Face Your Fears

So recently I made a post on Instagram about how your capacity to rely on yourself as a man, as a father, as a husband, as a business leader is directly correlated to your ability to face your fears. And I got a number of men reaching out to me saying, hey, can you go into that on a mini episode? And so I thought I would just extrapolate on a little bit and explain the importance of it. So here's the quote. A man's ability to face his fears is directly connected to how reliable he believes himself to be. His willingness to face his fear of failure, of intimacy, of closeness, responsibility, death, or fatherhood. All of these things shape how potent and sovereign he will view himself to be.

So here's the deal. When we avoid the things that we are afraid of, right? When you avoid the hard conversation in your relationship, the honesty of telling your partner that there's something that you're dissatisfied with. When you avoid being able to bring forward a need or a want within a relationship because you fear rejection from your partner, or, you know, you don't speak up in a meeting at work because you're afraid to fail. You're afraid to get it wrong. You need to be perfect. That avoidance teaches you as an individual that you cannot rely on yourself to enter into hard territory. And there's a certain quality of reliability, there's a certain depth of reliability that only comes along, that only shows up psychologically and emotionally. When we are willing to face the hard aspects of life, when we are willing to face our fears, when we are willing to navigate the territory and the realm of the things that we are afraid of. And the strongest men, the most successful, grounded, trustworthy men that I have ever met in my life, are the men who are willing to say, I'm afraid. I'm scared of doing that, of saying that. And then they press forward anyway. They are the men who don't blind themselves from their fear, from what they are scared of. It's a very natural thing to be afraid, right? Our bodies, our brains are literally designed to keep us safe. And so they're constantly looking out for things that. That we should fear. Social situations, conversations, activities, sports, et cetera. I mean, just go down the list. And so there is a certain kind of depth, a certain kind of strength that comes along in being able to face your fear. You might rely on yourself, let's just say, in a social situation, because you're very charismatic naturally, and you're able to engage with people and have good conversation, and you're good at that type of Conversation, when we are able to engage in the things that we already know, that we're good at, the come naturally to us, that helps to build our sense of inner reliability. But it's not the full spectrum, right? It's not the full scope of us being able to rely on ourselves. And this is absolutely vital for you as a man. If you want to lead your company, lead yourself professionally, lead yourself in your finances, lead your family or your relationship, you need to be able to know that you can rely on you. And for many men in our culture, the answer for that question is no. The answer for most men, when I ask them that question, can you rely on you in your relationship to do the right thing, for your family to do the right thing financially? Can you rely on yourself to face the hardship of life and the fear that comes along with the sexual intimacy problems that you're experiencing with your partner? Can you rely on you to have those hard conversations? And for a lot of men, the answer is no, I can't. I don't rely on myself. I don't trust myself to have those conversations. And that's the problem. And so we need to be able to face our fears. You need to be able to understand and admit to what you are afraid of. For a lot of guys, they're afraid of being able to engage in a conversation around sex and intimacy with their partner, to say, hey, this is what's missing from our sexual dynamic. This is what I want to explore. This is what I need. This is what I want. And that avoidance of that conversation, that unwillingness to face that fear perpetuates and creates all sorts of problems. It becomes the reason why that man becomes resentful, why he ends up messaging somebody else on a different platform, justifying behavior that's out of integrity, that he doesn't want. It becomes the reason why. Maybe he moves towards having an affair or the relationship breaks down because he wasn't able or willing to, to face his fear of having a more confrontational oriented conversation where he was having to confront his own fear of rejection, of embarrassment, of intimacy, of closeness, of sexual liberation and openness. That's a very vulnerable space to put yourself in. And so to face that fear is to develop the internal resiliency that's actually required to know that you can handle yourself in those situations. And a lot of the breakdowns that I see within a man's life, whether it's within his relationship, whether it's within his parenting, his ability to be an exceptional father, or set the tone for his Children, in his home or at work, in his career. A lot of the breakdowns is because that man has blinded himself to what he is actually afraid of in that moment. I'm afraid of being rejected. I'm afraid of being embarrassed. I'm afraid of whatever. Fill in the blank. So my invitation for you in this episode, in this little mini conversation, is to begin to face the fear that you have been avoiding. Because one of the things that has fundamentally changed my life is that I have continued to turn towards the things that I have been afraid of. Because I have seen and I have witnessed the damage that avoiding those fears have caused in my life, in my relationship, in my finances, in my health. Every time that I notice that I'm afraid of something, it's like an alarm bell goes off in my body. And the urge to resist going in that direction, having the conversation, taking the action, putting myself out there in that way, the urge to avoid that is so strong. And I have just trained myself over and over and over again to move in that direction, to choose to see what I might be capable of by honing the skill of facing my own fears. And for any man in his life, it is a worthy cause. It is a worthy cause in your life. If you are someone who is trying to develop more confidence, facing your fears is a good place to start. If you're a man who's trying to develop a better relationship with your wife or your partner, this is a great place to start. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of in your relationship? What conversations are you afraid of having? What experiences are you afraid of exploring? What things are you afraid of expressing to your partner? Start to navigate through some of that territory. What boundaries are you afraid of setting? You know, I see a lot of men, they're like, well, I don't want to tell her no to that. She might leave me. It's like, well, maybe that's not such a bad thing. If she's not willing to respect your boundaries, she's not willing to hear your no and respect your no, then maybe that's not the person that you should be with or be dating. Maybe that's not the right fit. So start to explore your fears. Start to meet your edge. Allow yourself to confront the unsavory parts of your relationship and your life and your work environment that you would normally back down from. And by doing so, incrementally, starting with small fears that you can confront, not the massive big ones. You know, if you have a crazy fear of heights, you know, it's something that you radically avoid. Going bungee jumping tomorrow is probably not the best idea. You want to start by building yourself up. This is a tactic and a tool that is using many different forms of therapy. It's called exposure therapy. You begin to confront some of those fears, right? So if you had a massive fear of heights, you would just put yourself up on one step and look down and you would get comfortable in being in that space and you'd go a little bit higher and you would develop some resiliency in being a foot off the ground and then 5ft off the ground and then 10ft off the ground, and you would develop some resiliency against that fear of heights. We need to do the same thing when it comes to our fear of intimacy. We need to do the same thing when it comes to our fear of failure or our fear of success. We need to inch our way closer. So tomorrow, today, find a fear that you have been avoiding and confront it.