What Are You SCARED Of?

Are you scared of failing, rejection, making mistakes, looking bad, trying something and it not going the way that you want? Having an awkward interaction? I could go on here. I'm sure as a human you do fear some or all of these things, but what are we really scared of? And is it possible to actually let go of our fear of these things? That's what we're going to do in this episode, so stay tuned. Welcome to this episode of the Art of Extraordinary Confidence. I'm your host, best selling author, Dr. Aziz, and the founder of the center for Social Confidence. And this is a show for you if you want confidence in every area of life that matters. And in this episode we're going to be talking about what it is that we're really scared of. Because when you see this, when you see what you're really scared of, it actually can help free you because you'll realize that there's no threat. So the first distinction we have to make at the beginning of this video is the distinction between fear, danger and just no threat made up because we tend to think if I'm scared of something, there's danger. But actually you could be scared of something and there's no danger. Classic example is phobias, right? You can be terrified of a harmless spider and your body reacts as if there's intense danger, but there's nothing that's actually going to harm you in that situation. Now we're actually doing that all the time with like events in our life, scenarios in our life. In fact, take a moment to think about some of the things that you're scared of on a daily or weekly basis. So, and so is going to be upset with me. That client or customer is not going to like something that I did or didn't give them. My colleague or co worker or boss is going to be disappointed or upset or frustrated with me. My spouse might be as well. These people being upset with us is one thing that we're really scared of, right? What else could be afraid of? Well, I'm gonna try that thing and it's not gonna go well, I'm gonna fail. And then what's gonna happen then? And so we start to see that we have all these things that we're scared of. And here is the biggest liberating thing that's gonna serve you in this video. Not only is it not a threat, it's only, I should say it is a threat, but not really. It's a threat to your ego, not to your survival. So what made this really clear is I was talking To a client recently who's very successful in his career. He's in the financial banking industry, very high up, like, CFO status, and he wants to go create his own business, his own company, and he's been really scared to do so. And so we're unpacking what the fears are. And of course, it's the fear of failure. You know, it's uncertainty. I've always worked in these big organizations and had certainty and perks and money and all this stuff, and I'm gonna go out and do my own thing. I said, okay, well, let's examine that, because how much money do you got? Are we talking, like, you got to create your own business, and if it doesn't go well in month one, you know, you're on the streets. How much money do you have built up? He's got three years. It was two or three years of money built up. And he's a decent lifestyle. He's been successful his whole life. Three years of money built up. So is him taking that risk to create a business? Is he really threatening his survival? Not really. I mean, that's pretty far off, right? So what is the threat really of? Well, as we started talking, he said, you know, I've been so successful in my career that I am just, like, years ahead of everyone I went to school with. And his fear was that if I go try to start this business and it fails, instead of being that far ahead of everyone I went to school with, I'll just be that far ahead. I'm going to lose some of my ground. I'm not even going to be behind them. I'm going to be less far ahead of them. And this was in a mastermind retreat that we were doing this, and one of the other guys in the group made a joke. He said, yeah, you're not going to be lapping them anymore in the race. And in that moment, I said, oh, my God, I think we all do this. I do this. The real threat is not to our survival. The threat is to our ego, and that's it. So I can say, well, I'm way much further ahead of everybody. Ha ha. Right? But now I can't say that anymore. And I saw this in myself. You know, I love running. I'm doing a lot more running, and I'm really passionate about it. But there's also this, like, I need to get to this place. I need to achieve this time on my next half marathon, or I'm gonna be doing this marathon coming up really soon. It's like, I Gotta get a certain time on the marathon. And then if something was happening, like I couldn't train for a week or whatever was happening and there'd be all this fear about it, I say, what's the fear? Well, I'm not going to hit this time. Well, what's that about? What's the threat there? The threat is to my ego. So I could tell people, yeah, I ran half marathon this time. What's your time? My time sounds good. Better than yours, right? So how many of your fears right now? How many of the things that threatened you are just threats to your ego? Little bruises to our ego. And what if we just decided that's not a real threat? That's not a real threat. If someone doesn't like me or someone judges me or someone thinks I made a mistake or I'm not smart, that's not a real threat. That's just a human and some ideas and some emotions. When you really start to see that, when you really start to take that in, man, it's liberating. So I hope this serves you in your life. In fact, share below in the comments how you're going to use this, what it's opening up for you. And until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome and talk to you soon.