The Blog For Entrepreneurs

The book I am writing and the courses I am developing are all based on people fighting fear because fear is what is holding you back right now from whatever you want to achieve, whatever desire you have and feel is out of your reach.

Imagine if that fear was banished, whatever it is; fear of failure, fear of success, fear of public speaking, fear of humiliation, what could you achieve if we took those fears away right now?

Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Do the thing we fear and the death of fear is certain”. This is a credo that you should embed in your mind. I know that it is difficult, in everyday life, to confront the fear of failure, success, humiliation etc, so how can we banish these feelings?

Imagine Fear Banished

When I was a boy I was painfully shy, however I was pretty good at football/soccer. I knew that when I walked onto a five-a-side pitch or a full size pitch that I was pretty much the best player on there, or at least one of the best.

All of my fears and insecurities disappeared when I set foot on that pitch, I became a more confident and assertive person. Because of this I played for every team that asked me at any time.

Later on I used this feeling and memory to change how I felt about business, meeting people and networking. When I walk into a meeting now I have the same level of confidence that I had walking onto a football pitch and I have done this by facing many fears.

I tell this story not to big myself up, but to communicate to you that whatever you are afraid of you can conquer by vanquishing any fear. Scared of public speaking? Go jump out of aeroplane and do some skydiving, do something that scares you to death and I guarantee you will be able to draw on the positive steps you took to overcome your fear of public speaking.

We are only afraid of things because we do not practice them. If you worked with me and I made you get up and do a public speech everyday for a month do you think you would be afraid of it anymore? I doubt it very much (this is actually how I killed that fear).

Throughout this blog we talk about many things to do with being an entrepreneur, many strategies and tactics but I will give you an inside tip here; conquer any fear and everything else will slide into place.

What you are doing by killing off a fear, any fear, is hard wiring your brain, giving it strategies and processes to kill other fears. I wish I could give you the gift of being fearless in every sitiation, I can only imagine what you could achieve, but infortunately I can’t, I can only let you know how I did it for some of my fears.

A fear I will conquer

About a year ago I had a day to spare in Toronto on business, so I went to the Niagra Falls. Hieghts have always been a fear of mine and to conquer it I have parachuted, microlighted and taken hang gliding lessons, but when I was in Niagra I had massive vertigo standing at the edge of the falls.

The thing was, I was behind a barrier which still freaked me out. Today I saw this video:

The Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe are huge and this is known as ‘The Devil’s Pool’ where, at certain times of the year you can get in the water and look over the edge of the Falls. This, to me, is mental and it would definately freak me out. Because of this I am planning a trip next year, it is just another thing to kill fear off.

I would be interested to hear your tips and stories about how you have killed fear in our forum.

Regards
David
@OneLifeNoFear