The Mindset Mentor - How to "Beat" Your Fear

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

Everything that you want and deserve is on the other side of fear. In this episode, I will teach you how to work with your fear so that you can step out of your comfort zone and live an extraordinary life.Text me now to join my motivational text group [phone] Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial, and if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another episode. And also, if you're listening to this on Friday, I am running a free live class today. All you have to do is go to dialedinmindset.com. Once again, dialedinmindset.com. I'm going to be teaching you how to master your mind and then answering all of the questions that people have at the end as well. So if you want to join us, go to that website, join us. I'll teach you how to master your mind and I can't wait to see you live. Today, we're going to be talking about how to conquer the fear that's inside of your head. And it sounds a little weird to say conquer because I'm actually going to tell you why that's wrong,

but it's how to get past the fear that's in your head that's holding you back from the life you want. But before we dive into that, let's really talk about the issue with fear. The issue with fear is that fears are holding you back from creating the life that you want. At its simplest form, that's really what it is. So fears are one of the worst things in the entire world because they're holding you back from the life that you truly, truly want. And so learning how to work with your fears is probably one of the biggest skills that you can learn. And it is an actual skill and you'll realize why that is as I start to dive in. And most people, they never learn how to get past their fears. They

never do get past their fears. And then I would assume a lot of people get to the end of their lives and like, damn, I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have impacted more people's lives. I wish I could have done more in the world. I wish I would have created the art that I wanted to, but I was too afraid to. I wish that I would have spoken up more about what I truly believed in, but I was too afraid to. So in this episode, we're going to talk about how to get past your fear so that it doesn't hold you back anymore so that you can ultimately go out, stop being afraid and create the life that you truly want to. Because most people, I don't want to say most, I guess most people probably will do almost anything

to avoid their fears, almost anything to the point where they'll live a life that they don't truly want. Every waking moment of their life, they have the opportunity to go out and do something great, whatever greatness looks like to you. And so most people will try to avoid fear. And people have this preconceived notion that successful people have no fear or they're fearless. We always say, oh, this is the fearless leader. No, and I've said this before many times in the podcast. This is the truth. Is it successful people fear as much as people

who are quote unquote unsuccessful, but the difference is successful people don't listen to their fear and they go and do it anyways. That's the truth of the matter. And the fact of the matter is that most fears today are not life-threatening. Now, when you understand what fears are used for and why they actually make sense, you kind of respect them a little bit more. But there's only two fears that a human is born with.

That's it. Number one is the fear of falling. Number two is the fear of loud noises. The fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, the fear of falling in the fear of loud noises. Everything else, this is very important. Listen to this. Everything else is absolutely learned from our upbringing, whether that's our parents, whether that's society, brothers, sisters, people that we know every other fear besides the fear of falling in the fear of loud noises are learned by a human.

And fears aren't real. Because ultimately, as you may have heard, it's like an acronym. False expectations appearing real. How often, and I would guess, you know, probably pretty often, have you feared something that never even actually happened? Have you worried so much about something that could possibly happen in the future and it never happened? How often does that happen? Well, in case you're curious, there was a study that was done on this and found out that 85% of what humans fear and worry about never even actually happens.

So 85% of the stuff that's holding you back from the dreams that you truly want will never happen. That's crazy if you actually start to think about it. And why I say that they're not life-threatening is this, is because the ultimate thing that you have to realize about the brain is that fear is put into us for our survival. And I'll talk about that a little bit more in just a few minutes, but fear is the signal that we're about to get out of our comfort zone. We're about to leave safety. We're about to get out of our comfort zone and that potential death could be coming. Now, you know that if you go and ask your boss for a raise and you feel that feelings

of fear, he's not going to kill you, right? I hope not, or else you probably need to get a new boss. But ultimately, you know that's not going to happen. But the feelings that you feel of fear are the same types of feelings as if you're walking in the middle of the night and you hear sounds in a bush. It's the same physical feelings of fear inside of your body. So fear is telling you that you're getting out of your comfort zone. Here's the really important thing to realize, though. Getting out of your comfort zone, you know if you're listening to this or if you're watching this, you know that feeling like getting out of your comfort zone and getting out of your comfort zone, you know, if you're listening to this or if you're watching this, you know that feeling like getting out of your comfort zone and getting out of your

comfort zone is ultimately a good thing. You need to get out of your comfort zone. You know that. So if you feel fear and fear is the thing that's telling you you're about to get out of your comfort zone, that means that that feeling is not bad. That feeling is actually good. So if you can switch your brain around to realize this feeling is good that I'm feeling, I should lean into this. Your life will be completely different because ultimately you have two choices when you feel

fear. Number one, you can give in and you could just give into the fear. Or number two, you can lean into the fear and go, you know what? Okay. Now, if I think about it, my brain is telling me right now, it's sending the signals of I'm about to get out of my comfort zone. I know that this thing that I'm about to do is not going to kill me. That's a fact. And so if I think about it, I should actually know that these feelings are good because it's telling me that growth is on the other side. It's telling me that I'm about to get out of my comfort zone because ultimately I know getting out of my comfort zone is a really good thing. And where your fear comes from is a little tiny part of your brain in the back of

your brain. It's called the amygdala and they call it the reptilian part of your brain. And it generates fear in order for you to get away from danger, which is incredible. So it's an incredible tool because it kept our species alive for 2 million years. But you have to realize there's no potential death for most of the people that are listening to this. You don't have potential death when you're walking outside every single day, right? So when the amygdala was first around and we were, you know, a million, 2 million years ago, all of that, you have to realize if we heard a rustling in the bush, the amygdala would click on and say, hey, there's something to fear there. Okay. Do something different. We need to get out of this place. We need to run, fight or flight, whatever it is that we need to do. Now you're not going

to leave your house and be attacked by a lion. So you still have those physical feelings though, that part of your brain still exists, which means it's going to be used at some point. It's going to click on. So, even though our external world has changed vastly, even just in the last hundred years, we're still working with the exact same hardware that we've had for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years. And so, we're working with the same hardware that kept our species alive, that kept us away from lions and kept us from everything that we needed to fear because it meant potential

death. But now if you're going to go ask your boss for a raise, you're not going to die. And you know that. But that part of your brain still exists. So it generates fear to get you away from danger, potential danger, aka getting outside of your comfort zone now in modern day. The difference is it doesn't know the difference between a good fear and a bad fear. And yes, I said that correctly, a good fear, because most people listening to this probably think that all fears are bad. No, there's bad fears, which is potential

death on the other side of that fear. Someone commits, comes at you with a knife. There's going to be a fear mechanism that's clicked on to get you to go to your fight or flight to either run or to attack that person to make sure you don't get stabbed, right? Fend for yourself, whatever it is you need to do. That's a bad fear. A good fear is, like I said, feeling it and not giving in, but leaning in going, okay, I know what my body's doing. I know why it's doing this, but I'm not going to die. So I need to lean in because it's actually telling me, Rob, you should lean into this

because this is outside of your comfort zone. And I know outside of my comfort zone is where I grow in everything that I want is outside of it. So it's incredible if you actually start to realize that this is how you can use it. When you understand it, you can use it. And when you can use it, you can change your life. And so it doesn't know the difference between good or bad fears or good or bad risks. It just wants to avoid all of them. That's it. But you can consciously think, is this something I should be incredibly afraid of? Or is this something just telling me that I'm about to step out of my comfort zone and I need to lean in? So, you know, the amygdala, amazing for fear and it's amazing for avoiding danger, but

it's terrible if you want to grow a business or if you want to ask somebody out or if you want to ask for a raise, if you want to create content on the internet and put it out there and be judged by everybody or make a shift in the world or stand on stage and speak publicly to impact people. It's not good for that, but it's really, really good for avoiding death and danger. So it's like Will Smith said, Will Smith said, fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It's a product of our imagination causing us to fear things that are not present and may never exist. That fear, that is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real,

but fear is a choice. Fear is a choice. You can't remove the amygdala. It's in your head. So you got to figure out a way to work with it. You got to figure it out. That's just the way it goes. And that's why I love teaching you about the brain. That's why I'm writing a book about the brain. That's why I have a course coming out about the brain is because I just love the brain. That's why I'm writing a book about the brain. That's why I have a course coming out about the brain is because I just love the brain. Because if you can understand the hardware that we're given, then you can understand why it's there and how it works. You can then use your brain to your advantage to then create the life that you want to. So we need to feel the fear. That's a good thing. But we can't let it stop us. We've got to let us, we've got to lean in and continue moving forward. And so you really have to start thinking about and

breaking down your fears. Hey, everybody, small businesses have unique needs. And despite the current uncertainty, one thing that remains unchanged is the importance of having the right people on your team. When your business is ready to make the next hire, LinkedIn Jobs can help by matching your role with qualified candidates so that you can find the right person quickly. LinkedIn is an active community of professionals with over 690 million members worldwide, and LinkedIn Jobs will screen candidates based off the hard and soft skills you're looking for. And that's why LinkedIn Jobs can help you hire the right person faster. So when your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person at LinkedIn jobs. You can pay whatever you want and get the first $50 off. Just visit linkedin.com slash dial. Again, that's linkedin.com slash D I A L to get $50 off your first job post terms and conditions apply.

And thinking about them. I remember that long time ago, um, I used to run a company and I have, you know, hundreds of sales reps under me. I had a few thousand that I trained and this was when I was younger. So it was about 15 years ago. And they used to be really afraid. My sales reps were really afraid of making cold calls. And so it would happen all the time. And so I'd have to make their fears silly. And so I would sit down with them and I would say, okay, so tell me what's going on. Oh, I'm just afraid to make phone calls. Okay. What are you afraid Oh, I'm just afraid to make phone calls Okay, what are you afraid of i'm just afraid it's it's it's just the the fear is coming up every time I pick up the phone

Okay, so are you afraid of the phone? Um, yeah, I guess I am kind of afraid of the phone and so I would go okay Hey, do me a favor go ahead and pick up your phone real quick and they'd go and they pick up their phone I said they say here it is and I say, okay I want you to look at your phone. They look at your phone. I say, okay, I want you to look at that phone and say, I am afraid of you. And they go, wait, what? You know, I want you to look at your phone and I want you to say, I am afraid of you.

And they're like, why? I'm like, just do it. And they're like, I am afraid of you. I'm like, do it again. I am afraid of you. I'm like, do it again. I am afraid of you. Okay. Do it in a deeper voice. I am afraid of you. I'm like, do it again. I am afraid of you. I'm like, do it again. I am afraid of you. Okay. Do it in a deeper voice. I am afraid of you. Okay. Do it in a higher voice. I am afraid of you. And what I'm trying, eventually I started laughing. And what I tried to make them

do is try to take their fear. That really was a ridiculous fear of just pushing buttons. That's all that it was a fear of just pushing buttons and talking to another human on their side of the phone, taking that fear and making it ridiculous and seem ridiculous. Because if you can make it seem ridiculous to the brain, the brain can release it and go, oh, there's no death on the other side of this phone. This customer is not going to come through with a knife and stab me. So you got to kind of make it a little bit silly because it's either scary, which you can allow it to be, or you can go, this is ridiculous. This fear makes no sense. This is silly. And that's how you start to get past it. So the good thing is luckily we're the ones that make our fears up. We're the ones that

are afraid of the phone calls. We're afraid of, you know, going up and talking to that person because of what they might say. We're afraid of being on stage because ultimately we're afraid of messing up and people making fun of us or whatever it is. So we make our fears up. So the difference is, is we have to figure out a way. If we're thinking of those fears, we've got to think differently about the fears that pop up. And when we feel the fear, it's a good thing. Once again, I'm going to say it a million times this podcast episode, lean in, lean

in, lean in. You have to push past the point of comfort because ultimately that's where the change happens. So how do you remove the fear from your body? You can't, but I'm going to go ahead right now and give you a few tips to help you work with the fear to make it a whole lot better. So the first one is you've got to change your mindset around fear. You've got to change your mindset around fear. How do you change your mindset around fear? Well, you know, the phone example is a perfect example. You make it silly so that you're like, oh, that's ridiculous.

Why do I need to hold on to it? Or you have to show your brain why it's wrong or why it's ridiculous. And the best way to do this is to take pen to paper, not to type it out on your computer, not to type it on your phone, but to take pen to paper and write it out and to ask yourself some questions. So you write them down and you ask yourself, what am I afraid of? You write that question down and you answer that question. What am I afraid of? And you write it down and then you look at it and you say it out loud. Here's the interesting thing. The reason why you want to say it out loud, because not only are you saying it, but then also what's happening is

you're hearing it. And so have you ever thought something before? And then you say it out loud and you're like, oh my God, that was ridiculous. So if you ever feared something and you say it out loud and you realize with saying it, it almost turns ridiculous right away. And you're like, oh my gosh, why am I fearing that? Well, that's what we're trying to do right here. We're trying to actually make this ridiculous. So you can say it out loud to yourself. You should say it out loud to yourself. So you write it down. What am I afraid of? And then you say, I am afraid of getting up in front of people and speaking because I'm afraid I'm gonna mess up. And then you just say it out loud to yourself. Okay. The next question you want to ask yourself is what good can come from doing X, Y, Z, whatever it is. Let's say it's the fear

of public speaking. What good can come up from me going up on stage and speaking in front of people? And then you answer it. What good can come from it? I'm trying to find more positives in the speaking than the negatives. I'm trying to make my brain weigh out the options and go, oh, I'm not going to die by hopping on stage. And I could possibly help this person, that person, this person, that person. And then your brain starts to go, all right, maybe I should let go of this and let Rob hop on stage. So what good can come from this? Next question. Why should I not be afraid of this? Why should I not be afraid of getting on stage and speaking in front of people? Well, because I ultimately do want to do some more public speaking. I know that you can really impact people from stage. It is something

that I'm passionate about. I love watching public speakers. And if I love watching them, I love to be one. And you could go on and on and on and on. So, you know, what good can come from this? And why should I not be afraid of this? Another reason why you shouldn't be afraid of this is because people aren't going to make fun of you. They're going to understand everybody's afraid of public speaking. So if you're afraid of people making fun of you, they're not going to be making fun of you. They're going to understand if you do happen to mess up. Okay. And then the next question is what action do I need to take right now? This is the last question. What action do I need to take right now? And then you answer,

okay, what I need to do is I need to plan out my talk even better. And I need to take right now? And then you answer, okay, what I need to do is I need to plan out my talk even better. And I need to practice and practice and practice because practice makes perfect. So if I practice more, I'll be more confident and I'll probably deliver a better speech. If I'm not fumbling around and I'm not, you know, looking through the papers and trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say, I'll present more confidently if I have all of this memorized, right? Why do you want to take action? Here's the reason why is because we ultimately have programmed into us when we feel fear to basically lock up, to not do whatever it is, to give into that fear. You know, it's the

same way where if, you know, you hear rustling in the bush, you're going to run, or sometimes you're just going to lock up and you're going to stare and sit there for a second. You're going to look around and see if you can see any lions, right? So a lot of times what we've trained ourselves to do over 20, 30, 40 years, 50 years of your life is that when you feel fear, you give in. When you feel fear, you give in. When you feel fear, you give in, right? Now you've got to retrain yourself, teach an old dog new tricks. Now you've got to train yourself. When you feel the fear, you've got to take action. You feel the fear, you take action. You feel the fear, you take action. If you do this long enough and you're conscious enough doing this, if you continue to keep doing

it over and over and over again, fears won't hold you back anymore. You've ultimately used classical conditioning on accident to yourself. And if you want to know what classical conditioning is, you can look it up, but you've used classical conditioning on yourself on accident for when you feel fear to be paralyzed by it. That's what you've trained yourself the same way you train a dog. You've trained yourself to not take action when you feel fear. Why do you think it's so damn hard to not take action now? Because you feel the fear and you lock up. You've trained yourself to do that. Same way that you train a dog, sit. You say sit and they sit because they get used to it.

It's just an action they get used to. So now you've got to retrain yourself to when you feel fear, you got to take action. You got to go. And then what you say is for each one of those, you say them out loud because there's power in writing it down. There's power in saying it. And then there's power in hearing it because

you're trying to program these things into your subconscious. You're trying to get your brain to realize that your fear is ridiculous and it needs to release it because your brain wants to conserve as much energy as possible. If it doesn't need to worry about whatever this thing is, it'll let go of it. Okay. What's the next thing that we need to do in order to get rid of our fears? We need to make our goals or the things that we're going for a little bit more bite size. So instead of saying, Hey, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars this year, if you've never made a hundred thousand dollars, what you can do is you can take that number and break it down and say, I want to make $8,333 this month, right? That number seems much more digestible than the entire hundred thousand

dollars. And so you take your numbers, then goals, and chop them into bite-sized pieces. Have little check marks along the way. Because the bigger that something feels to you, the less likely you are to take action. If you can chop it up into smaller sizes, you're more likely to take action, which means you're more likely to do what you need to do, which means you're more likely to hit your goal. And then when you do $8,333 in a month, you're like, I can do this again. And it gets you excited. And then you do it. It's just important to make

sure that you chop them up so that they don't seem as large as they are. And then the last thing is this, learn to dance with your fear. That's what I always say. Dance with your fear. You're going to feel it. Once again, as I said in the beginning, successful people and unsuccessful people all feel fear. The difference is what they do when they feel it. If you train yourself long enough, you'll realize that people that don't take action have trained themselves not to take action. They've trained themselves. You've trained yourself not to take action when you feel fear. But if you can use these steps, if you can write them down, if you can become self-aware and next time you feel the

fear, go, what am I feeling? Okay. I'm a little terrified right now. Okay. Why is that? What am I afraid of right now? Because ultimately when, when you're just thinking things, when things are in your brain, it's very abstract. When it's in your head, it's super abstract. But when you write it down on a piece of paper, you can get very clear on what things are going on. And so you can feel it. What am I feeling right now? Okay. I'm feeling fear. Okay. What should I do? Okay. I'm going to go ahead and write down. What am I fearing? You start to write it down. You look at it and you go, that's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's not that bad. I think I can deal with this. I think I can work through this. And then ultimately, what do you do? Then you take time, go through this whole process and

you say, what action do I need to take right now? What action do you need to take right now? Whatever it is, take that action because you've trained yourself not to take action. Train yourself to take action because fear is a good thing. You'll never conquer fear. You'll never overcome fear. But what you will do is you'll learn how to dance with the fear. You'll never conquer fear. You'll never overcome fear. But what you will do is you'll learn how to dance with the fear. You'll feel it. You'll understand it. You'll know why it's there. And you can either give in or you can lean in.

What you want to do is lean into that fear because it's showing you that you're about to step out of your comfort zone. And you know that everything that you want is on the outside of that comfort zone. So if you love this episode, please share it with someone that you know and someone that you love, or please go ahead and tag me on Instagram. Put in your Instagram stories, you walking around listening to it, your thoughts on it, or even just a screenshot of you listening to it and tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm going to leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make

someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.