet.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: I love ultra running, and I would have never known that if I didn't take a chance on myself, if I didn't face fear in the face and say, hey, you know what?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're there, I know you're real, but I'm not listening to you.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go anyway.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Even if that means I'm gonna fail.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna fail trying.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's the whole reason I have the man of the arena quote on my neck right now, as you guys can see.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's flipped around, but the credit goes to the man in the arena.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's what this says.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: The credit goes to the man in the arena.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that quote is all just about being the person who tries.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you fail, at least you you tried, and you're not gonna go down with those cold, timid souls who neither know victory or defeat.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's powerful.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about the two different kinds of fear, because I've alluded to it already.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: They have the same physical signature.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Things like your heart rate goes up, your breath becomes short, your stomach becomes tight, your mind is running through all the worst-case scenarios.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: But they're different messages entirely.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's protective fear, and that is ancient.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's your body's way of registering actual danger, a threat to your health, your safety, or your integrity.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Stand at the edge of the cliff, and yeah, your legs are gonna get a little shaky and wobbly.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's protective fear.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to back up, it'll go away.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's directional fear.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you feel before you have that hard conversation with someone that you love, before you register for something that will require more than you've ever given at this point, before you say out loud the thing that you've been carrying privately, before you start the project you've been circling for years.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: It feels dangerous because something real is at stake.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's your effort, your pride, your sense of what you're capable of.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when those things get threatened, your body puts up a response, which in a lot of cases comes out as fear.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: The fear is appropriate because it's a compass and not a break.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is your body can't tell them apart.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you've never really been trained to read the difference.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: At least I haven't been.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have someone sit down with me and say, okay, in your life, you'll have many experiences.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: The first is uh, at least with fear, you'll have many experiences.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: The first is something called physical fear, which is your body system of telling you what you should and should not be doing, or your directional fear, which is just you you need to push through and go towards that thing.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a lot of examples of directional fear that I think a lot of people get scared of.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: It could look like a career change, it could look like starting a family, it could look like telling that person you love that you want to start your life with them.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: It could be that hard conversation, it could be you signing up for a race, it could be you trying to make a life change.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: The list goes on and on of what directional fear could look like.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it's any time that our identity is threatened, our efforts threatened, we get scared of that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a normal thing.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Twain has this great great quote where he says, courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Brief people don't just stop being scared.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: They learned how to read the signal.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: They learned that they can keep going and that they will be okay.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who know, in 2020 I I had this idea to come up with a Getting After a podcast.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, I was listening to people like Joe Rogan, Chris Williamson, Tim Ferriss, Jocko Willink, people who were brilliant and built these massive, massive podcasts.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I really want to do something like that.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: I want to create something that matters to me and could potentially help other people.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's when my brain kicked in and started its work and said, Who's going to listen to a guy in his early 20s trying to figure out life?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're not at that level yet.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't even earned this yet.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Wait until you have more, more experience, more credentials, more something.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I told myself that I was being strategic.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And all those cases that my brain came up with, I thought were true.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I do need more credentials.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe I need to get to my 30s before I have a little bit more life experience until I start talking about things that people go through.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I told myself I was being patient, and I was setting myself up not by rushing and and going into the thing, and I I held on to that story for two full years.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: The truth was simpler but less flattering, and it was simply I was scared.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was comparing my beginning to others people other people's middle, measuring the gap, and using it as a reason to stand still.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was directional fear dressed up as wisdom, and I paid for that costume for 24 months.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: When I finally started, I learned as I went, and I still learn as I go.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Every episode that felt rough, it taught me something the one before couldn't.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can't front load that kind of learning.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: You earn it in real time, and only by doing the thing.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's another quote that I love that there's a lot of quotes in this podcast, just because I think it helps paint the picture a bit, but this one comes from someone named Joseph Campbell, and he says, The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: The podcast for me was the cave.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I spent two years standing outside of it, loitering, hanging out, drinking Diet Cokes, telling myself that the cave was the problem, not me.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the problem isn't too much fear, sometimes it's not enough, oddly.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And to tell you this story, when I started my agency with my brothers, won't be it's not really my agency, it was more my oldest brother's agency, but I helped co-found it.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I was in college at the time, but I walked in with one thought.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is all I thought about with starting a business.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be a lot of fun.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That was my whole reason I wanted to join this thing.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: It and it was fun.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was a lot of fun.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I learned a lot, but it was also a lot harder than I expected it to be.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't prepared for that part because I hadn't been afraid of it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: We had late nights grinding through projects, getting proposals sent out, creating strategies for clients, and building our business.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, there was a lot of late nights, actually.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I went in without fear, which meant that I went in without honest without an honest accounting for what it was going to cost.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: The fear arrived later, when clients were scarce and we were working to keep our heads above water.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I really felt it.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: My brother, on the other hand, Blake, he was running the entire thing.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He had a family depending on him, and he had more at stake than anyone else at the table did.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I watched him in the moments when the fear was real and justified, and he had every reason to look for some kind of exit, to find some way to end this suffering that he was facing and the pain that he was dealing with.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: I respect him for that, and I probably haven't told him enough.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I think that doing something like that, where you're in the moment of fear, you have every reason to stop, to go find a more stable job, to say, you know what, I'm not providing for the way that I want to as a father, and I need to find something different so I can take care of my family.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: He stayed in those moments and he kept his head above water.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I really respect him for that because that is a rare trait.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can build a case against almost any decision.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to learn, and there's always infinite reasons to do something.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: To not do something, I meant.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: But there's usually one honest reason that you should.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And my brother found his and he bet on it.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: The fear that you carry into something almost always outweighs the thing itself.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: My brother knew that, and he moved anyway.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's the thing about fear, is it is tricky.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is that the stories that we build up in our head?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've talked about this podcast on this podcast, the quote from Seneca, where he says we suffer more in our imagination than in reality.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that has been true in my life more times than not.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really good at coming up with stories.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said in the last podcast, I could, you know, get a gold Olympic medal in overanalyzing things and contemplating and building up stories in my head that are just aren't true.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you have to learn how to read that.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have to learn how your brain operates and how it works.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've learned is that in the moment, when fear shows up and the thoughts are loud and the gap feels wide, you need something simple enough to actually use.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I default to typically three questions.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, is there a real identifiable danger here?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Not an imagined consequence, not the worst case story your mind is running, a specific actual risk to your health, your relationships, or your integrity.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: If yes, then I would say listen to that.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's protective fear doing its job.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's important.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're scared of what people might think, or what it will mean if it doesn't work out, or what this says about you as a person, that belongs in a different category.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: That is directional fear.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, are you afraid of the outcome or afraid of the attempt?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have been reading a book called Smile or You're Doing It Wrong by Andy Glaze.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Phenomenal book.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's actually a lot that I didn't know about his story that I now respect him a lot more as a human being for.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: He's gone through it.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing I didn't expect is that he he talks very openly about his DNFs.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: His did not finish.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And many races he's DNF'd.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, is he won, that doesn't stop him from going after other goals.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: He keeps his head high, he he finds a reason to keep going, and he does.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he's not afraid to fail.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And number two, is he talks a lot about the lessons that he learns because of those DNFs.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because those failures were so prominent and they were so palpable to him, he learned lessons that he carries throughout his life.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Things like how he respects his body more than he wants a finisher medal.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or things like how, you know, ultra runners are not invincible.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even though we all like to think that we are, we all like to think we're unstoppable, but that's just not the case.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I really I think I'm gonna do a whole episode on his book, Smile or You're Doing It Wrong, because there's a lot in there that I think is powerful for us to learn from and to listen to.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: But he makes it so clear that you know it's it's not just it's not just a DNF.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's hey, at least I went down as the man in the arena, someone who tried this thing.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know there's people out there who are almost like quarterback ultra runners who sit on their couch and when they see a DNF, they say, I knew that guy didn't have it.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I knew he wasn't gonna finish this thing.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just sitting there watching Netflix, eating their Cheetos like nothing's going on.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we don't listen to those people, guys, and we keep going.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that his story, it paints the picture that most directional fear is about the attempt and not about the result.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're not terrified of finishing the race.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're terrified of showing up to the start line and finding out in real time what you're made of.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm scared of.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: That might be what you're scared of if you're going after races.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're not afraid of the conversation going badly.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're afraid of saying the words out loud and making it real.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Fear of the attempt is directional.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: It means you care.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: It means something true is at stake.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So next time you have a thought like that, think about that.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: These questions are powerful, and I'm gonna put them in the show notes so you can screenshot them and save them for later.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I think they're important to review every now and then, especially when you're facing some kind of fear.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And number three, if the fear vanished tomorrow, would you still want this?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Zero anxiety.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: You have a clear head.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Would you still make the call?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Register for the race?
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Start the thing.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: If the answer is yes, you know what the fear is telling you.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Run those three questions.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime that you face something that you're scared of, the story in your head is almost always the obstacle and not the thing itself.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you feel the compass and walk the other direction, you're not just passing on an opportunity.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're training your nervous system that retreat becomes the answer.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the threshold for what triggers retreat drops over time.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't feel yourself shrinking.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's the scary part.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: You just notice, a year later, that things that used to excite you now make you a little bit uneasy.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Challenges that used to feel like invitations, oh man, well now they feel like threats.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: The ceiling of of what is possible, it drops quietly over time because you simply stopped pushing against it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's a scary place to be.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's so hard to see in real time.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I said, not until you get to a certain point and all of a sudden you realize that you are afraid of the things that used to drive you.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many times have you heard the story of the guy who takes the comfortable job and he lives in a comfortable place and he's taken all the smart decisions, quote unquote smart decisions, the easy path, because he's afraid to fail, to risk losing things, and to risk looking like a failure himself.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's a big fear of mine, is becoming that person.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that that means I'm gonna have to step into fear a lot.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's another cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I felt in it running as well.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like you take two months off and then you try and go back to the same pace that you held before, your body does not pick up where you left it.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: You lost something while you were just sitting around standing still.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: The capacity was there, and it eroded because you stopped testing it.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Courage, I believe, works the same way.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Every time you feel the directional fear and you move toward it anyway, you raise that threshold.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: You're pushing up that ceiling.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: You become someone for whom more things are possible.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's the concept of memento mori.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, you must die.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's what memento moring means.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have that in your head, that none of us are getting out of this crazy thing called life alive.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: None of us.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how much money you have, no matter how much power you have, what your job is, how many followers you have, how big your family is, none of that matters.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the end, we're all gonna die.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: We are all human beings, and we are finite creatures.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so my question to you is do you want to live a life where you're taking it easy, where you're using this precious time that we have on earth to not challenge yourself to find what makes you comfortable rather than what pushes you and lets you see what your potential is.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I know that that idea is scary for a lot of people, myself included, from time to time.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to see what I'm capable of.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: I want to learn what my potential is.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's this quote from Cameron Haynes where he talks about how the reason he runs these ultra marathons the way that he does is because he wants to find out what his limit is.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he always says this thing he says, Well, I haven't found it yet.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's the life that I want to live, where I set high goals for myself and I go after them and hopefully achieve them, and then say, okay, well, let's raise the bar a little bit more and keep going after that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because you don't want to be average.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: That sucks.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Being average sucks.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: The reps of courage help build a higher ceiling.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be fearlessness.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I don't think that all high achievers have their fear simply stripped away.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: When Olympians toe up at the line, I almost am certain that every single one of them is nervous because they know the work that it's taken to get to that point.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: They know how much that they've sacrificed to get there.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this next moment, their race, that might be the moment that exposes them.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or that where they learn that they didn't work hard enough, or they were passed up by someone else who wanted it more.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's where their fear comes from.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not fearless people.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: They just have a higher ceiling for courage.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like after my first 50K in that deep sand where things were catastrophic, I didn't know if my legs were gonna hold up.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have a reference point at all of what I was gonna be doing.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: The second time that I reached that kind of threshold, I knew something I didn't know before, where I was on a 50K.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: I said, hey, I've been here and I came through it on the other side.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was still nervous.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: That fear didn't disappear, but simply my relationship to that fear changed.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's talk about four things this week that you can do, not someday, this week.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta confront the fear, guys.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta get over it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta make fear our bitch.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, powerful stuff.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Cheers to you guys.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the first one, I've already said it.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to run those three questions.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Go through them.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: Are you in real danger?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you afraid of the attempt or the outcome?
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Would you still want it if there was no fear?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: The answers will be honest even when they're uncomfortable to hear.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: But especially when they're uncomfortable to hear.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, five minutes of contact.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's no need to conquer this move, this whole thing in one move.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just get near it for five minutes.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is called exposure therapy.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: As someone who's been to therapy, this is actually a great way to get used to fear a little bit.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be simple things.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like you draft up your first email, you you pull up the race page registration, you write one sentence that you've been postponing because you're afraid of having other people read your work.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: But five minutes of proximity shifts something in your nervous system.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's really it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Being there close to the fear for five minutes, it'll make you a little bit more comfortable with it, where you can raise the bar.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Small proof that you can be near it without you falling apart.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Number three is log the fear and then log the reality.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is a really interesting one for me.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because after you do something that you're scared of, write down what you thought would happen and what actually happened.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a fun exercise, at least, I mean, fun for me.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: You guys might think I'm a nerd, but I think it's kind of cool to understand what your actual experience was like and then compare and contrast that to the thoughts and the feelings that were in your head beforehand.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: But that document becomes evidence.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And use it when fear starts making its case again.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh man, you're not up for that.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: And be like, hey, listen, you told me that before, but I went out and I did the thing, and that actually is not what happened.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: So start documenting it and document document the reality of it.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then build a fear curriculum.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly enough, I think this is very helpful.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: But three things that scare you right now one physical, one relational, and one professional.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it simple.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Focus on those three things.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then rank them from least fearful to most fearful.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Start with the bottom of the list and work up.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is not recklessness.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is staying in the habit of moving towards directional fear before it calcifies into avoidance.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do not avoid it.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you do that, then you may have failed.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what do we learn from failure?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: We learn that you have a second chance.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: We learn that you can get up, dust your shoulders off, get that dirt off your shoulder, shout out to Jay-Z, and keep going.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: You can keep on moving.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now I I promised you something personal at the beginning.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm gonna get into it now.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a father.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: My wife, she's four and a half months pregnant.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: We just had our anatomy scan today, and my son is coming.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: The fear is real, guys.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is real.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Understanding the responsibility of this, the late nights that are coming ahead of me, the life change that this will be, the weight of knowing that a little person is going to look at me and I'm going to be one of the primary voices that shapes who he becomes.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I ask myself all the time, will I be enough?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of man am I in that room?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then I try to run through those three questions.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is there real danger?
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's not.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Am I afraid of the attempt or the outcome?
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: The attempt?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Completely.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Showing up every day, not knowing if I'm doing it right, is something that scares me.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that so many people have come before me doing the same thing.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad, I learned so many great lessons from him that I'm going to take into my own fatherhood.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Would I still want this if the fear disappeared?
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Without any question.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is directional fear.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: The compass pointing at the most significant thing that I've ever walked towards.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: I stepped into marriage the same way.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Faith that I could show up for Allie, that I would grow into the man that she needed, that the role would teach me what I couldn't learn before taking it.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the answers going in, but I had to go anyway.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love that woman so much.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I couldn't let her get away.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: As creepy and bad as that sounds.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: I had to go into it, even if there was a little bit of fear.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote my journal, I was talking to Allie about this today, how I was talking about, or I'm going to discuss this on the podcast, and she and I was like, Yeah, I wasn't really scared to marry you.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes, Yes, you were.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: You wrote it in your journal.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I went back, and sure enough, she was right.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just like how all wives are.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to trust myself that I would be the man that needed to needed that she needed.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Fatherhood will be the same.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: There is more joy in it than there is fear, and I know that.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd be lying if I said that fear wasn't real.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to stand up and pretend that it isn't.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: The fear is real because being a father to me, it matters.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the whole point.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's this whole episode.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do the thing you fear.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: The death of fear is certain.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: Not before you start, but on the other side of the attempt.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: So go out there and kill your fear.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your challenge for the week.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: We talked about the practical applications, we talked about the three questions, we've talked about different examples.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Here's your challenge.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Find one thing in your life that you've been treating like a stop sign.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Something you've been calling smart or cautious or it's not the right time.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And get honest with yourself about whether that's protective fear or directional fear in a costume.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it's directional fear, you know what to do now.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know how to confront it.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every day you look at that compass instead of following it, that signal gets quieter.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: So name it, run the questions, and take those five minutes of contact.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now you go, you get it done.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you keep going.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you succeed in life.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because life is gonna be hard.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be times in our lives where we're scared of whatever the outcome can be.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're scared of the attempt.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: But those moments are signals to us to follow that.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because who will he be on the other side of it?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's the real question you should be asking yourself.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if I sign up for this race, if I lean into my fear and I go, who could I become?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Think about David Goggins.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know he's an extreme example, but his life is crazy just because he used to be a 350-pound 350-pound man, and then he became a Navy SEAL because he didn't like the idea of his life wasting away the way that he was.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he started signing up for races, and it started very small.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then he now is an ultra runner that everyone knows about.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's an experienced Navy SEAL, and it's all because of moments where he stepped into fear when everything inside of him was telling him not to do that.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that was directional.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: I hope this episode helped.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I really try and be intentional about the topics that I cover.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: But like you know, if you're uh a listener of the show, uh, these are all things that I'm working through myself.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like that whole father example, that's so real to me.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am a I'm afraid a lot of the times to be a dad because I don't know if I'll do it right.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm gonna mess up countless times, but I do know one thing I will love that child more than myself and more than anything else besides my wife.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so I will try to do my best to be the dad that that kid needs to be.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's scary.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also a lot of joy in it.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so try and find out who you can become.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: You understand what your potential is.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: But again, if this helped at all, please leave a nice little rating for the show.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: It goes a long way and it means a lot.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you want to leave a comment, I read every single one of them.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: I will respond to you and I will say thank you.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because it's nice.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: I like hearing from you guys.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: You guys are cool.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh share with a friend.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you know someone who's going through a big change, maybe they need to hear something like this.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they need to understand what the difference between protective fear and directional fear is.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: And until next episode, my friends, you find that fear, you step into it, and keep getting after it.