OVERCOME Your Fears - Gabrielle Bernstein (@GabbyBernstein) - #Entspresso

Good morning, Believe Nation! Today's message is overcome your fears. Over to you, Gabrielle Bernstein.

How—

what's the first step to overcoming the fear or transforming the fear?

To witness it, to be the non-judgmental witness of it, to look at it and say something's gotta give, right? So if you're unwilling to look at your fear head on and honor it and witness, I always say, if you don't show up for what's up, it will keep showing up. So looking and saying, you know, I witness my resistance and you see that fear as resistance. It's fear is a resistance to what it is that you desire. And in the absence of resistance, you become a magnet for what you desire. You know, when you let go of that fear and you transcend that fear, that's when you start to become a super attractor. That's when you start to let what is truly, uh, of essence for you into your life, what is truly of service for you into your life, what is true happiness into your life. And so looking at the fear, witnessing it, calling it by its name, and even if you don't have the tools yet, what happens is, is when you look at the fear and you're like, oh, I see this fear, I see this resistance, I see how it's blocking my life. And I choose to see it differently. That's when you're listening to an audio like this. That's when a book like yours will fall off the shelf.

A catalyst.

Yeah, you open up. Exactly. You open up your consciousness pretty much. You crack open your consciousness to find solutions rather than find problems.

Right.

And so when you're not looking at the fear, you're just living in the fear and you're believing in the problem. But when you witness the fear and you're willing to see it differently, you start living in the solution.

I think the key to overcoming your fear is the awareness of the fear. I think most people aren't even aware of their biggest fears. Fears that are holding them back on a daily basis in their business and in their lives. What often happens is somebody gives you an opportunity, right? Come speak at this event, or here's this project, or work with this person, or go on this date, whatever it is, you get an opportunity. And the real fear you have is that you're not good enough, that you're going to fail, that you're not going to give a good result. That's really the fear deep down inside, but you come up with, I don't have the time to do it. I don't have the time to do it is the biggest BS excuse of all time. You may not be making the priority to go out and do it, but we all have the same amount of time. You should never say, "I don't have the time." You can say, "I choose not to do it. I choose not to make the time." But as soon as you say, "I don't have the time," you abdicate responsibility. You are in control. You get to pick what you do with your 24 hours every day. It's the one thing that is equal across every human being. We all have 24 hours. So we disguise our real fear with some practical reason.

Right?

We say we don't have the time, we don't have the resources, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is, but really it's some kind of fear. And I think that's the case for a lot of people. So many of our fears are so subconscious and we do it so automatically every single day, and we've convinced ourselves that there's a logical reason behind it. So the first step in my mind is the awareness of the fear. The awareness that it's not a lack of resources, the awareness that it's not a lack of time, and it's really that I'm just afraid that I'm going to fail. And I don't want to do it anymore. So awareness of the fear is the first thing. Next thing is, do you have a why to get out of it? Is it important to break that thing? Is it important to crush through that fear? Do you have a strong enough reason to make a painful change? And when you do, the third step is to start to catch it. And you often can't catch it in the moment. Usually comes afterwards. Usually you're meeting with somebody and you do the same thing that you always do, and you don't catch it in the moment. You catch it the next day. It's like, ah, I did it again. I did it. I should have said that. I should have done that and I didn't. I did it again. I succumbed to my fear again. And when you have that awareness, what you'll find is the awareness starts getting closer and closer and closer and closer to the moment where it's actually happening. So you started off and it's like the next day when you realize it, and then next time it's maybe a couple hours later, next time it's a couple minutes later, and then you get to that magical moment, that magical moment where you've caught yourself just before you take the action. You're meeting with somebody and they're giving you a project and you're about to back away. The words are about to come out of your mouth. It's about to happen again. The same pattern that you've always done forever and ever is about to come out again. And you have that magical moment to catch yourself and choose to be bold, to overcome the fear, to push through it and take a separate action. Instead of going the same path you always go, swerve and go this way. And when you do that, it gives you the muscle to do it again. And every time you get to that point, it's gonna become easier and easier and easier and easier and easier. So one for me is understand what your real fear is. I don't think we have the awareness. Two, have a strong enough why to get out of it. And then three, get closer and closer and closer to the moment where it's happening and then choose to be bold, choose to be powerful, and choose to push through your fear. So the question today is, I'm curious, what is one of your biggest fears as it relates to life or business? Not like a fear of snakes, but a biggest fear that you have that you feel is holding you back in your business somehow. Leave it down in the comments. I'm curious to find out. I also want to give a quick shout out to Paul Rogers. Paul, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. Really, really means a lot to me, man, and I hope you're enjoying the read. So thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of en-espresso. I wake up every morning, espresso keep me going.

With every milestone, while you might be excited about the milestone, there's a part of the milestone that you don't want to face. Are you hearing me? And listen to me. I knocked out the coursework. Boom, got it done. In order. ET, why did it take you 2 years, ET, after you finished your coursework, why did it take you 2 years to get started with the dissertation? I'm gonna be 100 with you. Look, knocked all the coursework out, but when I finally got to the dissertation, I had to get to that demon. I had to deal with it. I had to face it. Face what? We not talking about elementary school, middle school, high school. I've had a professor or two tell me in college that you will never get your dissertation, that while your writing has improved, but in terms of your analysis, like, you are not critical enough to do a dissertation. Are you hearing what I'm telling you? We talking about, look, math, I love math coming up. Why? It is what it is. Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally. Like, it is what it is, right? It's not subjective. Writing is subjective. I've had teachers to look at my work and strip it into parts. The fear, the fear of what? The fear of rejection, right? My teachers were so subjective. I put my whole heart into it. I put everything I could put and they tell me edit it again. Revision after revision, edit after edit. Are you hearing what I'm telling you? I had to deal with the fact that writing has never really been my strong suit and even though I've worked hard and I put in hours and hours. In the back of my mind, ah, in the back of my mind, I could hear the teacher say, "E.T., you don't have what it takes to get a dissertation." I'm a grown man dealing with that fear. I'm a grown man dealing with the rejection of getting all that red, ah, all that red on my paper, of having to do it over and over and over and over. And come on, come on, somebody feels me. You feel like you'll do 120%. You'll give everything you have and it still won't be enough. I feel you, I was there. A part of the milestone is, what if I give everything and it ain't enough? What if I put my whole heart, my whole mind, my whole soul into it, it, it, and it's not enough? What if I do it and I fail? And so I feel you, so you just like, you're not gonna do it at all because you'd rather not do it and find out the truth. And I'm telling you, you gotta do me a favor. You gotta face your fear and you gotta do it it anyway. Your boy ET had to face his fear. That's right. Yup, I know you see ET beast mode, and you right, I am beast mode. But it don't mean beast mode without fear. It don't mean beast mode without a little anxiety. It don't mean beast mode and I'm just 120% sure. No, I have to live by faith too. And I made up in my mind, ET, you gotta go after it, E. Look, I finished my coursework. It took me 2 years.

Why?

Because it took me 2 years to get over the fear. It took me 2 years to get over the anxiety. It took me 2 years to finally say, Goliath, Here I come, Goliath! You might be taller than me, you might be bigger than me, you might be stronger than me, but I'm coming, and I'd rather die trying. I'd rather die going after this dissertation. I'd rather give everything I got. I'd rather give a year. I'd rather put in work and fail than not try at all.

There's a scene in there where you talked about bullies and running from danger and things like that when you were trying to help this kid. Yeah, what happens is this boy is being harassed by the neighborhood bully, and his father is encouraging his son to beat up this little boy. Mhm. And I wrote this scene, I wrote this particular scene in the script, and I was trying to think, what can I write to encourage this boy to handle this situation, you know, with this, uh, bully in the neighborhood? And I'm, and I'm, I'm spending days trying to figure out what can I say to a boy And finally I came up with the answer, and it was a situation that I as a child had encountered about his age. I went to a school in Arizona that was mostly Indians from the reservation, and there's this one Indian kid who just didn't like me, and every day he chased me home from school. And, uh, and I'd have to run by this gas station, and this mechanic would watch me being chased by this Indian kid every day. And finally he just couldn't handle it anymore, and he stopped me and made me face this boy. And I told him, I said, you know, I'm, you know, I was, I told him I'm scared. And, and he says, well, and what he said to me, which is still true, which I remember, is that he says, you know, that running from your fear is more painful than facing it. And that's something I've always remembered. And, and this is what I relate to this boy. And of course, eventually he has to face this fear in the film.