Panel excerpt (John Assaraf) on reframing fear, contrasting physical fears (heights) with social fears (fear of rejection/call reluctance). Assaraf argues emotions arise from the meanings we assign to events, not the events themselves, and outlines a reframing process: identify, reframe, release, retrain.
Chapters
Ladies and gentlemen, here we go. Take your seat. We're invited back to the stage. George, Mark, Sweetie, and John, master your mindset panel.
Mike. Mike 2. All right, so the drill is pretty quick. We're gonna take about 20 minutes, and you get to ask any question you want of anybody on the panel. So specific. Here's what I asked. Just keep it succinct, keep it short. Let's not hear a whole life story. We got 20 minutes. So we're gonna do rapid fire Q and A. So how do you translate what you're learning here about fear is a really great question. So if you're jumping off of poles, you're jumping out of airplanes, you. But then you still have something that I know we talked about earlier called call reluctance. Picking up the phone and calling somebody because you're afraid of rejection, right? So when you're jumping out of a plane, you're not afraid of rejection, you're afraid of dying, right? And so you'll overcome that fear when it comes to heights, when it comes to, you know, really putting your life on the line, jumping from poles, what you've got to really do. What I found is if you have call reluctance. So in her particular case, call reluctance is, let's say, if you're in sales, picking up the phone, saying, hi, this is John Asraf with so&so, and I'd like to talk to you about X. So usually when you have call reluctance, for all of you salespeople or people that are involved in sales, it's the meaning that you give the negative response that's causing your feeling. The meaning you give either the real or perceived meaning. So if I make a call and they go something like this, what the hell you're calling me for? It's the middle of dinner, hang up. Most people say, oh, my God, they rejected me, as opposed to, I interrupted their dinner. They were busy. They've had a shitty day. They really don't have a need for my product or service. We relate the experience, what they're doing, back to us, to our self worth and to our self image, as opposed to just saying. They just hung up, okay? This wasn't right for them at this time. I've had people back when I was cold calling in my, you know, my 20s, hang up on me, pissed off at me. I called them two weeks later, and they were ready to buy or sell. And so the key is not around what's happening to you. The key is to understand what's causing me to feel this fear, what's causing me to have this emotion and never, ever, ever put it outside of yourself. It's not the circumstance, the meaning you give the circumstance that determines how you feel. Master your meanings, master your emotions. And you do not, for the most part, translate. Okay. A fear of jumping from heights, to call reluctance, two different categories will not translate for the most part. But however, once you've said, you know, I've jumped out of a plane, or I've jumped off a tall building, I've accomplished that. I wonder how I can overcome my call reluctance now, too. So you use that as a reference point. And then you say, great, let me learn some new skills for reframing. So you identify, reframe, release, and retrain.
