THE ED MYLETT SHOW - MAXOUT Your Mind Masterclass Ep. 3 | Fear Is the Real Enemy
Episode Date: October 28, 2025Faith Over Fear: Turning Your Butterflies Into Breakthroughs Have you ever wondered how much your fears are truly costing you? In this week’s episode of the MAXOUT Your Mind Masterclass, I’m g...etting real about one of the most powerful forces in your life, fear, and how it quietly keeps you from becoming the person you were born to be. I used to live afraid. Afraid I wasn’t good enough, afraid of what people thought, afraid to lose people who didn’t even want the best for me. But what I’ve learned is that fear isn’t your enemy, it’s your invitation. Every great thing in your life is waiting for you on the other side of it. In this episode, I walk you through how to stop letting fear define your decisions and start using it as fuel for your growth. You’ll learn how to reframe fear as what I call “butterfly moments," those powerful times when fear and excitement mix together just before something incredible happens. From overcoming my fear of public speaking to watching my daughter face her own fears, I’ve learned that you don’t need to eliminate fear to move forward, you just need to get to 51% courage. I also share a set of real tools that have helped me and countless others dance with fear instead of running from it. You’ll learn how to use breathing techniques, visualization, humor, and even “trigger words” to shift your emotional state in seconds. Fear and excitement create the same chemistry in your body... the difference is what you name it. Once you learn to rename your fear as anticipation, everything changes. If you’ve been living with invisible anchors holding you down: old stories, toxic relationships, and self-doubt, this is your moment to let go. The goal isn’t to become fearless; it’s to fear less and act more. Because when you do, you’ll finally meet the version of you that’s been waiting on the other side. And that version? That’s the one who was born to do something great. Key Takeaways: Fear and excitement are biochemically identical, it’s all about how you interpret them How to reframe fear as a “butterfly moment” that signals growth is near Why you only need 51% courage to take action The power of trigger words and visualization to change your emotional state instantly How to turn your fears into fuel for confidence, connection, and calling You don’t have to kill your fear. You just have to rename it. Because every time you face it, you earn your wings. Also don’t miss out on MAXOUT2026: Once a year, I open my home for an intimate one-day experience unlike anything else I do. This year, I’m making it even smaller, just 12 to 15 people. Together, we’ll dive deep into the exact strategies I use to plan, visualize, and design the best year of my life and yours. If you’re ready to Max Out your future, join me at Maxout2026.com for a life-changing day you’ll never forget. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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This is the Admiral Show.
Welcome back to the show.
So you're going to see a change in the show
between now and the end of the year.
You know, it's been no secret
that I've had a few health issues
the last couple years. Heck, I haven't even posted on social media in a few years. But we've been
coming strong with three podcasts a week, even during that time. Well, between now and the end of the
year, I'm going to scale it down a little bit, but give more value. So what I'm going to do is
I've created a masterclass that's going to come out on Tuesdays. And you'll still get your
Saturday episodes. We're going to take a pause on Thursdays. But every Tuesday, you're going to
get a master class for me that I've created to help you finish 2025 strong and go into 2026
and make it the best year of your life. I'm calling this master class, max out your mind,
faith, focus, and fire. Mastering your internal world so you can navigate your external world.
It's going to come out every single Tuesday. I think you're going to love it. I also just wanted to
let you know with that in mind, I'm not doing as much traveling. And so every year at the end of the
year, I do an event in my home with just a handful of people. And it sells out very quickly.
Here's what this is. It's a chance to come spend a day with me in my home, only 12 to 15 people just
with me, an entire day. And I'm going to take you through all of my planning and strategies that I
used to plan out my own life and my business. In addition to that, I'm going to cover all my
mental rehearsal techniques that I cover with just my one-on-one coaching clients in a one-day
event with me with just 12 to 15 other people. You can go to Max Out 2026.com to check that out.
If you're selling clients, not cheap. If you can't afford it, please don't do it. You know,
most all my content is free. But once a year, I do do something in my home with a very small
group of people. And it's a life-changing event. You'll never forget it. So if you're inclined to
want to come spend a day with me in my home, I invite you to join me. You just go to the website,
maxout 2026.com and get the details. Max out 2026.com. God bless you. Enjoy the episode.
So good to have you with me here today. And I'm honored to spend this brief time with you.
I think I have something important to ask you about and for us to visit about today.
So let's get right into it. What are your fears costing you? I think it's time to evaluate that.
Like you and I right now. What are you?
your fears costing you? You know, we have these weights that weigh us down in our lives, these
burdens, these fears that we have. You know, people ask me all the time, Ed, is making your dreams
come true, the work you put in, the sacrifices you made, the people that let you down all the
dark times in your life, all the times you went broke, both financially and emotionally, is it
worth it? It's a very interesting question because they always phrase it that way. Is it worth
it. Yet in our lives, we spend most of our times evaluating and contemplating what it's going to
cost us. I don't think God gave you another day in your life because you needed it. I think
he added another day to your life because somebody needed you. But here's the thing. They need
the real you, the authentic you, the one who's playing all out in their life and pursuing their
dreams. I can tell you, the answer to that question is, as good as you think it'll be to make your
dreams come true and dreams that you can't even imagine right now, visions of your life,
but maybe even more importantly, as good as you think it would feel to meet the real you,
the one you were born to be. And remember this, you were born to do something great with your
life, but to finally get introduced or reacquainted or reintroduced to that person. Maybe years ago
knew them very well, that version of you. But things have happened, these anchors, these fears,
these toxic relationships, whatever they might be, these disappointments in our life.
we've moved so far away from that person that we're capable of becoming that we don't even
recognize them anymore. As good as you think it'll be to meet that person for the first time
or once again, it's a million times better. You've got to stop thinking like a poor person.
And I'm talking to me as much as I am you. Let me tell what I mean by poor. Poor in spirit,
poor emotion and poor financially. See, when I was broke financially, when I would go into a store
and I wanted something, I wouldn't get what I wanted. I would get what I could afford.
and I would evaluate what it would cost me, not what it was worth.
And so oftentimes in life, people ask me, Ed, was it worth it?
But in their life, they spend most of the time contemplating the cost.
It'll cost me time.
It'll cost me my hobby that I like spending so much time in.
It'll cost me pain and emotion and whatever it might.
It'll cost me, I'd have to let go of my fears.
I'd have to let go of my patterns.
And these invisible things that weigh us down in our life, they kill us.
And so there's a lot of walking dead in the world.
There's this old saying that, they say it about men, but it's people.
Most people die 75 or 80 years old, but they really stopped living at 21 or 22 or 23 years old.
We just don't put them into the ground until they're older.
Too many people are walking around like this and maybe you relate to it.
Maybe you relate to a percentage of it.
These fears, these relationships, these things we worry about, these invisible boogeymen,
what are people going to be thinking about me?
Do you want to get to the end of your life?
and if someone asked you honestly, how did you live your life?
Do you want to answer, truthfully, scared?
I lived afraid.
Afraid I wasn't good enough.
Afraid I wasn't worth it.
Afraid of what other people would think about me.
Afraid to lose people around me that didn't even love me or care about me or want me to be my best.
I lived my life afraid.
Or at the end, you want to say, man, I maxed out my life.
I got all the emotions, all the memories, all the achievements, all the rich
in every area out of my life. I maxed out my life. Well, I could tell you this, if you hold
on to these anchors much longer, it's going to keep costing you. And the longer you do it,
even these things, sometimes what holds us back is feeling bad about things we've done in the
past that we're not proud of. And we use these memories as weapons against ourselves.
We stab ourselves with it over and over, or someone who's cheated on us or made a mistake.
We use them as weapons against ourselves. That's what you need to be asking yourself whether it's
worth it. Is it worth it to make your dreams come true? Is it worth it to change? Is it worth it to grow?
You bet it is a million times better.
Because when you make your original dreams come true,
you don't understand the ripple effects of all these other things
you can't even think about right now that happened.
When you meet the real you, it's spectacular.
Everyone here, man and woman, macho man,
and every single buddy listen to this.
You can't love yourself if you don't even know yourself.
And you can't know yourself if you're not truly being yourself.
And these anchors cause us not to be us.
Because once I got wealthy,
And I was rich, and I went into a store.
I didn't look at price tags anymore.
I looked at whether it was worth it, and I got what I wanted.
And our lives are a perfect metaphor of that.
We're constantly evaluating the cost instead of whether or not it's worth it.
Cost versus worth is a subtle difference.
Is it worth it to change?
Is it worth it to let go of these memories?
Is it worth it to drop your fears?
You'll never meet you otherwise.
Some of us are held back by crappy programming our parents installed in us when we were young.
Most things in life are caught, not taught.
We catch a way of thinking.
We catch a way of having emotions.
And we have to ungo.
We have to unleash ourselves and let go of those things in life.
So what's the thing for you?
What's the thing?
Is it a person you need to let go of?
Is it a fear you need to let go of?
Is it an operating pattern?
Is it a memory as a weapon you're using against yourself?
Is it just you're just not sure?
You've got to remember who the hell you are.
And if you've never met them, you need to get introduced and you need to get acquainted.
So I have to tell you something.
You have to start, you have to start to make a,
bold move in your life because you're worth it, your family's worth it, and the world needs
you. You were born for a reason. You were born to do something great in small ways and in big
ways in your life. And oftentimes in our lives would hold us back sometimes is the stories we tell
ourselves. See, it's not the events of our lives circumstances that define us. It's the meaning we take
away from those events. And those meanings create an emotion. And that emotion drives our behavior,
that emotion of fear, that emotion of anxiety, that emotion of sadness, or it could be an emotion
of bliss, of confidence, of increase, of belief, of being guided, of being protected. But you have to
ask yourself that question. See, it's not the event. It's the stories we tell ourselves. And listen to me,
an emotion cannot exist long term without a story attached to it.
You've had a lot of things happen in your life that were emotional, but the story didn't
stick or you didn't take away the wrong meaning so that emotion doesn't stay.
If you're feeling one of those emotions, it's attached to a story.
A story is just the meaning you took from the event.
So sometimes the story you're telling yourself is, I don't want to be alone, so I'm hanging
on to this person that still weighs me down.
Or where I'm at is good enough because I don't want to risk what I've got, and that's a story.
or I've made this mistake before or someone hurt me and what it meant was X, Y, Z, and you have a feeling about it.
These anchors are actually lies we tell ourselves that are anchored in a story that doesn't serve us that causes an emotion that sticks.
So if we change the story, either we take a different meaning from an event and say, could it have meant this?
See, when I was a young man with my dad's drinking, I thought, this means our family's less than and we're dysfunctional and the meaning.
I attached to that story that was happening.
And then at one point, I realized, no, what was actually happening was God was using that
to teach me how to learn to be present with people and read people and be empathetic with people
and believe in people and that God was using that story for me.
When I got injured, I remember thinking, man, this is my only dream in my entire life, right?
God doesn't answer prayers, right?
This was my prayer to do this, right?
The meaning of this is, I just was never good enough.
the meaning from it was it just wasn't meant to be.
I wasn't meant to be somebody.
I wasn't meant to do something great with my life.
And I attached all these meanings to what was a pretty traumatic event.
But I could have attached the meaning of that time that God's got something bigger in store for me,
that there's something bigger and bolder for me.
And that Ed Milet I thought I was was not going to be a baseball player,
but the Ed Milet I thought it was could be this other person who contributes to millions of people's lives.
So I want to challenge you today.
Evaluate this thought.
Evaluate what are your fears costing you?
What are these anchors costing you?
costing you. I want you to really pray about it, really think about if you're on a walk right now,
you're driving in your car, just what's it cost to me? And what would my life look like?
Potentially, it's going to be so much bigger, so much more beautiful, so many small things that
are going to happen along the way of you meeting you. And by the way, what's great is you'll continue
to meet new versions of you. See, when you start to live your life without all these fears,
without all these people anchoring you down with all these patterns and stories, what's great about
it is, there's a new you that shows up every couple years. And then,
There's this new version of you, an improved version of you, every year.
One of the things I'm excited about is to meet the 55-year-old me, because I didn't die at 21
or 22 like most people, getting around to Barry me at 85 or 90.
I'm reborn all the time.
I can't wait to make the 55-year-old me.
I'm chasing that guy.
When I get there, I can't wait to meet the 60-year-old me.
Too many people are exactly the same person they were two or three years ago, and that's
what it's really costing you, isn't it?
And the reason you're not happy, or as happy as you could be, is you know this isn't you.
You know this isn't you.
You know there's more in you.
Deep down in your heart and your soul and your spirit, the reason you're not happy isn't
these other people, isn't your boss, isn't your job, isn't your body, isn't your lack of money,
isn't any of it.
And it's time you meet him.
It's time you meet her.
It's time at least you get reacquainted if you once knew them.
I want to challenge you to do that today.
I want to challenge you to step out and drop whatever that anchor,
is or multiple anchors are these weapons you're using, these mistakes you've made, these choices that
you regret, blah, blah, stop it. That's not who you are. Your destiny is now. It's in the future. It's
moving forward. And there's something great waiting for you. And is the price worth it? Absolutely.
Is the cost worth it? A thousand percent. Because eventually you start getting what you want,
not just what you can afford in your life. Hey, guys, it's Ed. I rarely do this. As you know,
99.9% of my content is free, but once a year I do something where I gather a very small group
of people in my house. I've done it for two years in a row now, and I'm going to do it again this
year. If you go to maxout 2026.com, I'm going to do an experience in my home where I'm going to take
you through how to make 2026 the best year of your life, all of the tactics and strategies that I
use to plan and organize my own life in detail. Same time, all of the mental rehearsal and
visualization techniques that people pay me hundreds and millions of dollars a year to teach them,
teaching that day as well. And the other years I've done it, I've had groups of about 25 or 30.
I've decided this year I want to shrink the size of the group so that I can get more one-on-one-time
with each of you. I'm going to keep the groups to 12 or 15. It's a chance to spend a day with me in
my home, lunch, one-on-one time, and group time. And it's not cheap. So if it's something you
can't afford, please don't get yourself in any financial trouble or debt doing so. But if it's
something you can afford to do, go to max out 2026.com. And I'm looking forward to having you in my home
with me very soon for an amazing day, a life-changing day. God bless you.
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RINCE takes your laundry and hand delivers it to your door, expertly cleaned and folded.
So you could take the time once spent folding and sorting and waiting to finally pursue a whole new version of you.
Like tea time you.
Or this tea time you.
Or even this tea time you.
Said you hear about Dave?
Or even tea time, tea time, tea time you.
So update on Dave.
It's up to you.
We'll take the laundry. Rince, it's time to be great.
So the question is, what do we do with fear when it rears its head? What is it? How does it work?
My fighters, my UFC fighters that I work with, my boxers, people ask them all the time,
do you get scared before you come into the octagon? People think all the time, these men and
women are bulletproof. They're just different than us. They're never scared. You know what
most of them say? And by the way, 100% of the honest ones? Yes, I'm scared. And if they weren't
scared, they wouldn't perform as well. Now, here's the good news. Fear and excitement are cousins.
They're related. What actually goes on in your body when you're enthusiastic, you're excited,
call it even anxious, you're pumped up, right? In your body, from a biochemistry standpoint,
is almost identical to fear. The difference is what you're thinking and what you're processing
and your ability to process information. But your body really,
moves the same way. Here's the misnomer, and this is why most people never take action.
They think, if I can't eliminate fear altogether, I can't start that business. I can't get
up there and do public speaking. I can't go overcome my fear of heights. I can't ask that person
out on a date. I can't write my book. They think, I have to eradicate all fear, right? It's actually
not true. You have to get to 51%. That's all it is. 51% excitement and enthusiasm.
when 49% of it's fear, you can take action in that state.
This notion that you have to have this threshold of you've eliminated your fears,
you're going to live a long time before all of those are gone.
People ask me all the time, before I speak in public,
they'll say to me, you know, I speak 80 nights a year.
Do you get scared?
Are you afraid?
My answer is always, yeah, I do have fear.
I'm afraid I won't serve to the level that I can.
Maybe I'll forget a story or something I want to cover.
I don't want to let people down. I don't want to embarrass myself. My biggest fear of my life
when I was young in college as a dramatic introvert is public speaking. And now it's one of the
things I do 80 times a year and I'm in front of a camera probably 100 more times a year,
probably 200 more times a year. It became something that could cripple me if I didn't learn
to face it, if I didn't learn to dance with it. But it's really a matter of changing some of our
thoughts. And by the way, that's not easy to do either, but I'm going to show you some of the
ways how. You ever have somebody say, hey, calm down.
Calm down. Does that help you calm down? You know, hey man, just think positively. Think positively. I'm afraid of heights and we're up here in the mountains. You think positively, right? So what ends up happening is your physiology override your thinking. So thoughts can impact physiology, right, and action. But physiology can override a thought most times. Not all the time, but most of the time. Physiology will be the driver. Okay. So we've got to change what we think, but we probably need.
to do a few things deeper than that as well. So calm down doesn't work. Think positive doesn't
work. These are not things that work. So really what fear is, it's an alert to your nervous system.
You know what I say? Let's listen to our fears all the way to the end of the story. You know,
when I was a little boy, I was always afraid there was a boogeyman in the house. Now, it wasn't a
completely unfounded fear. I mean, someone could do that. But I remember my dad would come in and he'd
open my closet and go, Eddie, look. But then he said something more important than that.
He said, and if there was, Daddy, he'll handle him.
Daddy'll handle him.
And that gave me some comfort.
What he did is, he reframed the story.
So the first thing is, we did a little BS check.
Is this a real fear?
And a lot of times the boogeyman you're afraid of isn't real.
But he could be, or they could be, or it could be.
But then he took me to the end of the story, basically saying everything will be okay.
Everything will be okay.
It's not that bad.
And when you begin to stare the boogeyman of your story,
life in the face almost every single time you will find out it's not as bad as you think and that's how
you learn to shift to excitement anticipation see i call it that friday night feeling before i speak now
before i do anything i'm afraid of i call them butterfly moments i wrote about butterflies in my first
book called max out and i've learned after 50 plus years on this planet that all great things in my life
have been preceded by butterfly moments.
You know those butterflies you get?
Like when you're dropping down in a roller coaster, you get the butterflies.
That's your chemistry changing, your biochemistry changing, your neurobiology changing.
And what that is is it's fear.
It's fear.
But it's a lot different when you don't call fear, fear, and you reframe it and name it a butterfly moment.
A butterfly moment.
And by the way, think about your own life.
All of the butterfly moments of your life.
all the great moments of your life
were preceded by the butterflies
that beautiful first date
your wedding day, the birth of a child
right? The starting
of your business. Even things
that didn't work out
the best memories of your life were preceded by
butterflies which means they were preceded by what
you call fear. But
butterflies, I believe, are that
beautiful mix of fear,
anxiousness, excitement,
and enthusiasm as one package
reframed. Not eliminating fear.
dancing with it, facing it, knowing that without fear, without fear, there's no great moments
of our life. Almost none of the great moments of our life didn't come with some kind of butterfly
moment. The more it's refrained into a butterfly moment as opposed to terror, complete fear.
And I'm going to show you how to make it a butterfly in your life, where it's excitement and
enthusiasm. It's basically just slightly different thinking with the same chemistry going on in your
body. And it's not a trick. Doesn't mean the fear isn't real. All these things that are fears,
what I'm saying to you is, it's the entire juice of life. What a run! This champ is picking up
speed. But they found a lane. Monumental launch into the air. Absolutely incredible. Air Transat.
Fly the seven-time world's best leisure airline champions, Air Transat. The other thing I will say to
you, I want you to write this down, is I think fear is a weapon of the adversary. If you're a person of
faith like I am. It's the devil's work most of the time. But sometimes it's God protecting you,
saying, be careful. I was riding one of my horses the other day, and I felt some fear because there
was construction going on around us. And you know what? It was a great alert to get off my horse,
because about four minutes later, my horse freaked out and took off running. He'd have thrown me off of
him had I been on him. That fear alerted me to make a smart decision, but it didn't cripple my thinking.
what if that fear would have caused me not to think because all that blood's running away from my heart
and best decisions are made will run our heart so here how do we change that stuff number one i want
to recommend something to you take your fears all the way to their logical conclusion just run them all the way
out to the end of the story here's what i think you're going to find it's not as bad as you think
people say don't look at your fears right yeah look at them let's say i went out and bombed that speech
Am I still alive?
Am I still breathing?
Do I still have another day to fight on?
Could I maybe learn a lesson?
Yeah.
What if you ask that person out on the date and they said, no?
Is that really the end of your life?
Are they going to talk about it forever?
No.
Most people aren't thinking about you.
They're thinking about what you're thinking about them.
So I say listen to your fears all the way to the story.
I think you'll find that when you shine more and more light on that boogeyman,
the more they get exposed for me and much smaller, even if they truly exist, than you think they
are. Shine light on it. Take it all the way to the end. You know, it's the beginning of the story
that creates the fear. But usually, if we ride it all the way to its conclusion, the boogeyman may be
real, but maybe not quite as bad as you think. And remember, all you got to do is get to 51.49.
Not 100% no fear. And that's kind of our challenge. We think to have to eradicate fear completely,
but I think we need to do is learn to talk to it,
dance with it a little bit,
pull it out of the closet a little bit,
and say, let's just look at this thing.
And I'm going to give you some real strategies here in a minute.
Because the physiology is very, very similar to enthusiasm
or excitement or anxiousness or anticipation,
if we can shift the way we think about what's going on in our body,
we can leverage it.
So it's just starting to look at the terminology, number one, of these fears.
Now, here's what happens.
You start breathing faster.
The blood flows, like I said, to your experience.
and it can change things. But there's all kinds of stories of fighters, athletes, smart people
who have leveraged those fears into being a catalyst for them. So fear can actually become
pleasure pretty quickly. And that's why the butterflies matter. You know, like, for example,
here's something that you probably have never heard this term of, but if you ever heard of an
excitement transfer process, it's really interesting. What that means is that when you ride a roller coaster
or you go to like a haunted house or something like that, and it's a scary,
experience and then it's over believe it or not that experience carries over you stay aroused you get
more dopamine for several hours sometimes after the experience so the cool part about overcoming a fear
the haunted house of your life the roller coaster of your life you don't just get the dopamine in the
moment but you get an arousal for hours afterwards when you overcome it and every time you overcome a
fear the boogeyman gets smaller and smaller and smaller it goes from 41 to 49 to 60
40 to 70, 30, as I've said, even during a staged fear experience where you just make it up in
your mind, your brain will produce more of a chemical called dopamine, which is really a pleasure
chemical in your mind, even when you just stage your fears. So I was on a flight not too long ago,
but I end up sitting down, and I'm on the aisle, and there's a young man next to me, nice young
man, and a lady next to him. And they've got their headphones on. And I'm watching this young
man, he was okay when we were on the ground. And as they said, hey, basically, get your feet
steep ball fast and we're going to be taken off, I watched him become terrorized. Not a normal
fear that I've seen in a lot of people. And to the point where I've headphones on,
so I'm kind of looking straight ahead, this young man starts shaking. And I mean uncontrollably shaking.
He starts hitting himself in the face. And I'm thinking maybe something's really wrong with
this guy. I don't know if this airplane should take off, right? And I get up. I
literally get up and I go tell the flight attendant, hey, I'm going to keep an eye on this guy,
but I want you to know something's wrong with this guy. I thought something was actually
really wrong with him mentally. He's kind of hitting himself. So I sat back down. I said,
hey, man, are you okay? And he goes, I'm not. I'm so afraid of flying. I said, have you ever flown
before? He goes, only one other time. And it was a bad flight. And I'm really scared. He kept
shaking. And now we're in the air. So we're going. And I said, listen, the worst thing you can do when
someone's scared is calm down, calm down, calm down. I said, let's try a couple things,
brother. Number one, what are you really afraid of? Let's just look at it. And he goes, well,
I guess I'm afraid the plane's going to crash. And I said, okay, do you know the odds of that
happening? He goes, I know, it's not likely. And I said, so do you really think this plane's going
to crash? I said, you know, we're not going over water. So we're going to go over a bunch of
smaller airports, brother, that if the plane had a mechanical issue, this is also a small airplane,
we could land at smaller airports even if we needed to. This plane could also
glide if it had to brother right it's got multiple engines you got two pilots up front by the way that
guy right over there he's another pilot he's on the airplanes we got a bonus pilot because he's flying
probably to do his next flight he goes okay i said so brother that's probably not going to happen
i said by the way i'm just curious you person of faith and turns out his dad's a pastor i said so
if the plane did crash just curious like where do you go he goes oh i know i'm going ahead and i said
okay and then he seemed pretty calm for about an hour then i saw him getting agitated again and i said
you're safe you're safe everything's okay and i kind of touched him and i said everything's okay brother
i promise promise borrow some of my faith and then i said would you do something crazy with me
i said because you're acting crazy and we laughed use humor and i said so we know we're not
crashing if we do we're going to heaven and we know we know
this is kind of crazy so we're laughing now pulling out every arsenal i got i said hey man let's control
our breathing let's just change our breathing right let's get some blood back into our heart
and out of these extremities no he doesn't know that that's what i'm thinking so i taught him a breathing
technique i said breathe in through your nose to a count of four and he goes okay
and i said when they get there i go give me one more like that and i said then
blow it out through your mouth.
Back in, four count through your nose.
Hold it, one more.
Back in, just a quick second.
Now the lady next to them is breathe it.
Then the lady on the row over here.
Then her little girl is about five years old.
Then the dad.
So now we got a whole row of us, breathe it.
Into the nose, her four count, little cheat breaths.
One more in the nose.
And then out.
And we did that.
And all of a sudden, I watched him begin to calm down.
Really calmed out.
And he goes, huh.
And I said, here's the kicker, man.
What a story you're going to have?
This test will be your testimony.
And if you don't go through this, through this butterfly moment, I told him about the butterflies.
I said, you don't have a story to tell.
I said, bro, all the great stories of your life are going to come from moments like this.
You're going to have a great story to tell about this.
It's going to be funny.
You're going to be laughing that.
You sat next to me, of all people, right?
And you were hitting yourself in the damn head looking like a crazy man over a plane
that's not crashing, that's going over land only, over about 100 airports we could land at.
Pretty damn funny.
And he laughed.
And then he'd going to heaven anyway.
And then he had his breathing under control.
And then we talked about it being a story someday.
And I said, what you should, bro, if you could, just start telling yourself right now,
I'm excited.
I'm fired up.
I'm fired up.
I said, bro, you're fired up.
You're fired up.
What he did is he started to rename the chemistry happening in his body.
And candidly, the last two hours, he was fine.
We had a little bit of a issue when we were descending.
We went back to our breathing, and he was back to normal again.
So why do I tell you that story?
I tell you that story because there's multiple strategies that you could give to yourself.
Number one, dance with it.
Take it to its conclusion.
The boogeyman won't be as bad as you think.
Number two, this is a big one, okay?
Refram it and recall it something new.
Call what you're fired up.
My daughter, when she was a little girl, we lived on this lake,
there was this big rock thing that all the kids would jump off of into the lake.
And every time Bella would go up there, the fear would happen.
Her chemistry would change.
You know how this works, right?
She's afraid to jump.
She could hit the rocks on the way down.
All the things you worry about.
Maybe I'll drown.
Blah, blah.
I'm like, Bella, Boo, jump.
Now everyone's yelling on their boats.
Jump, Bella, jump, Bella.
And the first time she walked right back down the rocks again,
which was probably more dangerous than jumping.
And we went back a few weeks later.
Jump, Bella, boo.
All the pressure of everybody.
the fears got worse, and she'd lead over and lean over.
It's like a half hour now where everyone's getting in front.
Go, Bella, and she almost going that she couldn't go.
She'd almost jumped and she couldn't jump.
And so finally I said, Bella, boo, do you know what a story this is going to be someday?
I said, Bella, you're fired up.
I said, you're fired up.
She goes, what, Daddy?
I said, you're fired up.
I said, say you're fired up.
She goes, I'm fired up.
I said, you know what?
Say it again.
I'm fired up.
I'm fired up.
I'm fired up.
And she started to rename this feeling in her body because it's,
identical to fear, excitement, enthusiasm, anxiousness, anticipation, but butterflies is the exact same
chemistry in your body as fear. Name it, Bella, I'm fired up, I'm fired up, I'm fired up,
she's, I'm fired up, daddy, and we got her to 51. We didn't get her completely out of 100
to zero where she had no fear. I got her to fifth, no, she got her to 51 by the phraseology.
I said, Bella's going to be a story. Well, guess what? I was right.
Here I am, 15 years later, still telling the story.
And guess what?
Every time the rest of Bella's life, she's been afraid, I said,
Bella, you're fired up, just like jumping off those rocks.
You're fired up to give that speech in class.
You're fired up for that test.
You're fired up about this game.
And she's like, Daddy, I'm fired up.
I'm fired up.
And she's got this trigger word.
It's called a trigger word that she uses now to name
this feeling in her body and all you got to do is have it happen one time where you name it
and you got a new trigger it's fired up yours will be whatever you want it to be so you could take
that fear all the way okay you can look at it run it to its conclusion will be as bad as you think
number two you can name it name what's going on so this fear can become a pleasure in your body
we just had to get her to 51 we reframed what that feeling in her body felt like does that work
every time. No, I'm never going to tell you. Everything's going to. So I'm throwing a bunch of things
at you. But once you've overcome one, I can tell you, when I'm backstage, I'm fired up. And I have
a physical trigger. You're hearing me snap my fingers. I've created a physical trigger as well.
I've got an auditory verbal thing I say and a physical trigger. I'm fired up. So when I feel this
thing you call fear that I now call enthusiasm, I call anticipation. I call excitement. I've renamed it.
And that renaming, that reframing, gives me a shot to take action.
And every time I take that action, it goes from 51% excitement to 60 to 70 to 80 to
to it may go away altogether.
I actually don't want it to go all the way.
But I'd like to be at about 95-5 on most things in my life because fear focuses.
But you're damn right, it's real.
Next thing you can do, if that doesn't work for you, okay?
I want you to create a highlight reel of your mind of the one or two or three things in
your life that were fearful of yours that you've overcome.
whatever that was and you begin to run that picture in your mind that visualization of
I was afraid of speaking and I gave that speech and now it's kind of gone again I was afraid of
going on my first date and I did that I was afraid of writing that turn paper I was afraid of
applying for that job I was afraid of that job interview is afraid of walking in that room
you have a little highlight reel of one or two other things you do and then you visualize
the next thing which is this your subconscious mind your unconscious mind does not know the
difference between what has already happened and what is about to happen people
tell you that doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's not real. That's
debatable to me. But I know this. When I show my mind something I've already done once or twice
and then I feed it the next image, I'm likely to step into that image and be excited and less
fearful. If none of that works, write it down. Write down your fears. There's something different
between getting out of your head and your words into writing. And when you begin to write this
boogie man down. Let me tell you what happens. It loses a lot of its power over you. Somehow
seeing it for what it is, it gets you out of it. Right now, you're in your fear. When you write it
down, you're above it and out of it, looking at it from a different perspective, the written word
on the page. It separates you from the emotion and you can begin to reframe it. If that doesn't work,
I'm going to give you another one. Take yourself mentally to a place of peace. Just
Change the scenery. A person, a place, or a thing. It's usually, I picture me walking on the beach with Jesus.
The beach, the water, Jesus, it gives me peace. And for whatever reason, I'll just say this publicly,
spending time with my daughter. Of all the people, something about little bellaboo being with me,
causes me peace. And so if you could take yourself to a peaceful place, it'll change your perspective.
and then I think about who'd be proud of me if I did this
and it's usually that same person or place
and then if that doesn't work
try this one picture what it'll look like when you do it
and take yourself to that peaceful place
one of the things I did with this young man is I said
where are you going and he said I'm going to see my dad
at his new church
and I said just picture yourself in church with him on Sunday bro
take yourself to a different destination
related to what you need to do oftentimes I'll picture
the end of the speech and the crowd emotional and cheering, or I'll picture the message that I get
a month later from the person saying, thank you for changing my life. And it takes me to that
peaceful place. And now I have to do it. Even if I don't want to, I have to. The highlight real,
the writing it down, the facing it and right where it needs to be. And then just remember this,
that it's real. It's okay that it's real. But what's not okay is to stand still. What's not okay
is to create a pattern in your life where you give in to these butterflies.
These butterflies are beautiful.
They're disguised most times as something really bad, but they're not.
You were born to fly.
And am I giving a corny analogy?
But you weren't born to be a caterpillar.
You weren't born to be a caterpillar.
You were born to be a butterfly.
And the fact of the matter is, the only way you're going to get those wings
is by dancing with these butterfly feelings when you get them and identifying them as such.
Now, if there's a fear in your life that's real, you can address it.
But most of the time, when you run it to its conclusion, it's not.
When you realize this test will be my testimony, you're fired up.
When you create a trigger word or a trigger move in your body, it will change it.
By the way, humor is a huge one.
The last thing I'll do is I will actually take my fear and I will close my eyes and watch it happen,
me bombing on stage, and I'll watch it in slow motion.
And then I'll put funny music over it.
Like a circus song, right?
And I'll just watch me making a complete fool to myself, and I'll laugh.
And then I don't take myself too seriously.
And when you just make funny yourself, when you just realize,
I've actually not given good speeches before,
and it's actually pretty damn funny.
And it'll take yourself so damn seriously.
Now, if all of this stuff I've thrown at you,
if you can't pick one of these things,
and if anything you get out of it,
which is to tell you that your fear is real.
And also to tell you,
it's a cousin of anticipation. It's a cousin of excitement. Listen, all the great things in your life
have come from butterfly moments. And most fears are butterflies. They are. And so embrace them as such.
Take the laundry list of stuff I've given you here and realize that one of these will work for you.
And here's all we're trying to do in our life. It's not have fear, never affect us again.
That's a crazy standard. We wanted to affect us.
less. Less predominantly and less often. You're still going to have moments in your life where you
give into your fears. If someone tells you that's not true, they're just wrong. What we want is
it to happen as infrequently as possible. What we want is to address, is this something I should
really be afraid of? Or is this a damn butterfly moment? Is this really fear or is this actually
anticipation. If I could reframe this, rethink this, re-stratage this, my life might look
different. So people will say to me, what if it's a quick pressure situation? So let me give you
this one thing. I have a trigger word that I use that's a pattern interrupt because fear is a
pattern. It begins to stack. So if I need something quickly, I have a word or a move I make,
fired up, fired up. But I actually have a word that takes me out of that state, but it works for me.
And you come up with your word. My word is bonsai, bonsai. And what bonsai,
means is we're going here we go jumping off the rocks right here we go walking down the side
bonzai and what it does is it changes my state and it puts me in a state of i'm going and i'm
going and i'm going to take whatever comes with it it shifts your state i actually smile when i say it but i
have that word bonsai it's almost like i'm bombing my way into this thing and whatever happens
happens and that word creates a state for me that's powerful that i just
I'll use that word in that moment, which, by the way, for years I didn't,
I got room service everywhere I went for about 20 years.
True story.
True story.
If I weren't going out with a group of people I knew, I wasn't going out.
Ask anyone who knows me.
Ask anyone who's asked me to speak at an event.
Will you come to the dinner?
I don't know anybody.
It's hard to get me there.
And so my biggest fear is walking in somewhere I don't know anyone that people will be looking at me.
And the more well-known I've become, the more that fear in my mind was justified.
And so I have that trigger word now, bonsai.
And the more I've done it, I've gone to 55.
I'd say right now at about 65.
I'm certainly not at 95, 5, or I'm not afraid of it anymore.
Don't let anybody tell you that's false evidence appearing real.
It was real to me.
All of this stuff is in our minds.
All of it.
Your fear of 20,000 people, my fear of walking in a restaurant, his fear on the airplane,
Bella's fear of jumping off the rocks.
For another person, they're like, I get to jump off the rocks.
This is awesome.
It's all real to us.
But you know what?
The most important part of that is, I'm proud of me for doing that.
I'm proud of me.
I'm 53 years old.
I just started doing this this year, this year, and I've used all these strategies that I've listed
for you.
I've done the breathing.
I've written down how ridiculous it is.
I've done the funny movie in my mind.
I've taken it all the way to the end.
It looked at the boogeyman and it's not as bad.
I've had a trigger word.
I've got a trigger move.
I've done everything I've listed for you here.
And those butterflies are still there, but I'm dancing with them. So that helps me. And so it's okay
to have fear. Some of them are real. Some of them you just need to push through. And the way we push
through is we write them down. We take them to their conclusion. We take ourselves to a peaceful place.
We reframe it. We re-trigger it with words or phrases or moves. There's a thing called
exposure therapy, everybody, which a therapist actually guides a client gradually and repeatedly
through the source of their fear
in a really safe environment
and it kind of helps strip away
all the BS associated with it.
All we want to do is strip this sucker down
to where we can get to 51% excitement
and then we can take action.
We don't have to get it to zero.
That's the fallacy of telling everybody
you can overcome all your fears.
Fears are fake, fears aren't real, false.
It's not true.
We just need to get to 51, not 100 to zero.
And you can do that
with the stuff that I've thrown at you
today. All the great stuff in our life is on the other side of this thing we're calling
fear. And when we get to that other side, we've got a test that we've now turned into a
testimony. We've got a story to tell people. We can inspire others. We've got a lesson, a gift,
a friend, a relationship, money, whatever it is that comes on the other side of it, an insight.
But our life is better on the other side of this thing. And so that's how you get to the other
side, as many times as you can, as often as you can. It's the struggle of life. And we're
struggling in this together, and that's why I'm here. Gave you some of the other.
my best stuff today to help you with this if any of it helped you or you think you can help anybody
else please share it with anybody that you care about this is the edin myland show
