John Murphy explores how fear stems from negative assumptions and ego-based thinking, using Alex Honnold's free-solo climbing as an example of how preparation and visualization create a fearless mindset. He introduces a practical framework adapted from engineering to identify potential failures and counter-measures, plus meditation and affirmations to rewire subconscious beliefs.
Chapters
Hello everyone, and happy Friday, and welcome to Fearless. Fearless. This is our 3rd Fearless episode. And before we get into today's Be Present and Mind Your Mind session, I'd like to just quickly recap session 1 and 2. So we kicked off with session 1, which was, in a word, all about assumptions and just how powerful assumptions are in our lives. And we're making assumptions essentially all the time, because no one can really predict the future. The best we can do is assume what the next day might look like or what the next hour might look like. And if that assumption is negative in any kind of way, doubtful, worrisome, that's what triggers fear. Fear comes from assumption. We assume something might go wrong. We assume we might fail. So there's that fear of failure, the fear of doing something stupid, but it's all an illusion. So in Fear Less, we want to not necessarily eliminate fear. It's instinctive, if you will, as a human, but manage it more effectively. And what am I really afraid of and why? So in the first session, we examined assumptions. And what assumptions am I making about myself, my potential, my future, my relationships, all kinds of things like that? What are my assumptions all about? And assumptions are powerful. We did a little exercise to uncover that. And in the second session, we talked about vision just a bit. What is your vision 5 years out? And I encouraged you to stretch. Define exactly what you look like, what you feel like, what you're doing, who you're with in terms of relationships, your bank account, so to speak. What is your ideal 5 years out? And then if there's any hint of resistance, oh, I could never do that, John. I mean, really, I'm not capable. I'm not worthy. What you've just done is uncovered the very reason why you're not more successful. It's doubt. So one of my Fuel courses is actually called Beyond Doubt: 4 Steps to Inner Peace. And it's based on my award-winning book, Beyond Doubt: 4 Steps to Inner Peace, in 2010 awarded Most Inspirational Book of the Year in Canada out of Toronto. A critical alt-books review. And in that book, we address these 4 steps. And in the course, I address the 4 steps. And the first step is something we're going to work on today a little bit, and it's called Let Be. Let Be is about being present, really bringing your mind, your conscious mind into the eternal now. It's always now. The reason that's important is because the conscious mind wanders. It wanders into the past, thinking about things that happened a year ago, yesterday, 10 minutes ago, or 10 years ago. It's thinking in the past, and that's not a bad thing. I mean, remembering great times is a wonderful feeling. Here's the catch: What do you feel in the now when you think back? Does it trigger joy, appreciation, gratitude? These are very high frequency energies which draw in more of the same. That's. Law of attraction. We become what we dwell on. We draw in what we put out. We reap what we sow. This is karma. This is the law of attraction and the law of allowance. We're allowing flow into our lives. We're allowing abundance. And so think about the mind wandering to the future. When we think about something in the future, how do we feel in the now? We feel excited, enthusiastic, inspired. By the way, inspired is in spirit and in spirit means fearless. So when we're truly inspired in spirit, in the now, there's nothing that scares us. So think about that for a moment. When were you in a moment in your life, I like to refer to this as flow, athletes will sometimes call it the zone, when you were in such flow that it appeared timeless. Time just flew by. You weren't even conscious of time. It appeared to almost be effortless, easy. Wasn't— I didn't feel like I was working at all. It felt just like playful. And when you look at people who appear to be fearless, they appear to be playful. You could just see it. You can feel it. I just watched the documentary about a guy named Alex Honnold. Alex is the most famous rock climber in the world right now. And Alex is the only one to ever scale free solo, meaning without ropes, nothing but his hands and feet, essentially, El Capitan in Yosemite. It's 3,000 feet straight up sheer cliff. Imagine he did that in less than 4 hours. The first people to ever scale El Capitan took 40 with ropes. Alex scaled it in less than 4 hours with nothing. And he was interviewed about like, if you make one little mistake, you're dead. This is like if you don't win the gold medal in the Olympics, you die. That can be pretty daunting, don't you think? So how does he do it? How do any of us overcome that assumption that we're going to screw up? Whether it's a job interview, it's a conversation with an uncomfortable conversation you might have to have with someone. It's a relationship that you need to get out of. Okay. It's just not working for you. It could be anything. So the idea is, in session 1, I asked you to identify something that really holds you back, some form of resistance. I referred to it as going through life with the brakes on. Okay? Brakes are handy, right? But you don't want to drive all over the place with the brakes on all the time. Simply not efficient. And it's in fact dangerous. So where in your life do you feel some form of resistance? And to help you with that, Draw that vision of the future and stretch because you have infinite potential. We all do. Draw that picture and it should feel enthusiastic and inspiring and wow. Okay? It really stretch yourself. But then the real key is to now step back into the present and say, How do I feel about that vision? And if I feel any resistance, any doubt, I need to know why. So we've also talked a little bit in session 1 and 2 about root cause analysis. I perform root cause analysis with companies all over the world to get down to what I'll call leverage points, root, root, deep root causes. So a change at a leverage point level In this case, a change at the mind level can change all kinds of things because basically fear and everything else in the ego mind is changeable. So the ego mind, which would have you think you're it, that you're the ego, that's the small s self. The ego system, thought system, or mindset is fear-based. It's fear-based. So if you ever feel fear about anything, you're not present. That's a clue. You're in that ego mindset, which is also dualistic. The ego cannot think in terms of unity, true win-win. It doesn't think that way. The ego thought system is win-lose, us-them, right-wrong, good-bad. It separates everything. It separates you and me. Our true self, Our higher self, capital S Self, doesn't think that way. Our true self is fearless. It's spirit. It's in spirit. So when you think about the statement, I changed my mind, I want you to think about who's I? Who said that? Who said, I changed my mind? I thought I was my mind. And your mind will have you think that. Your ego will have you think you're it, that I am a president of a company, I am a husband, I am a man, I am a consultant, I am an actor, a musician. Those are labels. That's not really who you are. That's a role you play. And so when you start to think about how do I know if I'm present? Well, one clue is I don't feel fear. I don't even feel time. Think about it another way. A golfer, a great golfer, when they step up to shoot the ball, to hit the ball, they're not thinking about the past, good or bad. They're not thinking about the future other than the ball's going to go in the hole or as close to the hole as possible. They're not thinking about duffing or hitting it into the sand trap or hitting it out of bounds, you know, playing golf sometimes like I do. And I actually don't play that much golf, but I used to. And that doubt that creeps in, that doubt that creeps into the mind that we allow, we allow fear and illusion and doubt to creep into the mind. And then we manifest it over and over and over again. So the real secret to fearlessness is to take command over your mind, what I like to call mind your mind, meaning the I who changed the mind is the king or queen of the kingdom. Okay, the tail isn't wagging the dog like a lot of us allow it to. We're in charge. So we can decide, I'm going to scale this mountain because it's in my soul. It's just what I'm here to do. We all have a reason for being here. And when we uncover what that reason is and we pursue that with passion and inspiration and a degree of fearlessness, life is amazing. Life is truly amazing. But if we have the brakes on and we're full of doubt, We're full of caution. We're too cautious. We never ever get anywhere near what we're, we're capable of and we just settle and, you know, that's life. And then we start making excuses. You know, I'm too old, I'm too young, I don't have enough schooling. I, I can't do that. I'm not worthy. These deep programmings buried in the unconscious or subconscious mind. And I've talked about in some of the earlier lessons how most of those programs that we run on Autopilot, if you will, are downloaded into our mind by the age of 6, most of the programming. And until we uncover what programs we're running on, many of those fear-based, dualistic ego programs, until we uncover those and delete them, change them, transform them, transcend them, just, I am worthy, I am deserving, I am capable, I am full of life. I have real potential. I am going to do this. And when we have those programs running, amazing things happen. Now, let's take it back to practical for a minute. Let's say you're facing a difficult conversation that you have to have with someone, or you're facing a situation where it's, let's say it's financial, and you have doubt about your finances in some way. Or it's career-oriented. You're anxious about your career. Maybe you're running for a position or interviewing for a position, and you have doubts about getting the job or winning the position. Whatever you have, why? Let's do the why. And we uncover ego thinking because If we're fearful, we're in the ego mindset. So we uncover the ego. Why? And so why are we thinking that way? It might be because we don't know any better. We're just, it's automatic. It's a habit. The subconscious mind's often called the habitual mind. So it's, well, I've always done it this way. I don't realize that I have the power to change that. So I'm going to introduce a tool. We use this in business all the time around significant changes. It's a change mastery tool, if you will. Called FMEA, FMEA, and it stands for Failure Mode and Effects Analysis, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. So if we're building a bridge or a rocket ship where we're about to make any kind of a change, it's an engineering tool. Any kind of a change in our life, we do an FMEA before we scale that El Capitan. Let's ask what could go wrong. So FMEAs start with failure modes. What Could go wrong. What could go wrong if I have this conversation? What could go wrong if I get this position or don't get this position? What could go wrong if I don't pay my bills on time? What could go wrong that's triggering your fear? That's step 1, is what could go wrong? Then we ask, well, how serious is that? Is somebody going to prison? Somebody going to die? How serious is it? And in a true FMEA, you rank these from like 1 to 5. 5 is basically saying someone's going to die. That's super serious. The engine's going to fall off the airplane. The rocket ship's going to blow up. The bridge is going to collapse. Something serious is going to happen. A 1 is, you know what, it's not major, it's minor. So we start with that. How severe? And then we look at, well, how likely is it to happen? Super likely. So it's you know this is or or is this something that's happening all the time? It's a recurring failure. Okay, that's that's significant because that that adds to the risk. And the third component is detection. If it happens, how soon will I know? Can this not get creeped by? And you you read sometimes about recalls in industries where something got sold and it needs to be recalled because. It was discovered there was something wrong with it. So that's late detection. Early detection is that we're going to know the instant it happens. If we fall off the cliff, we're going to know pretty quick on our way down, so to speak, right? So, you know, how likely is it to happen? How serious is it if it does happen? And how soon will we know? That's a formal FMEA. A simpler version is just to say, what could go wrong if I make this decision, if I make this change, what's the risk? How serious? How likely? What's the detection going to look like? And then a key here too is to say, what's the cause of that? What would be the cause of that happening? And so to the best of our ability, we don't ignore fear. We don't resist fear because anything we resist, we make stronger. We temporarily give our attention to fear. We want to be careful with that because anything we give our attention to, we give energy to, we give strength to. So we don't want to be paying attention to something dangerous or an illness or a disease of some sort. The more we think about that, the stronger it grows. So it's critically mindful for somebody who's not feeling well, sick, or been told bad news by a doctor, To not think about that, and that's tough because how do I not think about what the doctor just told me? Easy. You change the channel. You think about something else. That's mindfulness. That's minding the mind. That's being present because by letting go of the fear, by letting go of the attention to the anything negative, we open up to the natural flow of life. True source, capital S self. We wake up to our higher self and we leave all that fear and ego behind. Okay? So the FMEA is a tool to help us identify things that could go wrong. And the thing about Alex scaling El Capitan is he didn't just go out and wing it. He actually spent years mapping the wall, mapping the cliff, every little detail, visualizing himself placing hands and feet, Again, with no ropes to scale that mountain. So it wasn't something he just winged. Okay? So when we think about a change we're going to make, a conversation we're going to have with somebody, an interview that we're going to go into, a speech we're going to get up on stage and give, we don't wing it. We use our minds in a creative way. Remember, we command our minds, not the other way around. So what are we going to visualize? We're going to visualize ourselves successful, visualize ourselves performing at a peak level. Okay? We're going to visualize, if we're a golfer, a perfect shot. Now, that may or may not happen, right? But that vision is critically important to how we feel in the present, which is the only time that matters. And how we feel in the present draws more of like energy in. So when we're in a fearless mode and we feel the frequency, if you will, of enthusiasm, the frequency of joy. Here's another tip. We know we're present when we're at peace. There's all kinds of chaos going on around us. Just turn the news on. There's all kinds of conflict in the world. We put our attention on that, we're not at peace. So you know you're present when you're at peace and you feel joyful and you feel grateful and you're not worried essentially about anything. That's also referred to as detachment. It's an ancient spiritual law, universal law. And when we detach, We live fearlessly because when we attach to anything, we live in perpetual fear of losing it. Whether it's a job, a house, a spouse, a child, anything we attach our happiness and joy to leads to fear. Okay? That doesn't mean you don't love your job and you don't love your house and you don't love your spouse and your children. That doesn't mean that at all. So let's be real clear. Loving Without attachment is much deeper than loving with attachment. The ego attaches. Spirit does not. The ego thinks in terms of comparison. I'm better or I'm worse than someone else. Spirit doesn't think that way. Spirit is humble. There's no one better. There's no one worse. I'm not above or beneath anyone. I'm fearless. I'm free. I'm at peace. I'm joyful. I appreciate every breath. I'm mindful of my breathing. I'm mindful of the world around me. So then sometimes people say, well, how do I get more present? There's no question my mind wanders all over the place. I mean, I'm trying, I've tried meditation techniques, I've tried all kinds of things. And wow, my mind is like the Buddhists call it monkey brain. It's just like all over the place. How do I train my mind to be more present? And the keyword there is training. How does an athlete get great, great enough to go to the Olympics or to play professionally? They train, right? How does anybody get really good at anything? They practice. They practice and they prepare and they train. So whether it's a speech you're about to give, it's a shot you're about to hit in golf, it's a surgery you're about to conduct on a patient, anything you do for a living or anything you just do outside of work, how do you prepare for it? How do you practice it? In my case, I practice meditation every day. I like to start the day centered, at peace, with very positive I am affirmations. So stop and think about how you would fill in the blank after the words I am. And not just one I am, 20 I ams. I am what? And be brutally honest because you cannot fake Fearlessness. You cannot fake authenticity. You are either honest and authentic and integrist and genuine, or you're faking it. You can't fake the universe, so to speak. All right? Whatever you put out energetically is coming back. So if you see a chaotic world, but you pretend like it's not, It's what you see and feel that communicates with the world around you. It's not what you think, okay, in terms of pretense. So we're— I'm talking about authenticity here, okay? True fearlessness is authentic. It's not faked. When Alex scaled El Capitan, he wasn't faking it. He wasn't pretending not to be afraid. No, it's terrifying to do something like that. So think about something now that you're hesitant about. This is your exercise. Something that you're worried about, something you're anxious about. Again, it could be job-related, relationship-related. You know, you got some big deal coming up. You're worried about one of your kids is not feeling well, or the doctor's giving you bad news. It could be anything, right? Think about whatever that is. Recognize, like we talked about in session 2, that the root cause is the mind. It's the programming, conscious and subconscious programming. It's our replay, our autopilot. And so the way out is to change the mind, to reprogram it. Here's something Dr. Joe Dispenza said that I love, and I love Dr. Joe's teachings and work. He said, what fires together wires together. He's talking about the brain. What fires together wires together. So what fires— he's talking about neurons, brain cells. And when we trigger certain thoughts, we're triggering brain activity, right? So what are we thinking long enough, repeatedly, that then becomes a belief? Anything we think about long enough actually starts to wire together as a belief. So we believe certain religions, we believe certain politics, we believe certain things about our capabilities, we believe certain things about the world around us. Why? Because we've been focusing on it for a long time. We believe certain things are terrifying when to others they're not. This is the programming I'm talking about. What fires together wires together, and then beliefs translate into behavior and actions. So here's the trick, and I'm going to share my screen here. I shared this image in our last class. Pop this up. So there was an exercise, and you go back to session 2 to see what the exercise was if you missed it. And the hint was for that exercise that we really have to challenge our assumptions. When things seem impossible and we're stuck inside a box, inside a paradigm, and we're trying to fix things inside that box, when it's the box that's the problem, there's a lot of time and effort wasted. The ego mindset wastes more time than you can imagine over just ridiculous thoughts and ridiculous beliefs. But if that's the way we run our lives, that's the way we run our lives. So the real key to fearlessness is to say, while we manage that top line, we do our very best to manage our behavior, to solve problems in life, to establish budgets, to be responsible, to raise our kids effectively and lovingly, all of these things, because we all want good results. There's no question about that. I don't know anybody who wants to lose. So we want positive results. And we know, and we've been taught, for years that a positive attitude will help. Think positive. Think positive. And you've heard me say that. But the real key to transformational change is to get beneath the attitude, because the attitude is essentially how we think and how we feel. And it could be good or bad. I feel bad. I feel good. I think good. I think bad. Okay. But why? What's beneath attitude? And this is the world of transformation. This is where we start to identify that I'm not the false self I thought I was. I'm not the ego. I'm not the mask. I have no reason to be afraid from a spiritual perspective. And when I am afraid, all I'm doing is drawing more fear into my life. What? Fires together, wires together. So now I start getting down to that level of perception, how I see myself, how I see the situation, how I see the world. And if I'm unprepared, if I haven't committed to ongoing improvement, which is why I love Fuel, because Fuel has so many incredibly intelligent And experienced instructors. So many great tips on how to do all kinds of things in life more effectively. I've been a self-help junkie, if you want to call it that, for over 40 years since I started my company. I just was thirsty to continue to learn and learn and learn. And you've heard me say this before too, is if you want to be brilliant, hang out with brilliant people. Okay? That's a frequency, an energy frequency that if you hang out long enough, what fires together wires together. You begin more and more and more to wake up and to realize how silly some of the past behavior has been. The fear and the doubt and the worries. You were worried about nothing. You were worried about nothing. But all it did was age you faster, kick those hormones into gear, the stress hormones. Really weaken you. And again, what fires together wires together. So when we get down to this level of perception, I challenge you again to think about what assumptions am I making about myself? What assumptions am I making about this situation? What might go wrong? The FMEA. What might go wrong that's triggering me to, right? And a shift I talked about. Transformational leverage points, a shift at that level from doubt to inspiration, from fear to excitement. I am excited to get up on stage and speak. I am excited to go into this interview because I'm well prepared and I feel really good about myself and I know I'm capable of the job. I feel really good about what's coming. That feel-good in the present draws more feel-good in. And by the way, if you don't get the job, you know, you don't perform at your very best, life's not over unless you're climbing El Capitan. Okay? You adjust, you learn from it. And so with the FMEA, once we've identified what could go wrong and what would cause that, we finish with countermeasures. A countermeasure Is a foolproof plan. In Japan, pokayoke. It's mistake-proof. So I can't fail, or I won't fail for these reasons, because I know exactly what it is I'm going to do, what I'm going to say. Like Alex, I've prepared, I've mapped the mountain face, every little— I've looked at every little detail. Because you're halfway up and you go, oops. By the way, there's no going down at that point. You can't climb down from a cliff, right? So you, you really prepare ahead. So I want you to think about now, and I'll stop sharing this, come back. I want you to start thinking about what do you do next from this Fearless? And I hope you'll join me next Friday for, with Fearless, because next Friday we're gonna talk about let go. To let flow, 2 of the 4 steps. And I have a guest next week, Allie Sweeney. Allie's a Fuel instructor. She's fantastic. She's one of the hosts of Mindset Matters on Mondays. And Allie's gonna share a story about how she's had to let go of some things in her life to allow more flow. Okay? More growth, more expansion, more joy and happiness and peace, if you will. So that's next Friday. And as you know, and then I'll have Jim Cathcart, another Fuel instructor, joining me in mid-February. So we're gonna begin to expand the show and bring guests on to discuss fear and how they've overcome fear to become great influencers in the world. So with that, I'm going to say goodbye for this week. Wish you a very happy weekend. Again, I'm John Murphy. I have 2 courses with Fuel, Beyond Doubt: 4 Steps to Inner Peace and Creative Problem Solving, where we actually talk about the FMEA tool in more detail. And I invite you to take a look at that. You can also visit me on social media. And on YouTube, I've got a couple hundred short clips that you might find very helpful. So with that, I bid you adieu. Thank you for joining me, and we'll hopefully see you next week. And tell people to join you, to join us as well.
