In this solo coaching talk, Shawn Buttler (Sean Buttner) explains that the primary barrier to high performance is a specific kind of fear that stops people from taking action. He distinguishes this from ordinary physical fear and outlines three core fear categories that keep people stuck: (1) Loss Fear – the anxiety that taking a new step will cause you to lose something you already have (e.g., stable income, time, comfort foods); (2) Process Fear – the dread of the effort, pain, or skill‑gap involved in the journey (e.g., training for a marathon, stepping into a managerial role); and (3) Outcome/Opportunity‑Cost Fear – the worry that the result won’t live up to expectations or that better options exist elsewhere. For each fear, Buttler offers a reframing technique: focus on the gains rather than the loss, view the process as a learning opportunity, and clarify the positive outcomes that align with your deeper “why.” He illustrates each with concrete personal‑development and career examples. The talk concludes with a call‑to‑action, inviting viewers to submit questions via SeanButler.com or Instagram for a live Friday coaching session, where he provides one‑on‑one guidance and showcases the power of high‑performance coaching.
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Financial reward, more time with our families, more time for building better health and well being and, you know, more time and more success in our pursuits. And so many times the things that holds up people that I've noticed in my coaching practice is the fear of taking action, right? It's different from fear in general, right? If you have a bear in your house and you're physically threatened, so most physical threats or things that impact your physical well being, you know, fear's justified. It's usually short lived, fair leaves. Hopefully you're not in fear anymore. But I'm talking about the fear of expressing yourself, expressing yourself fully at work in your relationships. I'm talking about the fear of change, right? Taking different actions that might, you know, stop you from enjoying a lot of the things that you love to do, things that are harder but are good for you, like working out or getting your nutrition right. I'm talking about the fear of it all being worth it or being worthy yourself. So if you go on said endeavor, you try that new job, you try to start that business, that your ego is going to take a hit because you fail. You're gonna have the people around you not cheering you on, you have people making fun of you as you go forth. And that's a very real thing. And the people that are high performers are able to manage that in a different way, are able to understand that that comes up and can handle it more quickly and more effectively than people that get stuck in an action. Because when you live a life based on fear, you can't listen to other people, you can't feel connected, you can't be actively engaged in building the life that you really want. So this is something I've experienced in my life too. So it's not that I know something that other people don't. I just am very fortunate to have a process and a way of thinking through these types of things and working with people with it. You kind of pick up patterns. But there's three basic types of fear that prevent people from taking that next step to move forward. Fear. So loss fear is that by doing something you'll lose out on something else. So it's kind of like fomo, I guess. But you know, in the instance of starting a business, you might lose a stable job for a little bit, stable income. If you're starting a new health regime, you might lose time doing something that you really love because you have to exercise. You might be losing some of those comforting foods for, you know, stuff that's more nutritional for you and so on. And so forth. And you know, we, because we fear that loss, we don't take the action to actually, you know, give it a try, take a bet on ourselves, right? And if you have this type of fear in your life, if you're thinking to yourself right now, does this apply to me? Is there some place in my life where I'm fearing that I'm gonna lose out on something if I take action? Really you have to focus on like, what do you gain, right? Sure, in starting a business you might lose a little bit of stability and income, but you can build something that matters. You have legacy that you can gain. You can actually gain more rewards by working for yourself than for somebody else potentially. Or you're just again, just feeling more fulfilled overall, you're happy, happier. You don't have to take direction from other people. You can kind of have that extra sense of freedom. So if you focus on that and that's worthy to you, that's something that you really are craving and something that you really need in your life, you'll be more apt to push through that fear of losing out to take action, right? Second, major type of fear that most people experience in my client work and in the high performance style stuff that I study is process fear. Right? The act of doing is going to be painful, so you don't do it. So in a health related situation you might think like, I don't want to sign up for a marathon because training for it means I'm have to run a lot. Running a lot is going to be terrible. So I'm fearing the process of being able to complete a marathon in that type of thing. But it could also be like, if I'm going to go for that promotion, I'm going to have to give up time with my family. The act of taking on more responsibility than maybe you're ready for. Like, I'm really good as an engineer and you know, doing software and I want to be a manager, but I'm not really awesome at managing people yet or I don't have that interpersonal skill that will help me excel in that. You know, that can be that process of trying to figure that out, of actually doing the thing of taking that promotion. To be a manager when you're not ready can be really scary. And so many people cut their dreams short or cut how they can contribute short because they're holding back in that way. So again, how do you get around the process type fear? And in most cases it's just thinking like, what can I learn here? Right? Kind of not focusing on how tough it's going to be, but again, what you're going to get out of it, but more of that learning journey. You know, if becoming from an engineer to a manager, you're like, I'm going to have to learn how to communicate better. And that's just going to help me in my relationships at home a lot more. It's going to help me as I advance my career, but it's also going to help me out in the community right when I'm interacting with other folks. So relationships are going to improve by taking on this endeavor and so making that the focus. Cool. If you guys are liking this too, I want to let you know that every Friday I take your questions. You can go to SeanBunder.com ask or check out the link in my bio to get to ask a coach on Instagram so you can, you know, fill out a quick survey. And then on Friday, if you are able to come online, I'll coach you online one on one. So I get a little bit more context. You guys get to see how this high performance coaching stuff works. And if you just want to submit a question, I can tag you in that episode on Friday at 10 o' clock and I'll get your question answered as best as I can with the information you give me. And it's just something I love to do to kind of showcase the power of coaching, get you some new perspective, get you some cheering on and maybe a little bit challenge, if that's what you need to make sure that you are advancing in your life as you want to. So, all right, that said, the third thing, the third fear that really kind of stops people if the first one is lost fear. The second one is process fear. The third one is, and I'm drawing a blank right now because we're live. So it's process fear, the active doing loss fear. And it's. Opportunity cost. Right. So that the fact that. Or the grass might be greener on the other side. So if you accomplish the big goal, it might not be as full, rosy, as awesome as you're hoping it would be. So the outcome fear, right, that's what it's called. So if again, like in the marathon training, I really like this analogy. If you're like, I'm going to train for a marathon, not afraid of putting in the work, but maybe it's not going to mean as much when I cross that finish line or when I become manager. Maybe it's not going to be exactly as awesome as I thought it would be. Or there's things I didn't really anticipate that are going to make me feel miserable and I'm going to regret the decision again. I think when I've coached people through this in my practice comes down to like, where's the service? What do you gain from it? Again, you know, what's the positive outcome that you're really hoping on? And just focus on that, right? If becoming a manager means you can help your team, you know, advance more quickly towards projects because you have some unique insights, or you can be that communication person for the team, that spokesperson for the team, more effectively than not having a manager or having replacing the current guy or gal. That's something to listen to if it's, you know, for your family. Like, I can buy that house because I advanced my career and have greater responsibility, more fulfillment from that, but also more from that financial reward to help, you know, serve my kids and my family and help them out with shelter. You know, that could be something worth focusing on too. So, and one, you can focus on these and remind yourself, you know, these are, you know, a lot of times in personal development, people say, what's your why? This is a technique that can help you find your why when you feel like you're holding back, when you know that there's a next level for you, a next level of success more for you to enjoy in your life and you don't know how to get over that hump. So that said, guys, make sure you go to SeanButner.com ask to get your questions submitted for this Friday show where I'll go live, I'll answer it live. And if you want to be on Instagram and do a little quick 5 minute live coaching thing, I am totally down for that. I would love to do that for you. So that said, go sign up@seanbutner.com ask or check out the link in the bio, do the social media thing and like share, promote this however you like. Ask questions, direct message me if you have a question too. Any of those methods are totally awesome to get qualified to ask a question on the show and I'll see you guys then. Okay, take care. Goodbye.
