BUILT for Impact Ep. 9: Why 99% of What You Fear Never Happens

Let me ask you something. Have you ever noticed that the things you're most afraid of, the conversation, sending the email, a risk that you're gonna take, a decision you're gonna make, almost never ends up being as bad as the nightmare that you created in your mind. You'll spend hours, maybe days, imagining these worst-case scenarios. You feel the tension in your chest, right? You're tightening up. Your energy is in a bad spot. And then the moment finally comes and what happens? It's fine. It's completely fine. You handle it, you move through it. The fear completely evaporates in seconds or minutes. Today we're going to talk about why that happens and more importantly, how to stop letting fear run your life. Welcome back to the Built for Impact Podcast. I'm Jake Burhans, and this is the podcast where inner peace meets high performance and where building your dream life starts from the inside out. Every episode, we're walking through one of the pillars of the BUILD Framework, which are break limiting beliefs, upgrade your operating system, imagine your future, let go of the past, and transcend into your 2.0 self. Right? It's this constant cycle of doing these 5 things and constantly going from your current version of yourself to the 2.0 version of yourself. And one of the most important facets of that is overcoming fear and understanding that fear is an illusion, that it's fake, it is not real. Today's episode is all about, like I said, breaking one of the, the most powerful limiting beliefs you'll ever face. The belief that fear is telling you the truth because it's not. And once you understand that, everything in your life will change. You will become an unstoppable force. You can truly do anything. Like I said, fear is the mind's greatest illusion. And the thing with fear is that it's almost never about what is happening. It's about what might happen. It's the mind projecting a story into the future and then convincing the body that it's real. I want you to think about the last time that you dreaded a phone call, or maybe you had a presentation, or you had to have a difficult conversation with someone, and you, you know, you rehearse it, you avoid it. You pushed it off. Oh my gosh, you're fantasizing about all the things that could possibly go wrong, which is an interesting thing. Why don't we just think about everything that could go right? Right? And I do understand that thinking of what could go wrong does prepare you to a certain extent, but I think we take it way beyond where it's helpful. But you rehearse this thing, you, maybe you, you avoided it, you pushed it off, whatever you need to do. And then when you finally did it, maybe it was a call and you finally dialed the number. And you had the conversation and it lasted 45 seconds and it wasn't a big deal at all, right? Fear doesn't come from reality, it comes from the imagination. It only lives in the mind, okay? When you see this, you can stop giving fear this automatic authority. Fear is just in the mind. As soon as you're in the moment and you're acting, you're not as fearful because you're in the moment, you're doing the thing. You don't have time to think that, oh, I'm in fear. Yes, you might be in a fight or flight adrenaline state, but fear is really a product of the mind. Fear originally, and this is why fear still shows up even, even when you're safe. Fear was originally evolved for lions chasing us when we were evolving. Cliffs, right? We don't wanna run off a cliff. Life-threatening moments. It's there to protect us, but our nervous system hasn't necessarily caught up to modern life. So it treats, it legitimately treats a tough conversation like it's a tiger attack. Your body's going into fight or flight and it's this massive response. And, and for me personally, it's, I've really recognized this feeling because before it used to consume me. Like when I played hockey, the biggest reason I, I don't think that I played professional hockey, which, you know, I mean, everyone, everyone thinks that they were pretty good, but it's because I didn't have the mental capacity to do it. You know, I had the skill because I would get people come out and see me and I definitely had some potential, but my mental capacity was not there. I didn't know how to deal with my fear. Like when I would get nervous before a game, And here's the thing, I could play great when no one was watching me, right? No scouts. But then if scouts would come out, you know, I would play terrible. But I didn't know how to deal with my fear. I would feel this feeling of anxiety and nervousness and fear in my body because it was a big event, but I wasn't able to separate myself from that. I was consumed by that feeling, and then obviously it affected my performance. Whereas if I could have— and we talk about you not being your thoughts or emotions. That's why this is so important, because if you're feeling fear, but you realize you're the awareness feeling the emotion and you realize, hey, I'm not actually— I am not fear. I'm just feeling fear right now. This is just a feeling. You can separate from it so much easier and you can kind of just push through it. Like, I still get this feeling even when I do like little things. I'll go to a meetup or I'm about to talk. I can kind of get that feeling in my stomach, right? Or I'm doing a presentation or I have a difficult conversation with someone. That I need to have at work or personally. I get that feeling in my body, but now my mind is at peace and I recognize, oh, this is just what happens when I'm doing something that my— that's a little bit unknown, right? Because your nervous system is trying to protect you. Oh, that's the unknown. You don't want to go in there, right? It's fear, but it's really— it really dissolves the minute that you step into whatever you're doing, right? As soon as you have the difficult conversation, you know, a minute into it, a minute and a half into the conversation, All of that fear melts away in most cases. Same thing with you're going to a meetup and you're like, oh my gosh, this is, you know, I'm scared. I don't know how this is gonna go. You know, I don't know any of these people, but the second you get in there and you start talking to people, it's like nothing. So if you can just know and understand that that fear dissolves once you're in the situation, it's so much easier to just to, to be unstoppable and to go do anything that you want, right? Because most things are not. Dangerous for us that we're actually fearing. Now, if it is something that is dangerous, like, you know, rock climbing without a rope, then yeah, you, your fear is helping you out there. But most of us are not doing that. And this is ultimately how this fear illusion pattern works, right? The, the event hasn't happened. Mind invents a worst-case scenario. Then the body begins to start to react and you assume that this reaction is the truth of the matter. So you avoid it or you stay stuck or you falter or you never take action. So fear is betting on one thing and it's betting on you to stay on the spot and never move. That's what fear wants. It wants you to stay where you are and never move. But when you realize that it is just an illusion, it is just a feeling, there's no truth to it whatsoever. The negative thoughts and the worry and the anxiety about how you might not succeed, it's not real. It's not real. So you have to be able to separate from that, be the awareness that observes the fear and, and puts it in its place. And like I said, action shrinks fear, right? Thinking makes it grow. So the more that you stay in your head about a situation, the more, the more fear is going to culminate. Fear feeds on imagination, right? It really dies in presence. So as soon as you're taking action, you're in the moment. You're no longer able to stay in your head. Fear cannot survive. So I want you to think about too, the last time you stepped into something that might have been terrifying, a presentation, a boundary, a new challenge, and by minute 2 you were just in flow. We know these things. I know that you know these things, but we continue to be consumed by fear before we do things. Why is that? I don't know, but I think that if we can have this frame and this understanding that Fear is an illusion and that it's just a feeling and that the minute that I get into something and I start doing it, the fear will melt away. It's going to give you so much power to take action, chase your dreams, your inspirations, do whatever you want to do without being restricted by this emotion. Confidence doesn't come before action. It comes from action, right? So it's like courage. This is why I love the word courage too. Courage doesn't mean you don't feel fear. It means you feel the fear and you do it anyways. So every day takes courage. Every single day, you gotta have the courage to wake up and act despite this fear. And the more that you practice this courage muscle, the ability to sense fear but take action anyways, your courage gets stronger and the fear does diminish. It absolutely does diminish. You still kind of feel that feeling in your, you know, the butterflies or XYZ, but you just have complete control over it. You put it in its place before it grows or festers into anything bigger than that. So the practice here is really just putting fear in its place. You, you feel that fear and you understand that you are more powerful than it. You understand that it's a liar, that it's not real, and you put it in its place and you say, no, like I'm, I'm in power. So acknowledge it, that it's fear. Name it. This is just some story I'm making up. And I want you to step into what you're doing anyways and just watch it dissolve, right? And let your nervous system update. And every time that you step into a situation that you're fearful of, that situation no longer has power over you because you have the courage and confidence to step into into it, and now you understand that there's nothing to be afraid of anymore because it's not unknown. You know the result. So it's really just unknown situations you'll, you'll recognize is when you feel fear the most. And that, that's also when you're growing. So you can also look at fear as, hey, this means I'm growing, because the reason fear comes up is because I'm stepping into the unknown. And most likely, if I'm stepping into an unknown situation, it means I'm growing in some capacity. So this is awesome. Like, anytime you're nervous or anxious about stuff, great. That means that you're growing as a human being. The person you step— or the, the minute you step into that situation and realize that it's not that bad, the fear is going to dissolve. Then that situation no longer has fear over you, and then you do the next hurdle, right? Oh, it's going to be a little uncomfortable, it's unknown, right? But you understand that fear is just fake, it's an illusion. You step into that version, you realize, ah, I'm also safe doing this. And that's how you continue to level up and grow as a human being. So bringing this all together, like I said, fear is rarely a signal of danger. It does help us in some capacities, but psychologically in the world that we live in, most of the time we, we just let it run our lives, right? It's really a signal of expansion. I think more than anything, it shows up right before you grow. So reflection for the week, where in your life are you being controlled by fear? Where is fear limiting your ability to act? That's what I want you to reflect on. Where's fear kind of running your life? Maybe there's things that you want to do, but you're not doing them because you're fearful. You know, and you get stuck in your head thinking about these things. Just have the courage to act. What's the worst? Ask you, what's the worst that could happen? I guarantee you the worst that could happen is really not that bad. You'd probably just be in the same spot you are now if it doesn't work out. So I want you to choose one small thing that you've been avoiding. An action item would be to choose one small thing you've been avoiding. Do it today. Okay, not next week, not next month. Do it today and watch what happens. Something that you're scared to do. Do it today and watch how it's not a big deal once you do it. And then once you shift that paradigm, you shift that belief that, oh wow, it wasn't that bad. I wonder how many other things that I'm afraid to do actually aren't as bad either. And then you become this unstoppable force, right? Fear is an illusion. It's a story. In the moment that you step into reality, the story falls apart. The moment you take action, action dissolves fear. If this episode resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it today. Someone who may want to accomplish these big things, but is a little bit reserved and stuck in their head about, about these limiting beliefs. Shoot them this episode and let's, let's grow together. Next week we'll be diving deeper into more built processes as always. And, uh, stay tuned. You are closer to becoming unstoppable than you think. All the peace, all the power.