After attending All Day Buffet’s Feast workshop last Friday, I spent this weekend mulling over some of the powerful stories and ideas that were discussed.

Ishita Gupta Co-Founder of fear.less & Clay Hebert, President of Tribes Win presented How to be Fearless in a Fearful World and Embrace What Scares You

There are all kinds of different “fears,” that affect your career, your personal life, your health and for a few, even the fear of surviving.  Clay and Ishita describe that last fear as “saber-tooth tiger fear,” i.e the feeling that the wrong move/inaction will actually lead to death or  severe injury. They shared stories across the whole range of fears, and here are the three that I remembered the most. I hope you find them interesting and inspiring:

i. fear as a test of  accountability

Ishita and Clay shared how they profiled a prolific Creative Director and graphic designer, who was already somewhat of a high-strung type, but absolutely brilliant. Despite being top-caliber talent, he only wanted to work somewhere feeling terrified every day that he was going to get fired.

Why?

Because the safe, cushy assignments made him feel like he would stagnate.

You know those type of projects that are so complex and overwhelming that you don’t even know where to start first? He lived for those; he felt more comfortable taking those beasts on than he did working on the projects he could coast on.

He’d rather fail in front of others knowing he tried, than keep a low profile and just do what was expected.

Maybe the edge intrigues us because we all crave a challenge.  Easy street can never fulfill us the way a proper challenge will. His story made me uncomfortable with being comfortable- and it was something I really appreciated hearing.

ii.  fear as a career catapult

Clay and Ishita talked about the excellent metaphor of “going to the balcony,” as they described the story of William Uri, who was charged with negotiating with Hugo Chavez for an intense 30 minutes. They described how he was nervous, knowing he had to get this right- so he walked out to the balcony to look out at the city and clear his head and organize his thoughts. Then, after the scheduled 30 minutes , Hugo was so impressed with William’s poise that he asked him to come back for hours more of discussion. So now he always “goes to the balcony” before any fearful, stressful situation.

iii.  fear as adrenaline

They also described a woman who didn’t consider herself a true athlete- but really wanted to get healthy. She started by asking herself to run 10 minutes, which inevitable turned into longer. She has worked her way up to four marathons now. Her point of view is that mile 16 is always the hardest for her. So in her career or her personal life- whenever she recognizes stress or a great challenge ahead, she calls it her “Mile 16” and knows she will survive it just as she did in the past.

iv. fear is really a runt and you are a worthy adversary

Tony Hsieh is admired and respected the world over- who would have thought he has a tremendous fear of public speaking even though he successfully runs one of the most personable and appreciated companies (pre-Zappazon deal)
He conquered his huge fear of public speaking, by first conquering his slightly smaller fear of singing karaoke (to the delight of the bar patrons there that night.)

That was one of the grand themes from Clay and Ishita – Even the biggest fears can be conquered by a series of the littlest steps.

And some of the powerful quotes that Clay and Ishita shared:

“Fear is blank sheet of paper. We’re always asked to produce. Arm yourself. Arm yourself with resources. Don’t become a victim of paralysis that comes from the blank page.”

“If you’re ever intimidated by the establishment, realize that they’re on the [same scary-trying-to-make-it- journey] as you”  – Platon
* Paraphrased from memory.

“99% of the fear we feel is fake. It’s what we create. Today almost all the fear in our lives is fake. If you live in a country where the police don’t shoot people randomly, what exactly are you afraid of? We invent all these absurd fears.”

Our fear is really just anxiety. Nebulous; can’t put our finger on what exactly we’re afraid of, which is why we’re stressed all the time.” – Seth Godin

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those mind doesn’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Doctor Seuss

“Pain is a teacher, it comes to teach us something.” Immaculee Ilibagiza.

“If you have to live on a credit card for 4 months to figure things out, so what. Is that really the worst thing that could happen to you? “Is that really saber-tooth tiger fear?”

“Our brain is hard-wired for saber-tooth tiger fear. When that fear for surviving is gone, we replace it with these mundane anxieties that don’t really mean anything.”

They wrapped up their chat with a few great pieces of advice from Loretta Rae a self-proclaimed shy person who wanted to get over her fear of networking and attending meet-ups.

She did this by committed to “Take a Chance Tuesdays.” Once a week she does something to break her routine, and monitors those results. She logs what she did and what she learned and why she’s glad she did it and shares that information.

Her thoughts were:
There’s too much focus on external validation – you must gauge personal creative success internally
Create the work you really care about
Satisfy those deep creative urges
Put ego aside
Get out of your own way
Know for whom you’ are creating- if it’s for yourself don’t worry about how others respond

What exactly is fear.less?

Their manifesto begins with:
“Fear is intense.

Fear is universal.

Fear consumes.

Nobel Peace Prize winners feel it. Artists feel it. Entrepreneurs feel it. Students and activists feel it. You feel it. (We feel it too.)

That doesn’t mean we have to live with it.

fear.less is a movement borne from our right to live without fear. It’s where human potential meets the courage to act.”

Ishita and Clay are in the process of releasing a free online magazine for their community of  3,000+ fans to read for inspiration. You can get in on it by submitting your email address.

And here is an interesting piece on how Ishita and Clay stood out in a room full of innovators from Seth Godin: