Chad Silverstein breaks down how fear becomes strength through four steps: commit to an action, find the courage to start, build capability through repetition, and gain confidence. He uses a water-park story with his kids to show how this cycle works.
Chapters
Fear paralyzes people. The fear of fear itself. The fear of leaving your job because you hate it, because you're scared you might not get another one. Fear of leaving the person that you've been with because you don't want to be alone. The fear to go have that hard conversation you've been delaying, and it's inevitable that it's just going to bubble up at some point, but you're so scared of conflict that you want nothing to do with it. My old coach, Dan Sullivan, used to teach the four Cs. They're just such a powerful thing to have in your life. And it's when you make a commitment to do something, that's the first C. And it's just anything that you want to do, it may be to go have that hard conversation, it might be to quit your job, it might be to leave the one you've been with for two years. Whatever it is, you make a commitment. And the second C is where everybody quits. Everybody quits because they're scared. And you need to have courage. And typically that courage, it usually only takes about one second. You just have to go do it. Meaning if I'm scared to have a conversation with someone, then I just need to pick up the phone and call. It just takes a second to make the phone call and then they're on the phone. You just have to do it. If you're delaying a conversation with someone in your office, just go walk in their office, ask them to come see you, and as soon as you do that, you're in. You're engaged. Now, if it's quitting, then you just have to go put your notice in. So. So all the things that make people quit because they're so scared, it only takes a second to run through it. But everybody just stops because they're so scared. And they catastrophize everything in their head. They think about it and it ruminates over and over and over and over again. And what happens is, if you have the courage to run through that, the third C is you build the capability. Because once you do it, you realize it's never as bad as you thought it would be. And you start to get your reps in. And the more and more you do it, the easier it is. So you build this capability because you've been there before and you've done it. And the fourth C is the confidence, because now you can go do it. And if you can apply those four Cs to anything in your life, it's life changing. When I First learned about it, they said, it'll change your kid's life. And that weekend, my kids and I went to a water park that had a water slide that looked like it was in the clouds. And my kids were literally freaking out. And I taught them the four Cs and I told them it's just that one second, they just have to go down the slide. And they wouldn't go. And finally we got them to go. And of course, as soon as they got down to the bottom, they were building the capability already because they were already running up to go do it again. And so it doesn't matter what it is, and it doesn't matter who you are. If you can apply those four Cs, and really it's just the second one because it's overcoming the real F word, and that's fear, then you can accomplish anything. We are our own worst enemy. We put a ceiling over our own head. There's nothing stopping you. If someone else in the world has done something, then that means that you're capable of it. Unless you don't have the ability to do it. And you have to learn how to do it, but meaning it's possible. But we tend to think things are impossible and we put that glass ceiling over our head and we stop ourselves from moving forward. That's just how it is. And you just accept a mediocre type of an attitude. If you want to be a high performer in life and you want to be successful, you've got to be able to run through your fear, face it head on, and be able to accomplish more than you ever thought you could. And you may not be able to do that by yourself. You may need some people to push you a little bit. This is why coaching and mentoring is so key. It's why these big companies are investing millions of dollars every year and coaching their leadership team. Because they know that people can't do it by themselves. Neither can you. So run through it, learn those four Cs and attack fear and go accomplish what you want to accomplish.
