The Hustle Ep7: Use Fear, Don’t Let It Use You!

Hey, guys. Calvin here from Young & Wildly Successful here as the sun sets in Sri Lanka. Absolutely stunning night, just absolutely beautiful. I want to record a video for you about how to use fear rather than letting fear use you. How do you use fear rather than letting fear use you? There are so many people that I speak to on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis that are afraid. They’re afraid about things that actually don’t freaking matter. For the ones that are genuinely afraid and letting fear use them and it’s using them to stop achieving their goals and dreams, they’re letting fear hold them back. They’re living in fear rather than living in possibilities.

I want to just first start by saying that fear and gratitude, fear and gratitude, can’t co-exist. So if you’re grateful for the opportunity to be afraid, that’ll be really powerful. One of the first things that you can do is to make a decision to choose to feel excited about being afraid. And that might sound really interesting and really different but I want you to understand that you have emotions but those emotions aren’t you. Fear is not who you are. Fear is just something that you’re doing at a point in time.

I’ve been afraid plenty of times and I’m sure I’ll be afraid plenty of times into the future but that doesn’t mean that I am afraid. It just means I’m feeling afraid. There’s a difference. Saying that I am afraid of something means that it becomes my identity. Saying that I’m choosing to feel fear is completely different. “I’m choosing to feel afraid right now.” That at least gives you an idea that you can chose to feel something different.

One of the lovely things I like doing, one of the things I really enjoy, is to actually do a double dissociation on emotions and feelings. So I would like to ask you, if you’re afraid, how do you feel about being afraid? “What do you mean, how do I feel about being afraid? I’m afraid.” No, you’re afraid but how do you feel about that? One of the first things that you could chose to do is to actually feel excited about being afraid because what I’ve come to realize…I don’t get afraid that often any more but when I do, I get excited about it because what it means to me now is rather than it’s going to hold me back, it means I’m about to do something different.

It means I’m about to learn. It means I’m probably about to fail but it means that I’m going to have a great experience. I’m going to have something to share on a video with you guys one day and more than that, I’m choosing to feel excited about the fact that I’m growing because I’ve associated in my nervous system over the years, fear to growth. Not fear to hesitation, not fear to disappointment, not fear to giving up, but fear to growth. The opportunity to attack that fear and really go after it in all abundance. That’s what I’ve associated fear to.

So if you’re in a position right now where you’re afraid and you’ve had some things, I encourage you to choose to feel excited about being afraid because surely there are better things to do with your time than to be afraid and just to be fearful that you’re afraid. Are you afraid that you’re afraid or are you excited that you’re afraid? So the first thing that you can do to help use fear rather than letting fear use you, is chose to feel excited about being afraid because that allows you to put yourself in a positive state. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is, let’s look at fear for what it is. It’s an indicator. It’s an indicator that you may have a mess-up. You may have a failure. And that’s really exciting because what that does is it tests you and it encourages you to stretch yourself. You don’t become the person that’s capable of living your dreams by doing what you’ve always done.

In fact, the biggest failure in life is just to do that. But what I want to encourage you to do is to look at fear as an indicator. As a signal, almost like a beeping light in your car and when you’re driving the car and the car’s nearly on empty, the light flashes. It’s an indicator to you that you’ve got to take a new route of action or you’ve got to do something different. You’ve got to prepare for the road ahead because if you don’t prepare for the road ahead, then you’re going to have that flashing indicator light going off and off and off and eventually you’re going to break down.

So fear should be that same indicator to you. It should be an indicator that you’re going to have to refuel. By the way, that fuel in your body is self-belief. It means you’ve got to refuel self-belief. It means you’ve got to go out there and look at fear for the reality of going, “Am I actually afraid of the outcome? Am I afraid of what people think of me? What am I actually afraid of?” And dig a little bit deeper rather than just going on, “I feel afraid right now.” How do you actually feel and what do you feel afraid of? Feel afraid of what’s going to happen? What may or may not happen?

What I find is that if you actually do that process by writing it down, by saying, “I’m afraid of,” and just writing down all the things you’re afraid of, you’ll realize pretty quickly that most of that fear is irrational, it’s illogical, and by simply writing it down, you take it from being in here. When you put pen to paper, it allows you to start to rationalize it more. I find that nine times out of ten, whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed, stressed, or afraid, by simply writing it down, I actually go, “Shit, I’m capable of so much more than that. Shit, I’m afraid of that? Really? That’s what I’m afraid of?” And I dig deep and I realize, “Shit, Cal, you’ve got some good stuff in you. That’s not going to break you. So just let’s just move forward and what’s the worst that can happen?”

The second question I want you to ask is not just, “What am I afraid of,” but, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Some of us really think that the worst that can happen is we’ll have all these big catastrophes in our life. Bullshit. Ninety-nine percent of things that we worry about, guys, never actually happen. But if it was to happen, I want you to ask that question. So first question is, “What am I afraid of,” and dig deep. Ask yourself a couple of times and when you think you’ve answered all of it, ask yourself again. Second thing to do is then to say, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Then third question is, this is a really important question so I’m just going to stop for a second. I want you to write this down. The third question is, “If the worst was to happen, what would that mean to me? If the worst was to happen, what would that mean to me?” So for example, maybe you’re looking to leave your job and you’re looking to start up your own business but you’re afraid. You’re afraid of putting yourself out there because, “Why am I afraid? I’m afraid because I might fail. I’m afraid that people won’t respect me. I’m afraid that I’m going to mess up this career that I’ve been developing. I’m afraid for all these different reasons. Maybe I’m afraid that I don’t have what it takes.” Maybe that’s what you’re really afraid of.

Then I would ask you, “What’s the worst that could happen?” “Well, the worst that can happen is I’m going to lose the business, I’m going to lose my savings, and I’m going to have no job.” Awesome. Cool. That’s really the worst that can happen, I’m pretty that you can take care of it but the next question is…and this is a really important one…the third question is, “If the worst was to happen, what would that mean to me? So if I was to lose the business and I was to have no more money and I was to have no job, what would that mean to me?”

Would it mean that you’re a failure? Would it mean to say you’ve got a great life experience? Would it mean that you’ve got a great opportunity to rebuild. Because what I realized having gone through this process myself of having no money and starting a business and nearly failing was actually what’s the worst that actually can happen here is I just that I go back to the job that I already had. Or I get another job. If you’ve gone out there and you set up your own business and you’re actually being successful setting up your own business or you had a crack and you failed, someone will find that experience valuable. But I don’t need to reframe it for you. This is a process you need to do on your own. And so that’s a great process of writing it down.

And then it’s about looking at this and asking yourself a really important question. This is a question that’s going to allow you to use fear rather than letting fear use you. And that is, “Do I want to be defined by such petty things?” Make sure you write that down because the language…oh, shit, I just got soaking wet. “Do I want to be defined by such petty things?” Do you want to be defined as the person that could have left their job and gone and pursued their dreams but decided not to in case you run out of savings? Do you want to be defined by that or do you want to instead define yourself as someone that goes, “I don’t care if I’ve got money or not. I’m a person that makes my dreams become a reality.”

Guys, how do you become that person? Well, you start by having a goal and a dream and going after it. So there are some big things already I’ve shared on this video. I want to just recap them real quick. First step, rather than just letting fear use you, for you to use fear is to first choose to feel excited about being afraid. Because it could mean to you that, “I want to be excited because I’m about to grow. I’m about to do something different.” That’s just what it could mean to you. I’d love for that to mean that to you.

Then the next step is to write some questions down and answer them by actually physically writing them down. Not on your computer screen, guys. Not on your iPhone or iPad or Samsung but by physically writing it down. First, “What am I afraid of?” Dig real deep into that. Second thing is, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Third is, “If the worst did happen, what would it mean to me?” And fourth is, “Am I going to allow myself to be dictated to and am I going to allow myself to become an example of by such petty things?”

Because fear is certainly not something that should hold you back from success. The reality is that many things can go wrong and probably many things will go wrong but I promise you the things you think will go wrong are never the ones that actually will. Because you spend all your time and effort worrying about what might happen instead of getting out there and then figuring out…learning my lesson…instead of figuring out, “How can I deal with this?” Because if you’re truly committed, if you’re truly committed to the life of your dreams, whatever that is, and something comes up as a block or a barrier and something that you become afraid of, you’re not afraid of it because you’re in the moment of action and you’ll just do something about it.

So spend less time worrying about what could happen and more time dealing with what will actually happen by getting out there and taking action. The final thing I want to encourage you to do as well is use the excitement and the rush of the adrenaline of making things happen just to take action. You don’t have to quit your job straight away. You don’t have to go out there and leave your relationship. But start taking action towards that because momentum is a beautiful thing. It can hold us back if we don’t have it and it can allow us to really move forward and build on it if we do have it.

So I want to encourage you to use, wherever you are, that excited, nervous energy, that fearful energy to start building some momentum in your life and allow it to mean something very different to you. So guys, if you enjoyed the video and you’ve been afraid and you want to be able to take life to the next level, I’d love to be able to see you on our webinars or seminars or training programs, maybe even online course. But here on the beach of Sri Lanka, the sun’s just set behind me, I want to encourage you to live strong and live for passion to make today, guys, and every day a phenomenal, life-changing adventure. And above all else, I want to encourage you to live life on your terms.