Smartly Fearless

The difference between the road ahead and a rear-view mirror is the danger that lies ahead vs the obstacles and danger you’ve overcome.

We can celebrate one side and be stymeid in fear of the other.

Captain Jack Doesn’t Like All the Words

Many people like a quick summary instead of digging into to all the of the reading. For those of you who just want the highlights, here you go.

Smartly Fearless means to understand that you have valid fear and that you may have the ability to think through all the scenarios where things can go wrong, but you choose to take a chance and move forward past your fear regardless.

It is a moment that you say “eff it” accept what may happen, aim your sights on what you want to happen and make it happen.

1. Say “eff it”
2. Have a bias for action and act, (test your ideas)
3. Accept what happens and be kind to yourself,
4. Live a life where you constantly seek out “no regrets,”
5. Reflect on your past and envision your future.

Read on (if you choose) ramblings of working through fear

Reading the book “Solve for Happy” I realized some anger and frustration about myself through Gawdat’s introduction. There are people I have come across in life that have talent, skill and ability making them so very capable of almost anything. In renaissance times there were people like the famous Davinci that were Polymath’s studying all sorts of things. I suppose that in our time entertainment distracted us from learning. At the same time, we all have a certain capacity to learn and some of us reach this threshold faster than others.

I felt frustrated when I read the introduction because Gawdat is clearly a polymath. He was not only capable of a great many things, but he also realized his ability in art, music, science, and he effectively hacked the system to achieve his objectives. Every human has a story, and we all suffer in some way. Mo has his and I certainly wouldn’t trade places with him, but I want to raise the point that we mere mortals don’t all have the same ability. My read is that he sees everything as an engineering problem that he can solve which is more powerful in his psyche than any fear he may have. He breaks every problem into a smaller part and works out how to tackle it. The point is that he “took action” to overcome a challenge. This is one of the more important things to realize.

We must have a bias for action to overcome fears.

To be clear, this post isn’t about Mo Gawdat and his perspective on being happy, it is about understanding and accepting myself for what I am and what I can do. Through this understanding, I can work towards overcoming my fears and find the outcomes that I would like to achieve for myself and my family. I must understand my bias for action and my relative ability to do things and stuff.

Through the years, I overcame fear in life and business without understanding myself. It is important to point out that many of us take chances and dive into things without knowledge because sometimes, knowing or believing we know provides us insight and predetermined outcomes that we conjure up. Sometimes, I just said to myself, “Whatever happens happens” and took the chance to do something. There were a lot of feelings about it, and I definitely had fears, but I did it regardless.

I have spoken to many people over the years who had great ideas but never took action. One of my friends is a highly successful businessperson. He wants to help people; he wants to start a non-profit. He has wanted to do this for almost all of the years we have been friends, but he hasn’t done it. He still talks about it today, but he is afraid, and his fear has been a wall for him.

The smartest people block themselves with fear by creating all the fear scenarios. The rest of us have “fear” for so many reasons both because of what we believe we know and the unknowns. Fear seems to be a common enemy for many of us.

People tell us we can’t do things and they place their fears on us. They tell us we can’t do things because they can’t see an outcome. They are also jealous that they are choosing not to advance themselves and overcome their fears.

Some people jump out of airplanes, go on personal life journeys, or take extreme actions to help them overcome their fears.

Fear and ability aren’t necessarily tied at the hip. If we didn’t achieve things that were seemingly impossible before we would have been unable to see past our fear for sure.

In my youth, I sabotaged myself because I was afraid of my potential. I believed that if I achieved success or what I believed was success that my life would be over. My grandma always told me I had so much potential and instead of using this to advance myself, I used it against myself. It was all fear based. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do or achieve what she could see in me. I didn’t want to be a disappointment, so I didn’t even try.

A Seat at the Table

I asked for a seat at the table.
They said “no”
I walked in the door, grabbed a garbage can, and flipped it upside down, scooted in while they were chatting.
No one stopped me.
My can became a stool.
My stool became a seat.
If you have a desire to make a difference, chances are the only person stopping you is you.
Try making your own seat, let us know what happens.

I posted this on LinkedIn not long ago because it was true. I hear so many people talk about the things they can’t do but they don’t realize the things they can.

As I said, I was the king of self-sabotage. The universe conspired to help me, and I ruined all the opportunities it gave me. Even with all my challenges and my hardships, there was always a ray of light gleaming through the trees. I had an opportunity to follow a path but chose to derail myself until I discovered the “we” part of “me.”

The “we” part of me was born out of my understanding of our connectedness to each other and the world. From a practical perspective, it represents the things I feel compelled to do for people I love, and my extended circles. I suppose it leads back to my perspective of interdependence. I think we need each other for a myriad of reasons but once I discovered the idea of “service” for myself I found that it could be my motivation to overcome the many things that held me back.

Accept What Happens and No Regrets

My situation growing up was very complicated. Fear was a common thing in my house. “What if this and what if that?” There were a lot of ideas but little action. efore climate change issues were a popular thing my mom would talk about it. She had ideas about building domes to protect people and live in harmony with the earth. She had so many ideas on so many things. She could see the world in a way that many others could not. She would talk to people individually about her ideas, but she never did anything with them. Some of her ideas became innovations or inventions by others naturally. hen she saw something come to life, she would call me and tell me “Look there is my idea, it worked.” I tried to encourage her to find ways to express herself, go back to school, do something with her passions. She never did that, but she said, “My gift to this world is you and Stacey.” She believed in helping the world one person at a time.

I appreciate her perspective and I decided to act on helping a person at a time but also to find ways to do more. I have realized that at every point where I was afraid and in that moment of realization of “this is it,” I would need to tell myself that I didn’t want to wonder what might have happened. If I could visualize myself on the other side of it, I could make it happen. Regardless, no regrets.

The End

At life and work, there are many things to be afraid of. I have a number of stories in my life where I did things that other people wouldn’t do. They warned me that I couldn’t meet with CEO’s, presidents of companies, authors, senior government officials. I’ve been told that I wouldn’t be able to get a seat at the table.
I watched people throughout my life who had great ideas that never took them into action. I have seen people who failed in one action but found another.
I have seen people on the quest for happiness ask themselves why it took them so long to make a move.
I have seen people stuck in the mud of their fears.
There are certain truths that philosophers, scientists, religious scholars and all of the great minds hold in common. For today, we are born, we live, and we die.
I look towards the future knowing every day is a gift. If I seek to live every day as if it is my first and last, what can I achieve?
Do I have fear? Absolutely, but I have a bias for action.
I don’t allow people to tell me what my own personal boundaries are. I live within the societal rules, laws and boundaries but I push them.
Fear is a good thing, it helps protect us, but we need to overcome it, set it aside and seek to achieve our goals. Envision the future, reflect on the past and seek outcomes which will make us proud and live a life with no regrets.