Fear. It can be such an unwelcome companion. While often not life or death, the stakes can resemble wild success or utter failure in the business world, and that fact alone can be paralyzing. Making difficult decisions, taking risks, predicting the market, starting a new business, or even reinvigorating an existing business to increase yield, can all induce fear in us that is second to none.
They didn’t title that movie from the 80’s Risky Business for no reason. Business is a gamble, even in its most calculated form.
In most cases, businesses affect more than just ourselves. We might have other people’s income on the line, which affects families. We might also have employees’ health and wellness to consider, their ability to take vacations and find time to be with their loved ones, earn bonuses and rewards, and make the kind of living that their dreams are made of.
Add it all up, and this leadership responsibility we’ve taken on starts feeling a lot like pressure. We can’t allow ourselves to be paralyzed by pressure. As a leader, you must work through paralysis to lead others with courage and integrity.
What I remember about the IPO of Primerica was that we came awfully close to it on a couple of occasions. Then our efforts *poofed,* absolutely evaporated due to unforeseen circumstances —like being bought out by another company or the collapse of the entire banking system. We were really winning…until we weren’t.
While I would typically pick myself up and dust myself off, ready to start all over again from scratch, I would still sometimes feel that fear creeping in, trying to get me to buy into what it was telling me. “All your hard work will go to waste again, John. This is a fruitless effort, Addison. What are you working so hard for if it all keeps falling apart? The banks aren’t going to recover, and Primerica won’t exist.” All real possibilities, but not even probabilities; make no mistake, the difference is real.
Like weeds in a garden, I needed to remain vigilant for fearful thoughts to enter. I needed to ensure that they weren’t being allowed to overtake the bountiful veggies that I had carefully and thoughtfully cultivated in a season when hope seemingly sprang eternal. I had to repeatedly address my stinking thinking and make sure it wasn’t heading me in the direction of my dreams shrinking. It required dedication to success and courage, but it was well worth the effort.
If you have heard me give a keynote speech or read my book, Real Leadership, you have undoubtedly heard me talk about the difference between being a lighthouse and a weathervane. A weathervane changes direction constantly with the storm. The influence the storm has over it is endless. The lighthouse, however, holds fast and strong and shines its light for others to follow even while the storm is raging all around.
When we feel fearful or anxiety-ridden about something coming up, that is the time to start preparing an answer for that fear. I have found that the wisest decision is an educated decision in business and leadership positions. My response to fear is often doing research, asking good questions, talking to others who have been down that road, and reflecting on my past experiences to ensure I am not perpetuating a pattern that I might not be able to recognize. If I need to educate myself further to make a good decision, by gosh and by golly, I will either do that or consult with someone who is already a master in that field whose opinion I can trust, even if it might differ from my own.
With that conscious repetition of actions, I created a ritual around fear that allowed me to be able to respond rather than react. I didn’t let fear cause me to spontaneously turn into a weathervane, changing course just to avoid pressure and possible adverse outcomes. I knew that if I remained calm, let each decision take up the appropriate amount of time and space that is needed instead of rushing, and kept the focus on learning from and with others, the storm was far less likely to uproot me altogether.
If our fear can be easily overcome by confidence cultivated through gaining new knowledge, don’t ever stop learning. It’s that simple. If our dreams are grinding to a halt because we don’t feel competent enough in a world full of MBAs, then it might be high time to look into advancing our education to prepare and create the environment for our success.
There’s empowerment in making a plan to overcome our fears by educating ourselves. Educating ourselves means that it’s more likely that educated opinions and decisions will come from us, which are always better for business. If we have to become more educated to handle better how to lead with confidence and enthusiasm, then the obvious action is to sign up for some classes to meet our own needs. Then, we can effectively grow into the leader we were destined to become.
I have heard people say fear is the absence of faith. I decided to take a long, hard look at this because I, too, believed it for a time. What I found upon examining my experience didn’t entirely coincide. I observed that I could still act in faith despite fear.
Telling fear to take a long walk off a short pier has never really been something I could do. Trying to order my fearful thoughts to stop came from the part of me that was afraid to be afraid. So that didn’t work, but bringing some mindfulness into the situation did work.
I could watch the fear come and begin to grow. I could listen to it tell me all sorts of things, just as it did when I was working on the IPO. But I didn’t have to believe what it was telling me. The pruning process of fearful thoughts doesn’t necessarily mean trying to obliterate them; it means putting them in their place, in the garbage, next to all the rest of the bindweed that strangles our efforts to create lively, beautiful things in the world.
While teaching my boys to ride a bike, whenever one of them would take a tumble and come running, I would first make sure that they were ok. But then, after the tears stopped, I would dust them off, turn them around and pat them on the back as I said, “off you go to try again.” Fear is just one of those things that we have to dust ourselves off and walk away from. Try again. Keep going. Don’t let fear keep you from flying.
Even if fear has knocked the daylights out of us, we stand a much better chance at successfully getting back up and trying again when we:
So, dry those tears. The only thing to fear is fear itself. Take a deep breath. And off you go to try again!
See? I knew you wouldn’t let fear stop you.
If it’s evident that your organization is struggling due to fear and lack of guidance on how to navigate it successfully, book me as your next keynote speaker, and I can show you and your team how to turn your fear into fuel.
See you at the top,
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“The scarcest resource in the world is not oil, it’s leadership.”
As Co-CEO of the largest independent financal services company in North America, John Addison’s skill as a leader was tested and honed daily. He retired in 2015 after taking the company and it’s people to massive heights. He’s just not done helping people get to the top. Today, he’s at the helm of Addison Leadership Group, INC working daily to mentor and educate new leaders.
If you have been a weathervane your whole life how do you change to a lighthouse?
Hello there, Chris! Thank you so much for taking the time to reach out after reading and to ask an excellent question. It is certainly one that I could write an entire book about, and I kind of am with my next book that’s coming out, Turn Your Fears Into Fuel…but I digress. Let’s see, if we had to break it down into three or so steps what would they be? Ok, Step 1: Realize that up until this point, you have always been doing the best you could. If you could have been different, you would have been, but you can’t, so you weren’t. So the first step is to not beat yourself up for not having been a lighthouse. Step 2: Start observing how you respond to different stimuli. At the office, at home, with your friends and family, every interaction is good material for looking at how you experience the world. You want to see what it is in you that goes into a sense of panic when things come up. And not even panic, but just fear. When situations arise, how do you let fear and fearful thinking overtake you? How do you let fear change the way you make decisions and how do you let it run the ship when things get dicey. Step 3: Understand that you do not have to make decisions based on fear. I often decide to create space for fear to dissolve when it comes to decision making. I will say, if I get some news that is going to require a decision and it’s bringing up some sense of apprehension, I will then give the fear a shelf-life. I’ll say, “I’m not going to respond to this particular thing for at least a day.” Sometimes it’s days or weeks, depending on what the situation is. But I will let that fear hang around. Take good long looks at it and know that nothing is imploding in the period of time it takes me to spend with the fear. Then, I will start to look at my options and I will often list them out. I will ask myself, which ones of the options are fear-based (trying to avoid or control a circumstance or outcome) and which ones are more about freely creating the reality that I want to see for my future/friend/family/business…etc. I hope this makes sense. Understand that your mind can be an absolute tornado or worry and doubt (with cows and Volkswagons flying around in there in the storm, getting ready to destroy anything they hit at any moment) and it doesn’t have to change how you go about your day-to-day. Your mind can be that weathervane, switching direction and whipping around violently in the storm, but it doesn’t have to change anything. You can still know in your core that it doesn’t have to change how you respond to the world or its circumstances. This is going to take practice, but guess what? You have ample daily interactions and life experiences to give you all the practice you need. Just don’t beat yourself up and try to think of it as being broken down into these few steps. I hope that will make it easier for you! Thanks again for reading and for commenting. That is one of the best questions I have ever gotten. And don’t just take my word for it. Try it out and see if it works for you. if not, we can try brainstorming another method. See you at the top!
P.S. It just dawned on me that I have one more resource for you: My book, Real Leadership Volume 2 is about to come out. This new release contains a companion workbook. It utilizes reflective exercises to help us get a handle on where we are in the world, what we are doing there, what we can change, and how to go about making that change. So I would say if you are truly interested in continuing the work of turning your weathervane into a lighthouse, that companion workbook is going to have a lot of impact for you.