Chad Silverstein reflects on his habit of catastrophizing—exaggerating negative outcomes driven by fear—and urges listeners to verify information at the source rather than assuming worst-case scenarios. He illustrates how rumors (e.g., workplace acquisition talk) can trigger panic and recommends confronting fears directly, doing due diligence, and shortening the time to reality-check anxious thoughts.
Chapters
So I don't know about you, but I have a tendency to catastrophize things. I make them worse than they actually are. And it's usually because of a fear of something. And then I run it through my head and I just regurgitate it over and over and over to the point where then I believe and I assume things that aren't true. And it usually takes a truth teller or someone to kind of knock me out of it, to make me see something from a, you know, a different perspective, a different angle that I could say, you know, you know, it's not. It's not actually what I thought and that it kind of brings me down, back to reality. And I've been short, shortening that gap of how long it takes me to get to that point, because usually when something happens and it's hard, I then just start running through my head. I start thinking about all the different scenarios. And so most people do this. It's an irrational fear. It is either on a high level, catastrophizing something, or on a lower level, you're assuming something that's wrong. And so many times it requires you to go to the source and to get the truth. Because maybe you heard someone say something that kind of triggered you, and maybe it's not what they intended. And so if it was, then you want to go confirm that so that you could, you know, learn if that fear that you have is warranted. Meaning if you know that your company is making a change and they're about to be acquired by another company, you know, is that. Is that what you heard? Or are they thinking about doing it? And is it just rumors? And, you know, you can imagine something like that. A rumor gets around, you start thinking about that, you could start immediately going to, I need to go get another job. I need to protect my family. And again, what a terrible place to be in. And what a horrible way to lose sleep at night if it's not true. So don't hear things and assume that it's right. Confirm it. Back it up. Go to the source yourself. Don't listen to people in your office who tell you things. And people tell their own stories. They tell them how they heard it, and they push their own agendas. And if they are scared themselves, they'll push that fear because people love to be scared with other people. They don't want to feel alone. So do your due diligence and figure out where that fear just bubbles up and do something about it. Do something about it. Don't let it simmer. It'll only get worse. And don't assume. Assume less and go to the source. Don't just believe everything you read or hear or learn or see. Go to the source. Figure it out for yourself. And. And crush your fear one at a time. And have some courage to do it.
