by Tommy Baker
You cannot wait until everything is perfect to decide. I ended up creating an incredible strategy for launching my show and I debuted on iTunes at number 1 in the world in my category of personal development. This has completely changed my life, and now I have a thriving business all coming from the decision to launch the podcast.
Stop Trying to Eradicate Fear
The idea of no fear was a cool lifestyle brand for a while. However, in our quest to eradicate fear, we lose our power and it engulfs us. It’s like the pink elephant thought experiment. When we’re told to not think of one, guess what? We do.
Although I’m sure the pink elephant you just imagined was awesome, this constant attempt to get rid of a basic part of human evolution that allowed us to get to where we are is fundamentally flawed.
Anyone who’s ever given a speech or public talk knows eradicating fear only makes it worse. You focus on it, and then it grows until it paralyzes you. Worse off, because we’ve attached a negative label to it, we’re now ashamed for feeling this way. This cycle repeats itself until we choose to do nothing. And when we do nothing, we feel worse. This is Fear 101 becoming a vicious cycle.
But what if there was a way to let go and use fear as a trusted ally?
Release the Conditions
Often, we tend to operate believing the following conditions: if fear is present, it means we shouldn’t be doing it. At the very least, it means we should pause, lose all of our momentum, and seek safety.
And so, in life—when fear occurs, it takes a hold of us and stops us cold. This conditional way of living ensures we’ll always stay in our comfort zones, we play small, and never speak up. It’ll begin to take grip on our day-to-day experience and eradicate our ambition.
It’s time to acknowledge fear is there for a reason, and that reason is vitally important with regard to taking the biggest leap of our lives and never looking back.
Pull Up a Seat, Fear Is Here to Stay
The moment you quit your job in a blaze of inspiration and make your first sale, the six-figure launch day, the soulmate connection, or the success you’re dreaming of will eradicate fear for good, right?
No, it won’t. You better be prepared to extend a warm invitation to fear, because it’s here to stay. Often, people will believe that if they just hit that next outcome, then fear will be gone.
And then they realize the harsh reality: fear is still there, and sometimes can become even more paralyzing if it hasn’t been reframed.
Selling 12 million books, spending four years on the New York Times bestseller list, and being named part of the top 100 influential people will jolt you.
And for Elizabeth Gilbert, who’d been writing for various publications on more serious topics, Eat, Pray, Love was a not simply a success. It was a napalm bomb explosion of life-altering success that fundamentally shifted every part of her reality.
With this kind of success comes another problem: dealing with it. After the wave, Gilbert was faced with the stark realization that her best work, in a commercial sense, was (likely) behind her. This sent her into an existential questioning, down a rabbit hole exploration of unpacking who she really was, a messy endeavor. When you add in fame, you’ve got a recipe for disaster.
The reality was that success hadn’t eradicated her fear; it had simply shifted the fear. Once we understand that fear won’t go away, we’re able to celebrate wins authentically. Furthermore, we won’t judge ourselves when we hit the target we dreamed of only to find out there’s a new fear we could have never imagined. Let me put this bluntly: fear in your life is a great thing and shows proof you’re on an accelerated path of growth.
If fear is here to stay, it’s time to explore how you can reframe it to use as leverage, clarity, and exponential results in your life.
Reframe 1: Fear Is Your Compass
Your reframe begins by seeking fear regularly. The moment you feel it, you smile. You recognize it. You sense it in your brain, and your body. But instead of running away from it, you lean in. This becomes a daily practice. For example:
The dread over the tough conversation with your boss becomes a chance for you to learn how to hold tension.
The uncertainty of the looming business launch becomes the energy required for you to eliminate distraction and tap into your creative genius.
The fear you feel of pushing yourself physically becomes the needed feedback to sharpen your mental and physical confidence.
Our tendency is to follow the safe path, yet the path leaves us unfulfilled. Fear, then, becomes a trustworthy compass to know you’re growing and headed in the right direction (see Figure 2.1).
Figure 2.1 Fear is your compass.
Reframe 2: Fear Is Your Ally
Once you’re paving a new path toward seeking fear, you start to develop an empowering relationship with it. You welcome it, much like you’d welcome someone you respect into your home.
This is what being on your edge is supposed to feel like. You recognize the two types of fear. One is the survival instinct, immediate reaction coming from the amygdala. The other is the emotional fear from which you create a worst-case scenario. Both are part of who you are, and building a relationship with these mechanisms allows you to feel empowered.
Now, fear becomes a trusted partner to know exactly what to do instead of what not to do. It may not ever become your best friend, and that’s okay. But it is a trusted ally and someone you can lean on to make decisions and live your boldest life.
Reframe 3: Fear Is a Prerequisite
Now that you’ve been able to use fear as a compass and trusted ally, the last part of the reframe puzzle is set.
This is what you’ve been waiting for, and you’ll never miss an opportunity for a life changing moment at the hands of fear again. The last part of the reframe is simple; fear becomes a prerequisite to help make bold decisions. When you feel fear in your life, your comfort zone is being stretched and you have the opportunity to step into your greatness.
I still remember the first time I invested heavily in myself. I’d had a conversation with my mentor about taking a coaching program, and everything in my mind was saying no. Yet, there was something deep within me that recognized this was a do-or-die moment.
With logic screaming in my ear to stop, I took a deep breath and said yes. I was shaking from fear, because the investment was a cool $25,000. When pulling up my bank statement, I had $903 in my checking, and I hadn’t paid rent yet. I’d already exhausted most of my account getting there.
But I did it anyway. Susan Jeffers, renowned psychology and author of Feel the Fear . . . and Do It Anyway expands on this topic:1 “Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.”
That moment changed my life forever, because investing in the program had nothing to do with them. I may as well have written myself a check, because I faced a fear knowing the financial part was the least of my concerns.
What really scared me in that moment was betting on myself, and moving all my chip stacks to the middle of the table in one moment of complete and unapologetic self-trust. Because once you put your dreams on the line, you’ve got nowhere to hide.
Leap Tip: Run Toward Fear
Flip the script. From here on out, recognize the moments in your life when you feel fear, and instead of running from it, lean in. If you weren’t experiencing fear, you wouldn’t be playing big and bold and stretching your comfort zone.
Identify the last time you felt fear and didn’t step up to the plate. Write down five consequences of not taking action.
The Unknown Is Calling, but You’re Not Listening
Now that we’ve reframed fear, it’s time to focus on the next pillar holding you back—the unknown. In most people’s minds, the unknown is not only uncomfortable, but it’s also downright frightening. It’s the abyss, the dark cave we all work tirelessly to avoid.
Much like fear, the unknown is responsible for missed opportuni
ties. It’s responsible for closing doors that could lead to incredible experiences and saying “no” at the voyage calling us forth. Instead, we seek safety back in the comfort of known—even if that known is painful.
What if we looked at the unknown with a brand-new lens, one that brought excitement and imagination—instead of fear and worst-case scenarios? That’s exactly what you’ll need when you make your leap. Because the truth is, you don’t want to know every single step of your path.
As much as we seek clarity and certainty, we don’t want to know the entire story. Think about it. Would you want to know every step of the way on your life’s path? No, you wouldn’t. We think we do sometimes, but we’d lose the essential ingredients of what make this experience special: the mystery, awe, and wonder of not knowing.
So, if you’re expecting to know every step of the way in regard to your leap, you’ve come to the wrong place. Your leap is about writing a story worth reading. And no story is complete without a degree of mystery. Now it’s time for you to embrace this mystery in your everyday life.
Leap Tip: Your Greatest Moments
Take a pause and identify the greatest moments of your life. Pick at least two and go back into the way you felt.
Then ask yourself:
Did I know every step of the path to get there?
Could I have predicted this moment with precision?
Was there any uncertainty or fear on the way there?
Once you recognize you’ve already experienced the ingredients of your leap, you’ll shift your awareness and move forward with confidence.
Reframe: The Unknown Is Where the Magic Happens
It’s time to change the rules and fall in love with the unknown. Now you’re going to perceive the unknown as a place where anything can happen, with the odds stacked in your favor. You’re playing with house money, and you can’t lose. The unknown favors the bold, the daring few who take a chance and trust themselves enough to take the next step.
Much like fear, the reframe will be incomplete without developing a practice of the unknown. Think of these as your training ground, putting in the reps day by day.
Don’t overthink it. This is not about a majestic decision to uproot your entire life. This is about trusting the unknown in your day to day.
For example:
When you’re at the grocery store checking out, take the chance to ask the cashier a real question to get to know who that person is.
When you’re driving by the boxing gym and feel compelled to experience it, pull over and go in without doing any research or having prior experience.
When you’re on your way to work and you feel a pull to take the day off with a day trip, make the call to your office because it feels right.
If these seem simple and inconsequential, that’s great. It becomes impossible to lean into fear during the high stakes moments of your life without this practice. These moments will add up and help you in stepping into your leap with confidence and power.
But … What Will They Think?
What others may think is holding you back from taking the leap. You may say to yourself, “I don’t care what other people think.” Yeah, right.
We all care, and we all care way too much. David Foster Wallace sums up this universal feeling brilliantly in his book Infinite Jest2:
You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
Often, we overestimate how much people care about what we’re doing and create constructs in our minds using them as reasons to not do what we know is right.
Think about your past 24 hours. Examine some of the choices you made when you felt others were judging you. These happen all the time, often unconsciously. Much like fear and the unknown, they hold you back from fully expressing who you are.
For example:
You really wanted to take a selfie celebrating your morning workout, but you didn’t want people in the gym to think you’re one of those people.
You really wanted to ask a question at the event you were recently at, but you didn’t want others to think it was dumb.
You know you have to launch your business or side hustle, but you’re worried about your co-workers finding you on social media.
It’s time to release the way you and I experience judgment, once and for all.
No Matter What, You Will Be Judged
Here’s the secret? No matter what you do in life, you’re going to be judged. You can stay stuck the rest of your life, and you’ll be judged. You can take the bold leap, and you’ll be judged. If you speak up, you’ll be judged. If you stay quiet, you’ll be judged. It’s part of life, and it’s never going to go away. Once you recognize this, the stranglehold judgment has on you will begin to loosen.
However, there is one judgment that matters: it’s the judgment from the person looking back at you in the mirror every single day. That does carry weight, because we have to live with ourselves every single day. We take ourselves everywhere.
If we avoid the leap, we must live with the fact that we’re going to judge ourselves the rest of our lives for not making the decision we knew was right. Yes, we can rationalize and compartmentalize it as much as we want. But it won’t go away.
Often, time only makes it worse.
Reframe: Judgment Is a Mirror
It’s time to reframe judgment. It starts with recognizing that when people judge you, it’s never about you. This realization is liberating. For example:
If people are ripping the author with personal attacks on Twitter, it isn’t because they have something constructive to say but, rather, because it’s easier to attack than to offer constructive criticism or create something of their own.
Secret: They’re dying to create something, and you triggered what they haven’t done.
If people are making one-off remarks during the meeting when you spoke up, it’s because deep down, they wanted to contribute.
Secret: They want to be heard and went against their own call to speak up.
If people on social media are making passive-aggressive remarks when you celebrate something, it’s because they’re feeling inferior to you.
Secret: They know there’s success out there for them, and they’re frustrated.
Understanding this allows you to dissolve the emotional impact of judgment and continue to take the next step forward.
You Don’t Believe It’s Possible for You
Deep down, you don’t believe your leap is possible for you. Often, I’ll tell stories about those who have taken life-altering leaps, and someone will say:
“Well, they had connections, so of course it worked out.”
“They’re disciplined and that’s why they experienced success.”
“They were at the right place at the right time. I can’t repeat that.”
Facepalm. All these are mechanisms for the same thing: letting ourselves off the hook by glorifying someone else’s traits. The truth is, they’re not unique or special. The people you look up to are the same as you and me. They wake up with the same doubts, insecurities, feelings of unworthiness, and frustrations as you do. They’re on the verge of throwing up before they hop on stage. They feel overwhelmed, and like there’s not enough time. They want to give up and give in long before they accomplish their dreams.
Remember, those you look up to are not special or flying on some magical carpet. They’re human. They experience the same trials and tribulations you do. However, it’s what happens next that changes the course of a life. The great separator, then, is what they do after the voices of doubt rise to the surface. And the backbone of it all is belief.
You’re Unwilling to Swim in Discomfort
Your leap is going to require you to get dirty. It’s going to require you to get messy and wrestle with a myriad of emotions. One of the main obstacles in people’s way is their unwillingness to be uncomfortable. They say they want the result of the leap, but they’re not willing to do the wor
k of the leap.
We’re conditioned to avoid discomfort at a young age. We place it in a box labeled bad and avoid at all costs. Yet, I’m here to tell you the quality of your life will be dependent on how often and to what degree you’re willing to get uncomfortable.
Sound crazy? Hear me out. Through discomfort we learn about ourselves. It’s where we’re able to give an experience meaning. And most importantly, it’s where fulfillment occurs, not in a one-shot dopamine hit of happiness.
We can manufacture a one-shot hit of happiness right now—sex, ice cream, and the biggest double-patty order from Carl’s Jr.’s will make us happy for a bit. But it’s fleeting, and when it fades, we’re worse than when we started.
By facing yourself day after day, with a willingness to get messy, that’s a direct route to fulfillment. Your leap is all about getting uncomfortable, and if you’re unwilling to face it, or operate under the illusion that it’s going to be sunshine, puppies, and butterflies, you’re playing the wrong game.
You Only Believe When It’s Convenient
Belief is binary. There is no in-between, there is no halfway, there is no 79%. You’re in or you’re out. You can’t believe 50% and then increase 5% every time you experience a win. Because if you’re not 100% in, you’re out of alignment and everyone can feel it. The marketplace feels it, the people you interact with feel it, and worst of all, you feel it.
