Fear
As far as small pleasures go, if I have to
say that I have one, then it is certainly the one or two hours that I spend walking
or biking. For me, these times amount to rare opportunities during the day when
I am left alone to clear my head and think, or to pray, or to simply listen to
a useful podcast, all while getting in some much-required exercise for this
aging body. And so it was that, on a decent spring day, about two years ago, I
found myself walking near the museum at City Park, which happens to be my favorite
part of New Orleans.
My routine back then, as now, was usually pretty
simple. Armed with my earphones and running shoes, I parked along the main drive
to the museum, called up something to listen to, and then set out for my brisk walk.
That late morning, though, I did do something different. Rather than head for
the waterside path taking me to Delgado Community College, I decided to first
walk around Big Lake, at the front of the park. For those people who’ve never
seen it, Big Lake is really just a huge, but tranquil, pond where ducks, geese
and paddle-boaters gather, and curiously enough, it is where, in one area, the
walking track that encircles this body of water actually stretches out over the
water and then arches back to land. For all the many times I walked across that
little bridge, I would have honest said that, prior to that morning, I had
never given its sturdiness any real though.
As a made my way back onto land from the
bridge, I nodded to an older woman who seemed to be going in the opposite
direction but, for some reason, had stopped. My nonverbal greeting must have
been the only entrée that she needed for a conversation, because she began to
say something while pointing to the bridge and water before her. “Ma’am, I am
sorry, but I did not hear you,” I told her, after removing my earphones.
The woman, probably in her late fifties or
early sixties, looked at me, smiling, and she apologize for stopping me. Then
she said, “I just wanted to know if that water is deep.”
I returned the smile, chuckling a little bit,
and I explained that it was not. In fact, at least in this area of Big Lake,
the water could have been no more than two feet deep, maybe three. I went on to
assure her that the arched bridge was quite safe, and that she had no reason
for concern. Unfortunately, that was not enough to assuage her trepidation. She
looked ahead for a moment, and then she shook her head. Stepping back from the
bridge, she said that she was afraid of that much water, and that she should
have not walked that way.
I probably should have walked away at that
point, particularly given the fact that I knew she could have taken another
course, but being the person that I am, I did not. Instead, I insisted to her
that there was nothing to fear, pointing out the other folks crossing the
bridge without harm, and then I extended my hand and asked her if I help her
across.
I could have only imagined what went through
the woman’s mind at that moment. Not only was her worst fear impeding her
course; now this stranger was offering to walk her across it. She resisted, saying,
“Baby, only Jesus was meant to walk on water.” To that, I replied with total agreement,
and reminded her that that was why God gave man the ability to build bridges. My
quick response was well-received, and after laughing for a moment, she finally
said, “Okay.” She to my hand with a deep breath, and we slowly proceeded across
the bridge, with me instructing her a few time not to look down but ahead.
When we finally made it across, the woman
took a few more deep breaths, as if this effort had been more strenuous than
the power walking she had been down. She looked back at the bridge, and then at
me. “I guess it’s not as narrow as I thought. It did not even shake or
anything.” I nodded. She thanked me, and then she added, in a rather triumphant
tone, “I might not cross it by myself next time, but I know now that I can do
it!”
My work was done. I shook the woman’s hand,
popped my earphones back into place, and proceeded back across the bridge to
start my own walk.
The aforementioned story is quite true, and I
think of it a lot, particularly when the subject of fear comes to the fore,
which is quite often in my line of work. That’s because, whether dealing with aspiring
entrepreneurs or even seasoned executives with deeply entrenched modi operandi,
I find that underlying fears are typically the most prevalent culprits behind indecision,
inaction, stagnation, regression, and so on. And interestingly enough, these
businesspeople are not just fearful of making the wrong decision about their direction;
they are often fearful about continuing on their current paths. Like that older
woman in the park, these businesspeople can succumb to hard-driving emotions,
and they, too, whether knowingly or unknowingly, hesitate at the water’s edge.
Unfortunately, though, the fear of these businesspeople can impede more than
daily exercise; their fear can affect destinies. That is why the words of noted
evangelist TD Jakes ring true: “Fear is the assassin of greatness.”
In order to overcome or manage fear, it must
first be understood for what it is. Many are unlikely to admit it, but fear is
something that resides in each of us. It is an emotional response to stimuli that,
in humans, travels through our neural circuitry from the parts of the brain
known as the amygdala, and because this emotion is connected to the
self-preservation instincts of every living organism, it would be fair to say
that its existence dates back to the dawn of creation. In humans, fear is
triggered when the amygdala recognizes threatening stimuli being collected by
the body’s senses, which also happens to be sharing this information with the
brain’s cortex. Detecting a threat, the amygdala can bypass the neocortex and prompts
the body into action, even without a conscious impetus, quickly initiating an evaluation
of the perceived threat and determining an appropriate response. There is
little that the untrained mind can do; fear can strike out of nowhere. And just
as literal threats can cause a rush of insurmountable fear, figurative ones
like uncertainty can also cause ongoing bouts of anxiety and apprehension.
In his best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman wrote that we have two
minds---one emotional, the other rational---and that, for the sake of a healthy
life, the rational mind had to be in control. He described emotional
intelligence (EQ) as the ability to “motivate and persist in the face of
frustrations, to control impulses and delay gratification, to regulate one’s
moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think, [and] to empathize
and to hope.” Goleman believed that people were too often collared by their
emotional mind, but through EQ, they could learn to temper their emotional
propensities and discover ways to grow. And where fear was concerned, Goleman
acknowledged that it was possible to reshape the human response to threatening stimuli,
by working to help individuals understand why they are afraid, redefine the
stimuli that frightened them, and replace negative experiences of the past with
new and positive ones. This process was called emotional relearning.
Such a psychotherapeutic approach to
understanding and overcoming fear is also useful in the business world, where fear
can undermine new ventures, cause the suppression of much-needed talent and
ideas, upend change initiatives, and (worst still) strengthen corrupt or
obsolete leadership. As said before, nearly every businesspeople is like the
woman in the park, arriving at the water’s edge with trepidation, but those
businesspeople with the capacity to identify and overcome their fears might
have a better shot at success than those who elect to stand there or those who
decide to take costly detours.
Here are a few thoughts on how you can begin
to understand and overcome the fears affecting your business:
·
Recognize that you are standing on the water’s
edge. Fear is a common emotion, and
it is nothing for which anyone should be ashamed. As you start to make this
recognition, you can begin to understand what the fear is and how it is
impacting your organization.
·
Develop a vision of the other side. You should ask yourself the question: if
not for this emotional impediment, where could your organization be? An honest
effort to answer this question will enable you to paint of picture of where you
would like to take your organization. From there, you can set attainable
benchmarks and goals by which to transform that picture into your reality.
·
Know the real enemy. Many fears are based on inaccurate
presumptions. As you begin to identify your fears, you should also make an effort
to fully understand where they come from, and determine more accurately their
levels of potency and validity. What you find may surprise you; the fears may
be unfounded. This is often true, for example, when I am working with individuals
who seem to have large dreams but do not believe that they have the ability to
be entrepreneurs.
·
Get help.
There is no shame in admitting your limits, and this is the reason that people
in my field consistently tell businesspeople that they need BAIL (“bankers,
accountants, insurance agents, and lawyers”), as well as bright business
consultants, to help devise and navigate the course forward. These people,
along with the members of your own team, will complement your abilities and
serve as a support system.
·
Take that first step. Once you have an idea of where you are
headed and a plan for getting there, do not be afraid to go for it.
·
Persevere until you make it. When you are confronting what should be
fearful moments, the typical biological impulses may surface. Nevertheless, you
must have confidence, and trust your rational mind, as well as your support
system, to get you through the anxiety.
·
Know that everything is temporal. Today’s times of challenge are tomorrow’s
moments of triumph. You must remember that what you face today, if encountered
effectively, can help to propel you forward, where undoubtedly, you will face a
whole new set of challenges and where you may have to identify different types
of fears. With any luck, though, the lessons learned from today will prepare
you for much of what is further down the road.
On a regular basis, I encounter fear. It
comes in the form of smart people who, though they have great ideas for new
businesses, are not willing to pursue them, because they fear failure or happen
to be uncomfortable with the uncertainty. It also comes in the form of
businesspeople that, in spite of years of experience, don’t move their enterprises
forward, because they fear new learning curves or the market and competitive risks,
and for them, complacency seems like a better option. With both forms, though, I
think of the woman in the park, and then I am reminded of another quote, this
one from South Africa’s sociopolitical champion Nelson Mandela. As a man who
put his life on the line to fundamentally change his country, Mr. Mandela might
know a little bit about fear, and he once said this of the emotion: “I learned
that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave
man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Most
people, and particularly the fearful ones that I encounter, would be do well to
learn from his words, so that they can, one day, set their sights on bigger opportunities.
Gary C. Harrell is the founder and managing
principal of Axiom Strategy Advisors, LLC. For additional information, please write info@axiomstrategyadvisors.com.
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