Latest / Pathological Positivity / Do It While You’re Scared – Episode #704
Transcript
- This is Live On Purpose Radio episode 704. Do it while you're scared. Now is the only time to create and live the life you love. I'm doctor Paul Jenkins, the positivity psychologist. My job is to connect you to powerful positive psychology principles that immediately upgrade your relationships, business, and mental health. Are you ready? Let's jump in. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Live on Purpose Radio. This is doctor Paul, the shrink who expands your life. Hey. What if fear isn't something to avoid, but something to move with? In this episode, you get to discover how to reframe fear, stop waiting for the perfect moment, and start moving forward on purpose. Are you ready? Hey, friends. Let's start with this. A couple of points that I've learned, and this is from a very recent experience. I was traveling a lot in April, and one of those trips was to Wyoming to provide a four hour training for the police leadership of the state. So we had all of the sheriffs, the chiefs of police, and we did some positivity training. On the way, I was thinking about my previous trip, which was to Washington DC where I got to spend several days with Mark Albert and John Bates and their amazing team to learn more about media coverage. One of the things that I realized is that I've built this podcast. I've got a thriving YouTube channel. I don't get invited a lot to do a television interview. I've done a few here and there, or to provide a journal article or a, an article for a magazine or a print publication or a newspaper. And this is what we were learning about. Well it became very apparent to me quickly as I was going through that training, the media training, that there are journalists out there who really need experts to show up and share what their expertise is. Because journalists aren't experts in anything except journalism, and they are looking for other people to comment on the important stories that they're sharing with their audiences. So this was in my mind as I was traveling to Wyoming for the training that I was putting on for these police officers. Well, I realized something as I was thinking about that and riding the train to the airport. So I had a little bit of time. I had my laptop open, Wi Fi connected. I was, doing a little bit of work on my, travels. And I realized that this is my opportunity. And as soon as I thought that, I felt fear. Now this is weird. What is there to be afraid of? I don't know. Nothing really. I know my content. I know my expertise, but I hadn't yet tried this new approach where you actually reach out to a journalist and you make a pitch. And this... These are people I don't even know, and I know that they're busy. I mean, this was some of the head trash that started going through my my head. Now that was a little harsh. I called it head trash, but we just have very human reactions. When we anticipate doing something that we don't have any experience with, Our brain's job is to keep us safe and to prove us right. Both of those get in our way all the time. And my brain was trying to keep me safe saying, No. Don't reach out. No, you've got enough to do. No. We don't want to bother people. You don't even know that. I mean, all of this was going through my head and I just stopped it in the moment. And I thought to myself, fear is not a stop sign. It's a signal to move forward. It's usually an indicator that I'm on the edge of something I'm not familiar with but have good reasons to approach. The fight or flight response that we have as humans is just trying to keep us safe. But think about it. This is not dangerous. It's just unknown. It is just not experienced yet. So I did a quick little search, and it is not hard to find out what are the local television stations in Casper, Wyoming. That is what I searched. And I found what local television stations are there. They have a phone number. They have an email address. I put together a quick little email that said, hey. I'm going to be in town. Here's a possible story you might want to cover and how I'm willing to comment on it and be your expert. I'll be camera ready. Send. And as soon as I sent it, I felt like, okay. Well, that wasn't so bad. Right? And I didn't even really expect anything to happen, and nothing happened. I even tried calling the phone number, didn't get an answer. And I knew that news agencies are often very busy, and they may or may not be available to the phone right then. So the next morning, when I had a little bit of time before my training started, I sent a follow-up email that said, hey. I am available this morning and camera ready. If you want to have a little conversation, I'd be happy to do that. Call me. And within a half hour, the reporter called me. And we had a great conversation. And and what really struck me is how grateful the reporter was because he was working on stories. He had to fill content in his news program, and he appreciated that I offered that. Now I was feeling fear. I was feeling apprehension. And it's just because it was unknown to me. It was new to me. So when I said fear is is not a stop sign, it's a signal. When we feel the fear, Sometimes that's an indicator to us that we're on the edge of our comfort zone. And it doesn't mean stop. It often means, hey. This matters. This is important to you. So it's not a sign that something wrong. It's probably a sign that you're growing. So I had a good experience with it. Now I'm not saying this is gonna happen every time you face your fears. You're going to have a successful outcome. Probably that's not even the case. But what I learned from this is something that I've taught my clients forever, that fear is a powerful indicator, a sign that this is important to you, not necessarily that it's dangerous. Now this leads me to another point because often when we venture into something new, like what I'm learning right now about, making media appearances, often we make the mistake of demanding confidence before we act. Can you relate to this? The problem is that confidence is a result. It's not a prerequisite. I didn't pitch that reporter because I felt confident. I felt more confident after I pitched. So confidence follows evidence. Courage is what creates the evidence. Every meaningful opportunity requires us to act before we actually feel ready. If we feel ready, it's probably because we already have confidence. If we already have confidence, it's because, well, this is nothing new for us. We've already got some experience, some evidence. We've gained some capabilities. It's courage that is required upfront and that implies fear. Think about it. Courage isn't courage without the fear. So the fear may be an indicator that you're about to practice courage. Action is one of the best antidotes to fear. Fear tends to grow with inaction. If we don't do anything, our brain jumps into its second job, which is to prove us right. And there's kind of a a funny paradox that happens here. You've probably heard about something we call the self fulfilling prophecy. Right? And this is because our brain sometimes takes our experience and uses it as evidence. So for example, if you fear something, you feel that apprehension, that anxiety, And everything inside of you is is saying, get away. Stay safe. Move away from this. Avoid this. Well, what happens when we avoid it? We feel better initially. So our brain takes that as evidence. Oh look. It really must have been dangerous because look how much better I feel having avoided it. Well that's not evidence. We created that but our brain will do this. So action is often the the antidote to fear. What happens if you face the fear? What do you feel? I mean, initially, you feel more intensity of that feeling. When I actually started reaching out to the reporter, I felt the anxiety increase. Not a lot. I mean, it's not overwhelming, but as you're facing that fear, you get to maximize the fear. This is counterintuitive because your brain is telling you to avoid it. When you avoid it, you feel better, but you're more convinced that it was not safe. So the next time you have to face that, the fear is even higher. I mean, your baseline fear. When you face your fear, when you feel the fear and do it anyway, you have an increase in that moment. But as soon as you take the action, that fear comes down and your brain has a very different conclusion from that. Your brain says, oh, look. It wasn't as bad as I thought. And your overall fear, your baseline fear around that comes down. Also, you start to gain the capabilities which allows you to build confidence. So the longer we wait or the more we avoid the thing that we fear, the bigger and badder that thing becomes in our mind. The more intimidating it actually feels. Small immediate action disrupts that cycle. So the practical application of this is make the call. Send the email. Pitch the idea. Start the conversation. You don't eliminate fear by thinking about it. You eliminate it by moving through it. So living on purpose actually means that we choose an action that's aligned with our values even when it's uncomfortable. And I might even add, especially when it's uncomfortable, especially when we feel the fear. You just bring that fear along with you and act anyway. That's what courage is all about. I don't think we're trying to be fearless here. I think the goal is more to live purposefully so that fear doesn't get in the way of moving forward to that thing that we really do feel is important. Have you gained something that you can use here today? I certainly hope that you have. I'll be sharing other experiences that have taught me similar things as we move forward. Yeah. We've heard it. It's time to apply it. Let's go live on purpose. Did you get what you came for? Give yourself the gift of taking real action on what you realized today. Please share this episode with someone you know would value it, and leave us a rating too. It's time now to live on purpose.