John Assaraf discusses how fear—an evolutionarily wired safety response centered in the amygdala—can prevent people from taking action toward financial and life goals by deactivating thinking and motivational centers. He explains that fear is prioritized by the brain above pleasure and goal-seeking because of safety concerns, uses a car-dashboard-tire analogy to show fear is a signal, and offers a breathing technique (slow nasal inhales and prolonged mouth exhales) to shift from a sympathetic/reactive state to a calmer, motivated state. He recommends taking one small action after calming to build confidence.
Questions this video answers
Over 50 different types of fear.
Four to five second inhales through the nose.
Exhale slowly through the mouth as if through a straw, focusing on airflow, for six to ten breaths.
Chapters
Hey, John Assaraf here, and I've got a really important question for you today. Do you have any fears that are holding you back from achieving your financial and life goals and dreams? I want you to type in your number one fear below. What a lot of people don't understand about fear and how it prevents you from taking action by shutting down your motivational center in your brain is that fear can, can actually be used as your fuel for success. And I'll explain that in just a second. For now, just type in your number one fear. We know through a lot of the brain research that we do that There are over 50 different types of fear. And so, for example, everybody knows fear of failure, fear of succeeding and then failing. Everybody knows the fear of being embarrassed or ashamed or ridiculed or judged. What most people don't understand or know about fear is that it is one of the most wired, intense circuits in the brain. And our brain operates on a hierarchy of circuitry. And what I mean by that specifically is this. Above pleasure and feeling good and achieving goals and loving our life and feeling amazing, our brain is wired for safety first. And the number one safety, of course, is for your life and for the life of your loved ones. But the very next thing that it is concerned about is any kind of pain, whether it's financial pain, emotional pain, physical pain. And whenever we want to achieve a goal, let's say, you know, start a business and, you know, leave our job, maybe, you know, leave a marriage we're not happy in, and try and find another marriage. And anytime we want to achieve a goal, our brain processes that goal and it assesses how risky is that based on the information that I have inside my brain and the experiences I've had in my life. And anytime there is real or potential danger, real danger, like there's real danger, you're going to get hurt, or even potential danger that you might get hurt. Your fear center, the amygdala in the brain, releases the neurochemistry that causes your thinking centers in your brain to deactivate. It causes your motivational centers to lower so that you really don't want to take action. Now, this leads to procrastination. This leads to sabotaging the behaviors that you want to take to achieve that goal. But your brain is acting as a protective mechanism just in case there's real or potential pain or danger there. Now, what are you supposed to do about that? Well, I want you to imagine you're driving down the street in your car and the light pops up on Your dash and it says, hey, there's you know, possibly low tire pressure in the right back tire. Well, you just pull over, you check the tire, put some air in and hopefully the tire gets filled up or you recognize that there's actually a slow leak or a flat. Well then you get it fixed. Well, fear and the emotions are fee of fear. Cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine are doing the exact same thing. They're a signal to you. Not that there is real danger here, but it's a signal for you to be aware. Now the person who has never been trained on understanding emotions, feelings in most cases just stops doing what they should be doing and they procrastinate and don't take action. So they have these goals and dreams, but fear holds them back. Here is a simple technique to use with your brain when you feel self doubt or stress or fear itself. A simple technique to deactivate the fear fear center is something called breathing. But not just any type of breathing like you and I are probably doing right now. The specific breathing I'm talking about is taking breaths in through your nose, in four or five second inhales. And then as you exhale through your mouth, I want you to exhale as you're exhaling through a straw and focus on the airflow coming out of your mouth for six to ten breaths. So in through your nose, slowly out through your mouth. You do that six to 10 times. And here's what that does. It automatically deactivates the sympathetic nervous system in the brain, the stress response response system in the brain, and it moves you from a sympathetic nervous system activation to a para or calm and responsive state. Now in a calm and responsive state, you're actually able to think again using this left prefrontal cortex of yours, which is the genius part of your brain. And guess what else comes online? The motivational center actually comes back online when you're in a calm and relaxed response responsive state instead of a reactive state to protect you, just in case something could hurt you, whether financially, emotionally, spiritually, physically, etc. So a simple technique of breathing, something we all do since the day we're born, is one of the many techniques that you can use to deactivate the fear center in your brain. And once you deactivate the fear, fear or self doubt or anxiety or stress that you may be feeling, then I want you to ask yourself a simple question. What's one thing, one little thing that I can do to move towards the goal or the result that I want and when you take that one little action step. Now you are building your self confidence neuromuscle that you can feel fear. Release it and take action anyway. Okay, so there's your little tip for the day. Fear is normal. It's just a signal. You just need to learn to become aware of the signal. Release the grips that fear has on you. Take one action step and you will start achieving more of your goals and dreams.
