Is Fear Challenging You to Grow?

Three Things: How to Know When Fear is Challenging You To Grow – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqClL728iCE

Transcript:
(00:00) we have the blessing of choice when it comes to fear now of or or discernment not Choice rather but discernment of having to look at fear and try to discern between is it telling me that there’s something to be that to Danger that I need to avoid or is it telling me that there’s an opportunity that I should pursue hello everyone and welcome to the flow over fear podcast where it is our mission to help you to rise above fear and realize your ultimate potential in leadership and life I’m your host Adam
(00:37) Hill and it is my goal to share with you the human side of high performance my guests share their experience with fear anxiety struggle Challenge and most importantly despite all of it how they Rose above it to achieve incredible results so if you’re ready to rise up let’s get started hey everyone welcome to flow over fear thanks for being here today I want to dig in a little bit more into fear and specifically I want to talk about how we know when to lean into it like we feel afraid right you feel that sense of fear
(01:17) happen to you how do you know what it’s telling you that there’s danger and when you’re when it’s telling you that there might be opportunity uh it’s that opportunity of course that we want to lean into and we listen to that fear and we lean into it we want to embrace it as a signal that we can move forward but uh but how do we know that to make that distinction now it’s a pretty recent phenomenon that that fear has been something that we need to listen to in order to grow in fact it has a couple of meanings
(01:53) um and throughout our human history fear has existed uh for a purpose it’s it’s been there and through for a purpose and continues to exist for purpose uh but we’ve kind of we’ve kind of shifted that and we’ve kind of uh maybe burn that a little bit by changing the way we look at it especially in recent history for hundreds of thousands of years human beings have have feared things for the right reasons you know I’m going to exit this cave and the last time we exited this cave my friend John over here was
(02:32) eaten by a saber-toothed tiger now I don’t want to get eaten by a saber-toothed tiger so let’s avoid leaving this cave because that’s scary fear served a purpose don’t get eaten by the saber-toothed tiger avoid that situation fear was a signal for danger it was telling us the danger exists and probably that we should avoid that Danger and as we evolved and as we got into our comfortable Society where we’re sitting at a desk looking at a computer or going to the grocery store to get food we’re
(03:03) no longer hunting fear started to come up in new ways and and of course there’s a lot of psychology around this so I’m really really I I’m really you know making simplifying this here because there’s a lot more Nuance to it but um of course fear continued to exist for danger you know we we um you know we’re we enter a dark alleyway that we’ve never been in before we’re afraid because it’s dark we don’t know who’s lurking around the corner of course there’s a sense of being aware of
(03:32) danger and getting away from it so fear still serves that purpose but there’s another purpose that it serves when we are when we are thinking of new things of new ways to be creative think about this scenario uh you have a great idea that pops into your mind or an idea that pops into your mind um you want to uh you suddenly have this desire to to take up swimming in the ocean to become an Open Water swimmer the only problem is you’ve never really swim in the ocean it’s scary because there’s sharks out there or there’s
(04:10) there’s uh uh there’s the idea of Rough Waters there’s things like that so it immediately scares you so your first response is to say now I’m not going to do that because it’s scary so I’m gonna step away from it or your brain tells you this story it even goes deeper it says are you kidding me look at you you can’t do that you’ve never even swam in the ocean before that don’t even don’t worry about that so ultimately both cases your brain is trying to protect you because the fear
(04:37) impulses is telling you is signaling you the only thing is is it may be signaling for you for danger but it may also be signaling you for opportunity now swimming in the ocean is is uh as ocean will open water swimmers will tell you is is pretty darn safe you know sharks aren’t on the lookout to just attack human beings while they’re swimming even though it happens from time to time um I mean you dress up like a sea lion and you enter their environment it’s bound to happen but But ultimately the chances are very very
(05:10) slim that that’s going to happen and if you’re swimming in a group and if you’re if you’re careful and you and you and you take the right steps to learn safety protocols it can be totally safe and enjoyable so there it could be a signal for opportunity if it’s a desire that lifts you up um and that’s one of the that’s the distinction we have now we we have the we have the blessing of choice when it comes to fear now of or or discernment not Choice rather but discernment of having to look at fear
(05:42) and try to discern between is it telling me that there’s something to be that to Danger that I need to avoid or is it telling me that there’s an opportunity that I should pursue in both cases fear is useful and we should not fear it we should embrace it uh Franklin Delano Roosevelt one of the greatest presidents in our history got us through one of the most challenging times in our world history and faced it with bravery but he got one thing wrong and you probably got more than one thing wrong but in this case you got one thing wrong
(06:19) he told the world and was one of his most famous speeches one of those the most famous quotes from that speech the only thing we have to fear is fear itself well I’m going to tell this to you folks uh with absolute boldness that the one of the greatest presidents in every in our history who got us through those challenging times FDR was wrong we don’t have to fear fear and certainly we don’t have that it’s not the only thing we have to fear in fact we should embrace it in fact Eleanor Roosevelt his his wife
(07:01) got it right um which we should always learn to understand that our spouses are going to disagree with us and probably say something more profound so that’s always going to happen but Eleanor Roosevelt said that we should we should do something that scares us every single day that was more spot on because when we do that when we Embrace fear we grow when we Embrace fear we grow when we lean into fear when we do things that scare us we grow now that doesn’t mean just jump into a uh just throw some Chum
(07:40) into the water and let the you know let the fish blood seep into the ocean and then jump in um and try to attract great white sharks to get attacked no that’s not the type of fear you want to lean into um you want to do so uh you know with with respect but the ultimately the goal is we want to look at fear not as something to be feared but something to embrace now for me and for a lot of people out there we spent our lives much of our Lives Fighting Fear I was a scared person I didn’t realize that fear was a
(08:17) superpower that existed within me uh that that fear actually could help me to succeed in many many fronts but for the first part of my life for the first 30 years I was a scared human being and I used alcohol to suppress that fear I was fighting fear I was losing an unwinnable War but when I got sober I realized like as as I got sober as I started to get into Triathlon as I started to excel in business and in coaching and things like that I started to realize that the very fears that were that I thought were
(08:50) preventing me from becoming my best or that were that were uh that were challenging me early in life were actually challenging me in the right ways and saying hey look this is scaring you you should lean into it that happened with the Iron Man Triathlon and that’s where the first thing of the three things I want to share with you today come into play there are three ways that I want to share with you of how we know when to lean into fear uh when we know that it’s a signal an opportunity for growth because the whole point is of this uh
(09:24) episode is to share how do we discern between when fear is telling us we’re in danger or fear is telling us that we have an opportunity or is challenging us to grow um I would say more often than not when fear shows up in our very comfortable Society first world society for most of us fear is presenting itself as an opportunity not necessarily for as as Danger but uh that first moment pardon me uh that first thing I want to share with you about how to know when to lean into fear I call it the oh moment and I call it that because the second if
(10:03) you’ve ever had an idea that hits you like a ton of bricks this idea that that like you know that that is you’re in the shower or on a walk or something like that and you get this idea for a new business or a new product line or an idea on on some athletic venture or Adventure that you want to go into um it hits you like a ton of bricks and you think to yourself oh that’s like the immediate like uh instinctive reaction is oh and that is your heart in your brain simultaneously saying respectively Eureka
(10:42) and nope so your heart is telling you this is amazing I want to do this and that is excitement that is growing in you that oh part that excitement part of oh is growing in you and that’s that’s excitement you’re like that sounds like a blast and then your brain is saying nope that’s the fear rising up to meet that excitement and they both pop up an equal measure and then both popping up and equal measure the energy that that produces forces out of your mouth the words oh um so when that happens that’s the signal
(11:22) that is a signal that you’re on to something that oh moment is a signal that you’ve you’ve you know you’re that you’re on to something that might be uh be worth looking closer into might be worth leaning into a little more that fear there that fear part of popping up was the signal and and the excitement part was the signal that you should maybe look in and dig in a little bit more that oh moment happened to me uh both times that I thought about the Iron Man Triathlon the first time it happened I was still
(11:55) living in my addiction in my alcoholism and I didn’t really know how to interpret that and so what happened was when that when that oh moment happened for me and I thought and I watched the Iron Man Triathlon on television I my brain verbalized the fears with lies and told me no you’re not good enough you can’t do that look at you you’re an alcoholic you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day why don’t you just have another beer and feel sorry for yourself and so it convinced me at that time to not pursue it and to go back to my
(12:30) unhealthy habits that were at that time comfortable uh Comfort is where our brain always wants to lean into but our heart wants to move into the realm of discomfort for growth so the second time I saw the Iron Man or the second time I thought about the Iron Man was when I had a year of sobriety and I knew that I wanted to make a major physical life change in my life and I was reminded of that time I watched it on television and the oh moment happened again fear and excitement popped up and made an equal measure and
(13:04) I verbalized oh and at that time my brain again tried to verbalize the uh the the fear with lies and tell me that I wasn’t good enough that I’d never ridden a road bike before that I barely swam in a pool but at that time I had this frame of reference I had the frame of reference of sobriety a year of sobriety something I never thought that I could do I had done and I realized that that leaning into that discomfort and doing it became something powerful for me became a great point of reference and led to a more beautiful life in that
(13:44) moment and I knew that if I leaned into that fear again that thing that was both exciting me and scaring me I knew that I could I could grow even more and so I leaned into it again so that was that first element that that first moment that kind of like spark of oh that tells you that you should investigate this further maybe lean into that fear a little more so what’s the second part the second part of having to know how how to know when we need to lean into fear is is we have to check it against our core
(14:18) values is this activity or this new venture or this thing is it aligned with our core values now what what what are your core values and that’s that’s an interesting question for everybody to ponder because we all have a set of values things that make us angry inherently things that make us joyful inherently things that things that uh are the most important or the most Pro important priorities in our lives the things that fill us up what are the things you value now it’s important to distinguish here these are
(14:52) not the values that are imposed on us because those are not the ones that light us up right the the values that are imposed on us are things like work hard and you’ll achieve your goals work uh or or you know it might be those might be ingrained in US within our workplaces or careers or certain relationships but they might not be aligned with where our hearts are that takes a deeper investigation that takes a a serious look at what your core values are and and it’s it’s it’s a first it’s one of the
(15:29) first parts of self-awareness and one of the parts of a framework that I’ve developed in terms of how to identify and get really really clear on your goals on your dreams um and and know that you can find them with conviction conviction is a big word for me right now it’s being convicted with those goals is is to become incredibly self-aware is to know yourself first is is to we’re already we are already living in this body you know with this brain With This Heart uh but we have the opportunity to become
(16:06) what we truly represent from a very spiritual from a very centered level of what our calling is of what what our purpose is or what what we’re you know what we feel we’re designed to do and that all comes from our core values and it takes a lot of of Investigation into our into self-awareness to know what that what that looks like how do we do that there’s a couple of ways that you can you can find that you could find the values that you’re drawn to the the the the the the the what I would call
(16:37) the you know empowered values the things that make you up you could find those by first finding what makes you angry if you know what just makes you angry in this world does injustice make you angry maybe one of your core values is is justice does uh uh you know does does lack of belief in yourself does that make you angry maybe the opposite is what you value so finding what makes you angry is a lot of times easier to find than what your core value is because if you get to the root of what makes you angry you get to the root of where the core
(17:18) value is that you know that that maybe empowers you so find that list of core values and then also write down the opposite write down what those toxic values are what those what those values are that that what I would call ghost values or the things that we lean into that don’t serve us there are some things that we value in this world that don’t serve us I mean for me I valued alcohol for a long time because it suppressed my fear that was one of my values it was a ghost value because I didn’t want to believe
(17:51) that it was a value and that’s why I call it a ghost values because it doesn’t it’s something we don’t truly believe exists but it exists once we become aware of it um you know so so one of those values is it for me was leaning into obsessions that would that would numb the pain of anxiety fear and and other pain that might have been going on in my life um so find those core positive values that you have find the toxic values that that uh that you have that might be hurting you or those ghost values that you don’t might not
(18:27) know exist but are really things that you’re leaning into if you could find that you’ll know you can you can run this thing that scared you and excited you that caused that oh moment to happen you could run that through the filter of your core values and make sure that it aligns because there are some times where things that might have that false sense of like excitement and fear um might pop up in us but it might be impulsive and the difference between an impulsive desire and one that has conviction is if it’s aligned with your core values
(19:03) or not and if it and if it causes a little bit of fear so if it’s if it’s not aligned with your core values I mean it might be something like oh I have this great idea to get six pack abs that’s not really aligned with my core values it’s just some kind of superficial want um I’ve never had core I’ve never had uh six pack abs by the way um no matter how hard I tried so but the but that’s what we want to do if if if it’s missing that alignment it’s something that we won’t follow into
(19:35) completion it’ll send us down the wrong path if it’s not aligned with our core values but if it is it gives us greater conviction and that’s an important thing that conviction is also uh reinforced by the third element of how we know when to lean into fear that third element is it has a powerful meaning to us the to us part is the important part because for a for a professional bodybuilder a a professional body builder might have a deep-rooted meaning of that that that is deeply ingrained in his soul or her soul that they want to
(20:17) be a power lifter that they want to be a world champion sculpted body that that is something that is beautiful and wonderful to them it’s just not to me it doesn’t have a great meaning to me but it does to that person so even though I don’t have that meaning and that person does that person’s meaning is important to them just like my meaning for Triathlon was important to me so important that I was able to pursue it with conviction to that uh to the world championship now Triathlon might be might not be the
(20:53) meaningful thing for you that’s why it’s important that when you’re inspired by somebody to not get trapped in thinking or believing without investigation that the thing that you need to pursue is the thing that they’re pursuing yes they’re inspiring and they are somebody to model but do you need to model them in the exact way maybe if it lights you up maybe if it’s if if you if it has a meaning for you now the beauty about meaning now whereas core values they’re just part of you they’re they’re who you are and uh and
(21:29) and you can have aspirational values but 80 of your values need to be just deeply ingrained uh well well that’s the case for those meaning is something that can be created by the story We Tell ourselves we can tell ourselves a powerful story as long as that desire that we’re pursuing has a powerful meaning or has is aligned with our core values we can tell a story about it we can make it more powerful it goes back to the language that we put behind it and the energy that we put behind it so what meaning are you putting behind it
(22:03) I mean Victor Frankel who uh uh who even wrote the book on man’s search for meanings lived in a concentration camp during World War II and saw the epitome of man’s suffering at the hands of other people said the epitome of lack of control of of of of disgusting uh parts of humanity happened before him but his Discovery there was this empowered sense of meaning that the people that survived in that situation were able to develop a powerful sense of meaning behind maybe even the suffering or the or or what was happening to them
(22:49) unfortunately many of us don’t have to deal with or live in that kind of of torture or lack of control many of us live in environments where there are elements of Our Lives that we can’t control or that we’re not happy with but we have the possibility to recreate meaning behind it and uh and and shift the meaning in some ways uh the important thing is when it comes to fear is that if something is scaring us we can find a powerful meaning behind it to make it so that we can pursue it with more conviction
(23:32) if it’s if it’s a business venture if it’s something it’s it may be that we want to we want to make this business successful so that we can change the world or change the approach that we uh make an impactful life for hundreds of people that are working with us um you know those are meaningful things that you can create that that add to the conviction that’s how we know when we can lean into fear those three elements in order does it that oh moment that happens does it give you that oh factor
(24:07) moment where fear and excitement pop up in in equal measure in you is it aligned with your core values the values that lift you up that fill you up and is it rooted in a deep meaning for you if it has those three things that’s your signal that’s your signal to embrace fear lean into it and pursue it with passion but thank you for joining me today talk to you soon hey everyone Thanks for tuning in to the flow over fear podcast if you’d like to learn more about getting into flow and learn the foundations of flow I have a free video
(24:48) series on my website at www.adamcliffordhill.com called the foundations of flow feel free to go there and download it and start your journey to Rising above fear and achieving greater flow in your life if you like this episode and I’m guessing you did if you stuck around for this long then please do me a favor and hit the Subscribe button and you will receive notifications when I have new interviews new Recaps and new trainings that pop up on YouTube thanks again for joining us [Music] thank you [Music]