Maxwell Leadership Podcast: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Mark Cole:
Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. This is the podcast that adds value to leaders who multiply value to others. My name is Mark Cole, and today John Maxwell is going to teach on ten ways to constructively face your fears. After John’s lesson, Chris Goede will join me so we can apply the lesson to your life and to our leadership. If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, please go to maxwellpodcast.com YouTube. If you’d like to download the free worksheet that accompanies John’s lesson, visit maxwellpodcast.com fear and click the bonus resource button. All right, let’s get ready to face our fears. To feel that fear and do something about it, here is John Maxwell.

John Maxwell:
I’m going to talk to you about how to constructively face fear. Leadership is what talk to me. Influence. All right, there you are. The main reason for facing our fears is in the box. And I put it in the box because this is the whole reason for the rest of this lesson. Fear undermines personal dynamism. Now watch this. Instead of being a person who knows where he is going and admits an enthusiasm that motivates others, you perpetually apologize and thus decrease your influence in a group. Fear really handicaps you as a leader. I’ll tell you what it does. It takes away your charisma. It’ll take away your charisma. Okay, how do you handle fear? Number one, you ready? Discover the foundation of fear. That’s where we start. Fear is not based upon fact. It’s based usually upon feeling. In fact, let me give you an acrostic that’ll help you understand and get a handle on fear. Fear is false expectations appearing real. That’s basically what fear is. It’s false expectations appearing real. It’s something that you expect that may be completely wrong, but you believe it so much that it appears real to you and paralyzes you. University of Michigan did a survey, fear in Relationship to Reality. They said 60% of our fears are totally unwarranted. In other words, the thing that we fear is never going to come to pass. 20% of our fears are in the past. In other words, it’s already done. It’s completely out of our control. And 10% of our fears are so petty that they really will make no difference at all. And of the 10%, this is out of the University of Michigan. Dennis Wheatley has it in Seeds of Greatness, only four or 5% are real or justifiable fears. Number two, admit your fears. Admit your fears. When you and I have them, we need to lay them out. All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from and to and why we never help people by trying to cover our failures. That’s what I’m saying. Admit them. Understand that we’re going to make them. There’s something about admitting them that helps us even with the fear of them. Now, number three, accept the frailty and brevity of life in this area. Of fear. I look at some people and I wonder what they’re afraid of. I think Newman was right when he said fear not that your life will come to an end, but that it will never have a beginning. I know a lot of people, you know what, they want to tiptoe to the grave safely, you know what I’m talking about? And they just kind of think that if they could just tiptoe to that grave, they could somehow make it safe when they get there. I read in the Economist magazine recently this statement beware life is dangerous, invariably damaging to your health, and will eventually kill you. Number four. Now we’re going to start getting where we need to be getting. Number four accept fear as the price of progress. I could spend the next 30 minutes on this issue right here. I’m going to tell you what fear will do for you if you will go ahead and do it anyway. You’ll understand that it really begins to be the price of progress. Susan Jeffries was right when she said, as long as I continue to push out into the world, as long as I continue to stretch my capabilities, as long as I continue to take risk in making my dreams come true, I’m going to experience fear. I’m known for communication, so let’s talk about communication for a while. You ought to have been with me the first time I ever spoke. We talked about speaking being the number one fear of people. I was in college, and I was going to preach my first message, and my buddy was going to speak for his first time the week before me. And so we’re going across campus and he said, John, what should I speak on? And we were just came out of a class. I said, Use some of the material in there. So he did, and I went with him, sat on the front row. I cannot describe this experience except to tell you that he only spoke three minutes. He swept profusely, and as he spoke, he had a handkerchief I’ll never forget. He would never set a sentence complete. He would say a few words and he’d say, God help me. And he said, you and God helped me. He did it for three minutes. I mean, I’m sitting on the front row. I’m saying, oh, God help him. God help, god help me. God help us all. You know what, god help us. You know what I mean? It was an incredible experience. And I tried to encourage him on the way home, and I’ve got the gift of encouragement, but I could find nothing to encourage. There are sometimes when you just say, God help us, that’s just exactly what but you know what this does. Now watch. We’re talking about fear. Guess who speaks next week? Me. I mean, I’m now preparing an outline and my only goal, my only goal, my first time I ever spoke. God helped me to speak longer than three minutes. Don’t help me to change alive. Don’t help me say anything profound. If I could do three and a half minutes, that’s all I want to do. So I prepared my outline. I had, like, 14 pages of notes. And I get up there and I start speaking, and I just speak and speak and speak. And Margaret was my girlfriend, and she’s listening to me. So we’re file in the car, and we’re going back down to her home. I mean, she’s not saying one word. I know. I was there the week before when Don spoke, and finally I can’t stand. I said, Well, Margaret, how did I do? She said, well, she said, you went longer than three minutes. As I said, oh, well, shoot, doggone, this is great. And I said, well, how long did I speak? She said, 55 minutes. Then I understood something. I just bored everybody to death. In fact, two years later, I went back to that same place and spoke, and I got up, and I apologize to those people, as if they’d be stupid enough to come and hear me the second time. Now watch this. The point that we’re bringing out now is that you have to accept fear as the price of progress. Now watch this. Every stage of my communication has brought another fear level to me. See, people listen to me, and they watch me communicate, and they don’t understand. One is when I began communicating, I was a very poor communicator. Number two is that where I am today. I’ve gone through at least seven stages of fear. I can remember as a kid when the big church invited me to be their pastor, and I came for a trial sermon, which a trial sermon is you get up and speak. Yeah. And they all are sitting there saying, do we want him or not? It’s a trial to me. It’s a trial to them. It’s a trial to everybody. And what made it tough is this big church, prestigious church. I mean, what was I was 25 when they offered it to me. I was following an eloquent speaker who sat right behind me. And so all they had to do is look at him and look at me, and there was a great golf between us. Now, all I’m saying is I can remember sucking it up and getting in there and speaking, and the tremendous fear I felt, the tremendous fear I felt as I’m saying, these people are they’re critiquing me. They got their pin out and they’re saying, Yay or nay? They’re going to thumbs up or thumbs down? I’m going to go to the lions or else I’m going to go to the church here. Pretty soon now. Didn’t stop there. By the time I was 28, I remember they decided to have a big statewide convention at Veterans Memorial Auditorium. And man, that seated 3000. And I used to go there for concerts, and they said they were going to have me be the speaker. And I can still remember on a Friday afternoon going down Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio, and looking up on the Marquee thing at Veterans toy, if it’s a John C. Maxwell speaking tonight. And I’m saying, oh, my goodness. And I just drove around and drove around, and I managed. Hey. And I remember the fear of speaking of veterans or more out, but it didn’t stop there. Now all I’m saying is we have this terrible idea or this wrong idea that somehow that we can get to a place where we get rid of fear and we get these ideas. And I want to tell you something. You’ll have fear the rest of your life. If you want to grow now, all you got to do is sit down and say, do I want to grow or not? I wonder how many people stop growing because they just didn’t want to pay the price of fear. And every time I think I’ve made it, I find there’s something out bigger in front of me that says, are you going to tackle this one or not? So fear is the price of progress. What I’m trying to do is not to be unrealistic and tell you that you can remove fear. In fact, we’re going to talk about that in a moment. What I’m trying to do is get us to have an understanding of fear and understand that that’s part of the growing life process in our life. Does that make sense to you? Number five, here we go. Develop a burning desire within you. One of the greatest ways to take care of the fear is to get red hot. Get a burning desire. I found out that desire will cause you to go where you don’t want to go, and desire will cause you to do what you don’t want to do. Boy old Gusty Almanto, the fight manager, was right when he said the hero and the coward feel both exactly the same fear. Only the hero confronts his fear and converts it into fire. Number six, focus on things you can control. In the area of fear, focus on the things you can control. There are some things we can’t control. John Wooden said it best. He said, do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. Isn’t that true? Here’s what happens with fear, and I see it happen all the time. Fear paralyzes us to the place. Instead of doing what we can do and accomplishing the task at hand, many people, because they see what they can’t do, also don’t do what they could do. Does that make sense? Until all of a sudden they’re not doing the task at hand just because they’re basically paralyzed. All right, number seven, focus on today, not yesterday or tomorrow. So many of our fears are either something in the past or something that we’re dreading in the future, focus on today, not yesterday or tomorrow. Number eight put some wins under your belt. I found that wins will help the process of fear. Martina was right when she said, whoever said it’s not whether you win or lose that counts. Probably lost. Number nine feed the right emotion and starve the wrong one. I’m going to talk to you about something that I haven’t really read much about, but I can tell you this I know how to do it. I’ve had to practice it in my life. And the people that I’ve helped do this have been very successful in handling fear. I’m going to say it again. Feed the right emotion and starve the wrong one. I have a bookmark that basically tells us all about that. It’s also in your notes. Two natures beat within my breast. The one is foul, the other is blessed. The one I love, the other I hate. And the one I feed will dominate. How true that is. And I love the statement that says both faith and fear may sail into your harbor, but allow only faith to drop anchor. Now, I put it in here. I don’t want you to miss it. That’s why I’ve written so much. Chris down feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Reprograms our attitude from fear means don’t to fear means all systems go. Action feeds emotion. And so many times we want to do it the opposite. We want emotion to feed the action. Acting on the right emotion will lift you to success just as acting on the wrong emotion will lower you to failure. Which brings me to the last point on fear, and that is, do it now. Do it now. Somebody said, well, let me ask you a question. When do I start working on my fears? Don’t you think I think you ought to hang loose for about the next nine years and about nine years from now after you’ve wasted those years, go ahead and start dealing with those no, cut that out. Do it now. In fact, as you lay out what your fears are, realize they’re the price of progress and start doing it now. I still remember going to Dayton Arena when I was about 26 years old and here in W Clementstone one day at one of these success rallies. Remember when they had these success in life rallies all over the country, man, I was right on the front row. I’ve just always been a hungry learner. I mean, I’m telling you, if it’s going to be good, I’m there to collect it. You know what I mean? And I remember W Clementstone talking to these 10,000 people in the Dayton Arena, whatever it was, and he said, if I could do one thing for you out there today, he said, I would tell you every evening. He was talking to, I think, mainly salespeople in this setting, in this context. He said, I’d tell you every evening, he said, after you’ve brushed your teeth and put on your pajamas, you’re ready to go to bed and turn off TV. Whatever he said, I would tell you every evening 50 times, sit on the edge of that bed and say out loud to yourself, do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now, 50 times. He said the next morning, he said, before you ever get up to brush your teeth, he said, I would tell you to sit on the edge of the bed and say it again. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it 50 times. He said the next evening. He said, all night, edge of that bed. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. He said the next morning. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now, the next evening. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now 50 times. Do it now. Do it now. In the morning, 50 times. Do it now. Do it now. In the evening, he said, do that for seven days. And he said, I’ll guarantee you, the next thing time you face something you fear, your first thought will be, do it now. Now I want to tell you something. With some of us, that’s the kind of programming we’re going to have to do. We’re going to have to literally sit down, put that number one fear in our life, whatever that is, put it over there on our bedpost. You got it. Whatever that fear is, and look at that number one fear, and say to yourself, do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. Do it now. And one of the things I found helped me with my fears is bring somebody alongside of you that’ll hold you accountable. Conquering fear is a process, and you can do it.

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Mark Cole:
Hey, welcome back. Wow. John gave us Chris ten things that, as I was just taking notes here in studio and just absorbing what John is teaching us, I realized, man, there’s multiple times in leadership that you feel that fear, that you find yourself, man, saying, I’ve got to figure out how to address this. So I love today that you’ve joined us. I love that you’re watching on YouTube. I love that you’re listening. And here’s what I can tell you. We all have in common. We have felt the fear at some point, and John’s given us some tools. Damn glad you have you today.

Chris Goede:
I am glad to be here. It’s a powerful approach to personal growth. Personal growth is so meaningful to us. John has modeled that growth is one of our values. I love that you said that we’re going to feel the fear and do it anyway around leadership and not skydiving, because I’m not doing that. I don’t know. I may do that, but I’m afraid of heights. I’m 64 and I’m afraid of heights. People say, why are you so you’re afraid of heights? You’re so tall. I am deathly afraid of heights. So I’m glad that you didn’t call me here today to say that we were getting on a plane to go skydiving. If we’re going to talk about leadership.

Mark Cole:
Now that I and the podcast family knows that that could be coming.

Chris Goede:
Just yeah, hold on. I don’t doubt that at all. But I love this, right? Because this is what you’ve got to do to grow, right? And you and I hear this in the leadership space all the time. And remember, we’re going to talk about this from a leadership perspective. We define leadership as influence. So every single person listening to us or watching us on YouTube, you’re a leader, and I know you and I know myself and our journey. And there’s fear maybe every day of what we’re going through. And I have a couple of comments that I thought about that I hear with leaders that I work with. And what I want to do is just I’m going to read them off and then I want to kind of dive into a couple of John’s points and just let you talk about from a leader where you’re experiencing that right now and how you’re growing and how you’re facing and feeling that fear. So you hear this. You hear the fear of being seen as an imposter. That impostor syndrome, right? Like, I can’t live up to that. I can’t do that. The fear of being criticized. If you’re a recovering people, pleaser, as I’ve heard you say in several meetings lately, making tough decisions, we have that fear of being criticized. We have the fear of not being a good communicator. You and I could talk about that for days after you’ve been on the stage with John mentoring you. I’ve heard you say that. And then finally, the other one I wrote down that I hear a lot about with leaders is the fear of having to make hard decisions. And there’s not a day that goes by that you’re not dealing with that. So with that as a backdrop for our listeners, let’s jump in. And John talked about one of the items he said he’d talk about a long time was accept fear. Number four, accept fear as the price of progress. So let’s talk about you accepting that price of progress, of having to make hard decisions, having to maybe be criticized. What is it that you work through and how do you overcome that fear that you feel immediately when you go, man, I know I got to make a hard decision. I know I’ve got to go communicate behind John Maxwell, talk a little bit about that and the impact that John has had in your life along that way and the way you’re leading now.

Mark Cole:
Well, it’s General George Patton that said, any man who is afraid of failure will never really win, and any man who is afraid to die will never really live. And I love that in the context of what we’re sharing here, because here’s what I can tell you as an encouragement across the board to every podcast listener, every podcast viewer. If you feel fear, you’re alive.

Chris Goede:
That’s right.

Mark Cole:
I have had some times in my life, truly, that the most daunting of things, especially in a leadership business perspective did not scare me. And that was because I had already checked out. I was already done. I just hadn’t made it official. And I will just tell you, if you’re thinking about something, if you’re having to address something, if there’s something on the horizon that has got you feeling that fear, you’re still alive.

Chris Goede:
That’s good.

Mark Cole:
You’re still in the game. That’s great.

Chris Goede:
What do they call quiet quitting?

Mark Cole:
You have not quietly quit, and you are in the game. And so, Chris, the first thing I’d say is I feel alive today because there is fear in leading on a consistent basis. I’m not going to say on a daily basis. You know, you talked about I’ll talk about communication in just a moment, but I’ll talk about progress as a leader, and I’ll talk about the risk I have found. I was just today talking with a leader about a fear in his life, a fear that he was like, man, I’m afraid that I’m going to and to protect the innocent, I’ll leave it right there. And I said, the only way you can be sure that you won’t disappoint, that you won’t fail, that you won’t come up short, that you won’t be that imposter that you were talking about a while ago is to step out and prove it. See, oftentimes we let fear paralyze us. And what that paralysis does is keeps the fear alive. The best way I know how to address fear is to get out and either prove the fear true or prove the fear wrong. But when fear left unaddressed lives in your life long enough, it will stop not only your leadership, it’ll stop progress in every area. You were talking about the fear of progress. This point number four. I can remember John. It was funny to hear John. I don’t think I had heard him. I wasn’t live when he was doing this teaching. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talking about the fear that he had when he communicated to this public event. His name was there. He communicated at the church with the great communicator behind him. I wish I would have known that earlier, because I can remember a time in the Philippines that John they had paid John a lot of money. They had been waiting for a year and a half to get John to come to Manila, the Philippines, and we’re on the way over, flying over, and John said, hey, it’s time that you start speaking in some of these international countries too. And I had been doing a little bit of speaking for and I went, John, they’re paying you a lot of money. He said, I know, and they’re going to love you speaking. I said, John, they don’t know me. And he said, I know, and they’re going to love that I’m mentoring somebody to come along and speak alongside of me. I said, John, my content’s not very good. He said, I know. He said, I know.

Chris Goede:
And he really felt the fear.

Mark Cole:
He said, I know, and it’s never going to get better unless you step up in these kind of things. Here’s what John was really saying. You can’t have progress until you allow the fear that’s great to cause you to step into the direction where progress is heading. And I still feel like I disappoint people when I speak on John’s stage. There’s still a little bit of healthy fear there. I believe. I believe it’s healthy. But here’s what I’ll tell you. I am better today because I stepped into the fear yesterday. Progress has been made, and that’s because you stare that fear down and you begin to engage.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, I love that. And I know you talk about this openly, and so as you feel that, you know you’re making progress, that has not stopped. John continues to push you and to mentor you in different ways, and you know that you’re making progress because there are some stages and some situations, some meetings to where now John just sits back and lets you run the meeting where you might have some of that angst, some of that fear in there. And that is a healthy sign. That is something of progress. Let’s stay here for just one more minute. As a leader for the Maxwell Enterprise, there are decisions that you have to make you said maybe not on a daily basis, on a weekly basis from the CEO seat as a leader. And there are some angst in that. There’s some fear in that. How do you allow that to let you know you’re making progress? Are there signs that as we’re listening and part of this podcast where we go, okay, I know that I’m making progress because I feel that fear. Like, are there things where you just innately know you’re making progress because of this? Around the fear?

Mark Cole:
Yeah, I think the biggest thing that I think a leader can do is to acknowledge fear in front of others. Too many people feel that fear, and they allow it to create isolation. They allow it to create separation, and they allow it to create an image. That’s not really true. I think a team needs to know that a leader has a healthy amount of fear. Now, I’ll tell you this. I was just recently convicted because I’m challenging our team right now. In some areas that I expect growth, I expect momentum. And I also realize that a leader can stay too long in expressed fear and steal hope from his or her team.

Chris Goede:
That’s good.

Mark Cole:
And if you’re not careful, we get in this vulnerable mode, because isn’t it true? Everybody loves vulnerability. Now, if you’ll be vulnerable, if you’ll be authentic, and just be real I love your sense of approachability, Mark. I hear all of that. And what I’ve discovered is that’s really all good, but somebody has got to believe that fear is present, but it’s not paralyzing. It’s okay to be present. It’s not okay when people sense that you’re still not moving from fear. So the way I know that I have a healthy amount of fear is when I don’t try to hide it and suppress it and when I don’t believe that it is paralyzing. Myself and my team again, recently, I called a team meeting because I felt like that we had talked long enough about the uncertainty or the apprehensions within our team on this particular subject that we were dealing with this business line that we wanted to produce. And I realized that we had lost our hope and our way forward because we had gotten so authentic and comfortable in recognizing the fear that we allowed the fear to become ever present in our meetings. And so that’s what I would tell you one thing that John said that I love. He said every new level of communication he had in his life created a new level of fear. Now, I’ve been with John when he’s spoken at some of the largest organizations in the United Nations. I’ve watched John speak to a belligerent crowd in an international community that just did not want John Maxwell in their country. And I watch John deal with that fear, acknowledge it, and then press forward in being himself. And I think the other thing, Chris, to. Your point of how do you know when fear is creating progress or when fear is creating paralysis? It’s when you can sense that you are pushing forward to your best version rather than holding back to yesterday’s version. And if you can go, you know what? This fear is making me better. Lean into it if you’re going, this fear is holding me back. Get away from it and start doing it. Now, as John talked about in the.

Chris Goede:
Lesson, I love what you’re talking about because you have to acknowledge it, right? As a leader, we’re all human beings. You start off the podcast by talking about, we all have it, but if you stay in it or you allow your team or your circle of influence to stay there, they end up almost using that as a crutch. And I think what I’m hearing you say is, hey, we’ve got to move past that. We acknowledge it, but we can’t keep talking about it and sitting in it and keeping it from allowing us to apply or have some action coming out of what we’re working with.

Mark Cole:
Hey, before you go to the next point, I want to stay right here. This is the best place to put this standout statement. It came from Emmanuel Ho, and Emanuel said, fear is interest paid on debt you may not owe. Now, think about that when you talk about progress, how many of our fears are unwarranted? And what I have acknowledged and what I realize is when I state my fear, many times the team comes around me and says, we’re not scared of that. That’s all good. Many times I’m paying interest on a debt of fear that’s not even really fear, because the answer is within my room. It’s within my team, it’s within my reach. And by not being careful to not admit fear, by being open with fear, I have found that I have found less credibility in many of the fears that I was holding.

Chris Goede:
Yeah, well, I think this is an indicator of personal growth. I said just a minute ago, this is a powerful approach to personal growth. And so as long as you feel that, like you said, you’re alive, you’re growing, and continue just to not allow it to control you, but to be a part of what you’re doing, you’re going to feel that often in your life as you lead yourself first, by the way, as well as maybe your family or your team. Now, I want to segue this is in alignment with a lot of what we’ve been talking about. And John then moves on a couple of points later, and he says, hey, let’s feed the right emotion.

Mark Cole:
Yeah.

Chris Goede:
And this is what you’re talking about here. And I want to pack it a little bit further where, hey, let’s make sure we’re feeding the right one, starving the wrong one. I remember years and years ago, and John brings it up here where he says, action feeds emotion. I remember him making a statement of saying, hey, you can act your way into feeling something. You can’t feel your way into acting. I always relate that to working out.

Mark Cole:
Right.

Chris Goede:
I’m like, yeah, I don’t feel like it. And that’s just not going to it’s not going to convince me to get up. But if I get up and start taking some steps, then all of a sudden I feel like continuing to work out. So how often as a leader, do you have to keep this in mind? How often do you go, man, I got to keep feeding this, and I got to make sure I get away from that. I got to keep feeding this, I got to go away from that? And then do you have accountability around that? What does that look like in your life as a leader?

Mark Cole:
Well, so this will take me a minute to unpack, but I love this, Chris, because one is I had a very personal conversation with my 16 year old daughter this weekend that is very applicable. And so many of you, you’re now in the middle of summer. Summer is here, and you’re going to get more talk time with your teenagers. And trust me on this right here. Our teenagers are facing fears and anxiety that you and I never faced. So let me just put that out there that’s free of charge for this podcast. But I’m going to tell you, you have a summer ahead of you, and I’m going to challenge you to sit down with your teenagers and listen to the emotions they’re having to deal with in this post COVID era. They’re fearful. They may not have mask on, but they still feel like that they’ve got mental mask on. Can I really trust my environment? And I found that out this weekend. The other thing that I will tell you, and I’ll go into that story in just a moment, but the other thing I’ll tell you is how often you said, how often do you deal with it? Well, today I get up this morning, don’t try this at home, or do try it at home, but I got up this morning at 215. I’m done sleeping, but I went, I can’t be done sleeping at 215. I went to bed at midnight. I got a little more sleep in me. I’m certain my mind’s just a whirling. And the reason I use this illustration and come back to Macy, my 16 year old, in just a moment is because this morning at 228, I had laid there I’m a person of faith. I had been listening to scripture. I had been sorting through everything. I had even journaled a little bit between 1220 or 1215 to 1228. I had done all of this stuff and nothing was working. And I finally went, I got to get up and do something about it. My mind works better when I’m actually going after what’s bothering me, what’s concerning me. So I got up, I went to my office, I flipped up my computer, I looked at a couple of real numbers rather than fictitious numbers in my mind, and I went to work. Now, the reason I bring that up is my 16 year old daughter, she’s a junior in high school. Now, she just finished junior, but she’s not a senior yet. Chris, that’s a conversation in the Cole household that you can’t be a senior until the first day of school. So she’s still a junior, but she’s done. Okay. That’s for you, Macy and Stephanie. If you all listen to this particular podcast. I’m sitting there with her this weekend, and she started telling me about some concerns she has about a relationship that she has. One of her friends is she’s just trying to figure it out. They’re starting to grow up. They’re starting to find what their interest is. She was really concerned with her connection with this friend of hers, and she’s been with our family for a long time. They’re still tight, but this is working on macy said, dad, it’s so bad right now that the other morning, I got up at 330, and I couldn’t get it off my mind until 530.

Chris Goede:
Wow.

Mark Cole:
I said Macy, the next time that happens, let me tell you what I want you to do at 233 30 in the morning when you get up, I just want you to text them and say, hey, I’ve got you on my mind. And I just want you to know I’m thinking about you. Our relationship, our future. How we can stay friends for many, many years. Do something about it. The next morning that was on Friday night. Friday afternoon. The next morning, she said, dad, it happened. I got up early, still worried about it because she had not replied, and I sent her a text at 330. When she woke up at 830, she replied to me, and she said, macy, you have no idea how much I needed this today and how much this helps. And Macy said, dad, it’s a wonderful outcome. But after I sent that text, I went right back to sleep. It got off of my mind because I did something about it. So now let’s go back. Are you starving your fear? Are you getting up and facing the fear for me this morning? You ask how often? It’s often, especially right now. And I got up, and I addressed it. I didn’t go back to sleep, by the way. That’s why I’m yawning in the studio today. Just kidding. But when you get up for me, when I get up and I do something to stand in the face of that fear, the fear loses its control, and I’m able to feel as if I’m handling something today. John talks about on point number seven, he says, Focus on today, not yesterday or tomorrow. Most of the time when I wake up in the morning or when I face an uncertainty anxiety. Most time I’m thinking about something I wish I’d have done different or something I’m anticipating is going to happen morrow that will help you because what you can put your hands on today is facing today, and it’ll alleviate that fear.

Chris Goede:
What I love about what you just shared is the action part of it. Right? You want to apply something from this lesson from John today and Mark’s leadership. Do something about what is creating that fear. Just don’t sit there. And it ties right back to what you’re talking about in regards to some of the meetings that you lead. Yeah, I’m fearful of certain things.

Mark Cole:
All right, let’s go. What are we doing?

Chris Goede:
Let’s move on to the next thing. Same thing that you shared. Incredible story with Macy and then with you. Now let me throw a little caveat to our listeners out there. You don’t have progress because of some of the fear you’re facing and other things because you only sleep two and 3 hours a night. This is a gene pool, okay? So leaders don’t go, I’m sleeping two and a half hours and Macy slept three. I’m sleeping three. This is a coal that all of us around. Maxwell leadership go, man, I wish I could do that on 3 hours of sleep. Clarify that.

Mark Cole:
Yeah, if a 94 year young mother.

Chris Goede:
Is amazing, I wish genetics.

Mark Cole:
Hey, let me say one more thing on this. We talked about fear of communication earlier. Chris, I was just talking about a financial fear that I had this morning. Macy talked about a relational fear. Yeah, I think it’s really important for us to define what the fear source is. Not the source of the fear most of the time, it’s insecurity as some of the three things that you mentioned earlier a fear of failure. The category is it relational, is it communication, is it financial. And what I have found is when I have a fear that I can identify in the category and I match that category with somebody that I respect that is accomplished in that category relationships, financial, business. And I can attach that fear to a category. And I have a person in that category that I respect. You know what I do a lot of mornings? I send a text to the person I respect in that category and say, I’m really struggling with this particular thing. I did it this morning. I text a friend of mine that has accomplished incredible things, and he’s told me frequently about the tough seasons of what he had accomplished. And I texted him. I said, how do you know when you wake up in fear and when you wake up with an idea that you should operate so that fear doesn’t take root in your life? I haven’t seen Chris response yet, but let me tell you what will happen sometime this afternoon, it may already be on my phone. Now I will get a text back that will be a tool to address the fear that I have. While ago, I talked about fear of communication. I was a little bit concerned about communicating with John. John wrote a book. For those of you watching YouTube, I’m holding up 16 undeniable laws of communication. If you have a fear of not getting your message out or standing in front of a crowd or having a great meeting in your next board meeting, you need to pick up a tool, call a friend, phone a friend, get a lifeline. Do something so that the fear doesn’t paralyze you. This book in fact, we’ll have this book available. It’ll be in the show notes. We’ll give you a 15% discount when you use the Code podcast. But Chris, here’s the point that we’re making right here. Do something about your fear. Phone a friend. Text somebody like I did this morning. Text like Macy did over the weekend. Do something to address that fear.

Chris Goede:
Yeah. And it’s great because the last point John says here is, do it now. And that doesn’t mean I’m going to get on a plane and jumping out and skydiving. But I love the action behind what we’re talking about, because we’re not talking about philosophical. That’s what I love about John’s Content. It is practical. And Mark’s giving you some tools of how he has faced fear, how he’s felt fear, and how he’s doing things anyways, and what are the things he’s learned from not from. As we wrap up, as I throw it back to you, what’s the overarching message around feeling this fear that you would want our people, our listeners around the world to know? We talk about the fact that we want to create powerful, positive change, and there’s no way that happens without feeling the fear. And you know that John knows it. At the core, what’s that overarching message you want to kind of close with for our listeners?

Mark Cole:
One is fear can be a friend or a foe. Let it be a friend. You’re going to have it. You’re not going to eradicate it or have it. You’re going to have it, period. Okay, let’s get that out of the way. You’re not weak. You’re not insecure. You’re not a bad leader because you have fear. Fear is a very present reality in leaders life. So don’t try to resist fear. Just consider if you want it to be a friend or a foe. The second thing that I would do is go back to an application that I gave a little bit earlier, Chris, and that is identify the source of the fear and identify the category, the source, what that means to me. You gave three a little bit earlier. Fear of failure, fear to disappoint category. Well, the category I want to go somewhere else. It’s the source. What is it that if what you fear happens what’s the worst thing that can happen? I’m going to be a failure. People are going to think I’m not a good leader. Bankruptcy. I mean what is the source of that fear? And as best you can articulate the source now you can fight it with the lies that are attached to the source. Okay, so for instance, one of my fears right now is mist stewarding.

Chris Goede:
What?

Mark Cole:
I’ve been given a stewardship issue. I’ve been given all this great opportunity. Chris, this podcast you relationship, am I going to well, I can tell you the source of that is disappointing my parents many, many years ago.

Chris Goede:
Got it.

Mark Cole:
And so there’s a source there that I have to speak to. Then the category is I’m a bad leader. Well go find a leader that is a good leader and find out some takeaway that you can have. So if you can get very practical, consider fear is present, is it a friend or foe? And then find the source. What are you fearful of? Find the category, what can you put it into so that you can get mentorship or books to help you along the way? Hey, I come back to the book 16 laws of communication. Pick that up if you haven’t yet. It’s a must read. John believes that it’s one of the best books he’s ever written. I’ve talked to a lot of communicators that would say the same thing. So pick that book up. Podcast is the code 15% off? Is the discount talking about this? Do it. Now we have a listener and I want to introduce you to Fatola. He is a leader that listened to the podcast how to have job security part one. Now here’s what I love about what he said. He said I had to take more time to listen deeply to this podcast with my notes. I’m having to listen to this so that I can share it on my wall for others to learn. The best value I can give my organization is the best version of me. Fatola, let me tell you what you figured out. You figured out that you’ve got to do it now. You’ve got to do more than listen. You got to put it up on your case, the whiteboard on your wall and then you got to transfer it to your team. Hey, that’s what we hear about, that’s what we do. That’s why we do the podcast is so that we can help you not only feel the fear but face the fear, overcome the fear, but also so that you can add value to others, so that you can lead well. Because everyone deserves to be led well.