A Take on Fear

How many times have we been told to face our fears yet most choose to continue living the same way?  Do you know why? The answer is simple: we are afraid of what will happen once we move past our fear.  Does this make sense? 

I’ll give you an example.  I am terrified of heights and in order for me to face that fear I must go to someplace high.  My FEAR is what will happen should I BE up there and I am STILL terrified, how will I get down?  How will I FACE that new fear of being so high?  Or, will I beat myself up for STILL being afraid of heights?  “See Joe, it didn’t work so now you have to worry about getting down”  make any more sense? 

My friend Philip McKernan reminded me of a great quote I would like to share with you:  “everything you want lies on the other side of fear”.  If you think about my analogy, I want to be able to enjoy heights, or better yet, what pleasures height may give me such as parasailing or sky diving.  So what I really want is on the other side of my fear of heights.  It works the exact same way with our financial lives.

Although I had not heard the quote until recently, I realize I have lived by it one hundred per cent with every business and life decision made.  More recently I can relate this to Real Estate investing, where early in 2005 I grabbed my wife’s hand and plunged into a POOL of fear – fear of the unknown! 

The unknown was not having the proper education or financial intelligence to make the right decisions with our capital.  I also decided to let go of two major life-long businesses – and more importantly…my SALARY.  Obviously a major decision not to be taken lightly, it was easy for me. My wife on the other hand, was never a fan of huge risks & like most was content in our lives and financial position wanting no part of any jeopardy concerning our home.  Basically, she didn’t want me to F— it up (to put it bluntly).

Did I listen?  Was I scared?  Yes and Yes…but I still made the move.  Imagine taking your life savings and leveraging your built-up assets of thirteen years and throwing it into the ring without a clue of what you were doing.  “I’ll figure it out” I told her.  So I studied, I learned, I tried, I failed, I tried again, I succeeded, then I f’d it up again.  So guess what I did…  I tried again and learned some more.  I had no choice, I made the decision and now the outcome of my action depended on me.  There was no safety net, I had no income remember?

That is a summary of my life, it’s how I have always ‘rolled’ (sorry, can’t seem to forego my DJ lingo), I would argue I was practicing the ‘law of attraction’ before even knowing of its existence.  All of my business plans, if you want to call them that were centred on “I don’t know how, but I’ll do it”.  OK, so I’ve matured since then and have a life of running businesses to draw from, but my knack to jump STRAIGHT into the unknown (fear) is pretty cool.  I don’t suggest anyone to take as bold a step, but I do want to promote forward ACTION.

That said, we are no different from the next person.  We have NEW fears to face every day but what we do differently is look back at our OLD fears to review the results.  Trust me, sometimes those results are not great, but it is what we have LEARNED that help us challenge the new fears. We use history to help us plan our future.  And THIS is what holds so many back, maybe even you; afraid of what MAY happen if you decide to do something new. 

I have begun the passage to helping (coaching, mentoring whatever you want to call it) people learn to BE REAL and acknowledge their true fears.  My passion today is simple:  I want to educate as many people possible through our journey-mistakes and all, this blog, speaking events, personal one on one chats….whatever.   I challenge you to get up and face what is real.  I encourage you to BE REAL, not someone you think you should be.  Take accountability and face your fear to move past it.  I still think back to friends telling me they wanted to “join in what you are doing” four years ago who are still “thinking” about it and working their asses off complaining of everything.  It’s amazing how life changes in just a few short years of baby steps and my wife and I are the proof. 

Behind what fear are you hiding?  Will today be the day you face it?  I leave you with a quote from Yoda “Do or Do Not, There is no Try”.  So don’t ‘try’ to face your fears, do it or don’t.  It’s really that simple.