Lessons

Lesson Info

Never Let Fear Decide Your Future

Fear is paralyzing. Fear is one of those emotions that keep you paralyzed and stuck, right? You're stuck. It's a hard one to move through. Feels like you can't move through it. So, you need to take action to be able to move through it. And you really can't let your fear decide what you're future's going to be. Because it will never give you what you want. Cesar, why don't you tell me what's holding you back. What's holding me back? I think fear of being accepted is holding me back. I've always kind of forged my own route, my own path through life and when you do that, you're not always the one with the largest group of friends or just even co-workers that are rooting for you. So, that's something, a balance that I've been looking for is how to continue to forge my own path, but to also still be accepted and have that respect by my peers. Okay, I think we all. I mean we heard oohs and ahhs, right? We're all scared of that. I think one of the number one basic human requirements is th...

at we all want to feel needed. We do. We all want to feel needed. And we all want to feel valued like we're of value. And often other people give us our value. So, Cesar you said that you have done it alone a lot, right? You've done it. You've forged your own path. You've done it yourself. So, may I ask you a question? Why do you feel that you need other people's validation so much? I just don't want to continue to do that and just not have someone along with me on that journey. Okay. That totally makes sense. And thank you for telling us that. So, that goes back to wanting to feel value. Right? When there's someone there that can help with the burden, help you feel good about yourself, cushion the blow a little bit, right? Be a safe space. And the safe space sometimes to fall if you fall because they're there to catch you, right? That's really what we want from other people and what that need is. But who's the first person that needs to be all of those things? Yourself. So, to forge your own way is great. I forged my own way. I could pretty much guarantee a lot of people in this room forged their own way as well. I forged my own way. And there wasn't a lot of help. But it's also knowing to rely on yourself and to take that fear away. Because I want you to look at fear in a couple of ways because it's a couple of things to me. Fear, obviously we know this, shows up as danger, right? That's what our brain says, it's danger. That's millions of years ago when mammoths were walking around, but our bodies are wired that way. That's just how we're wired. So danger is that scary thing, right? That kind of stops us. I look at fear as an indicator. Fear is a barometer to me. I feel it. I was scared when I walked out here. I told you that. I think we globalize fear as sometimes it's just a little bit of nerves, little bit of worry, a little bit of stress, right? And that can be from I'm a little stressed because I have to pay my rent this month and I don't know if I can make my rent, right? I'm a little stressed because I have a project due at work and I'm a little behind, so I'm a little stressed, yeah? But we turn it into this huge fear, frightening thing and we become paralysis. The unknown fear of what we're talking about because we don't know what it is, it's incredibly scary and it stops us from doing things. But I do look at it as a barometer because sometimes fear goes, you know what, slow down, you just are going too fast. The train's gonna come off the track if you keep going this fast. You're not even looking around you. You're making silly mistakes. Slow the hell down. Sometimes fear is speed up. If you don't stop procrastinating and make this decision and do it really quickly, you're not going to be able to turn that project in in time, get that lease that you want for that perfect location to start your business, make that jump to open the business. So, fear to me is a lot of different things and sometimes it's not really the fear, it's the barometer of what else I need to look at going around me to keep me moving forward, to make it less scary, to actually take action. Does that make sense? Fear is also, again, that made up story. And you have to remember that. You've made this story up. And the more you tell yourself that story, then that's your story. That's what's gonna keep looping through. And everything will come back into that fear. You know when you give yourself permission to fail, you give yourself permission to succeed. You have to give yourself permission to fail. It's okay to fail. It's not a bad thing. The world's not gonna end. People aren't gonna think badly of you. And you know what, if they do, they're not the right people for you. They're not the people that you want around you. Some people would think that the story I shared with you about my staff walking out was a failure. I felt like it was a failure. I thought it was an epic fail. Until I really looked at it and realized how incredibly valuable it was. It had so much value in there because of what it taught me. It has made me a different leader. It's made me be present and show up. And if I can't show up, then I tell you. I can't commit to this. This isn't gonna work. It showed me a different set of boundaries to put up for myself and my business and anything I did moving forward. So, look at what is holding you back. And I would ask you: what has fear cost you? Whether monetarily, because some business owners out there fear has actually cost you money because you haven't moved forward in your business because you're too scared to. You're too scared to take that step, so it could be costing you revenue. Maybe you're not updating your business because you're scared, right? Or buying the equipment you need, or doing whatever, or hiring the staff that you need because you're just too scared. You're too scared you're gonna fail. You're too scared you're not gonna recoup the money. You're too scared you're not gonna find the right person. Whatever the fear is. Maybe the cost of the fear is that you just aren't taking momentum. You're just stuck because you're scared, and you're not moving forward. So, ask yourself: what has fear cost you? Sometimes it's a really, really big price. What has it prevented you from doing? What has fear made you go, I'm not gonna do that. You know what, I can't do that because I'm too scared. I'm talking in everyday life. In moving forward in your business. I deal with fear like all of you. I get scared. But, the thing that I do do differently to many people is I just don't give into it. I just don't give into it. I know it. I feel it. I can feel it in my body. I know what it feels like. It sucks, right? I feel the paralysis. I play what if. What if? What is the worst case? What would happen if? What would happen if I did this class and it sucked? Right? I play that game. What would happen if I did this class and it sucked? I would've wasted all of you guys, your time. All the people watching live at home, I would've wasted their time. I would've wasted some time at this great company of all the people that put all their hard work and the crew and the producers and everyone else that put their hard work into this class. Right? But, I'd still be breathing. I'd still be living. I'd move on. And I'd try it again. And the biggest thing I'd do is learn why it failed. And what I could do differently, so I could try it again. Does that make sense? So, I do deal with fear in the same way. I do feel it the same way. The thing that I do is look at it. I personally, this is my personal feeling, when I stare it down and I really look at it, it loses it's power. When I just stare right down the barrel of what the fear is, for me it just helps to dissipate the power because I've just owned it. I've just stood into it. I've thought about what the worst thing could be. And, again, as long as I'm not hurting myself physically or anyone else, then I'm okay with that. I'm okay with moving on with it. If you get into fear and let yourself be stuck with it, you will not move forward. I've seen it. I'm sure you guys have seen it. That friends are just too scared. Then it starts coming up in other ways. Fears manifest itself in other ways. Sometimes it's anger. Hello, Miss Angry Girl. It's fear, right? I've told you how angry I would be. Fear comes up as denial. Fear shows up as lying. Because you can't be honest about your fear, so you start to lie because how you do one thing is how you do everything. Right? You become a victim. So, it's much easier to point. Everyone else does it. I can't do, it's everyone else's fault. No one will give me a chance. No one's listening to me. Right? It's much easier to point your finger that way at everyone else and become a victim, than to face that fear and move through it. Yeah? So fear doesn't just show up in, ooh, I'm scared. Shows up as anxiety. Shows up as feeling sick. It's a physiological change in our body and our emotions. Here's the thing that I want you to remember is fear is an emotion like every other emotion. It's an emotion like joy. Happiness. Love. They're all emotions. Fear is an emotion. When you think of it that way, as a barometer of what else it's trying to tell me, and it's just an emotion, you are always free to make a different choice of how you want to feel. I can decide to stay angry and stand here in my anger and just be angry all the time. Or I can so no, I'm done with that. I choose to feel lighter and happier. It's a choice. And that's what fear is. So, when you're giving into it and it's holding you hostage, then fear's just won. If you're playing the blame game and not taking any responsibility for yourself, playing the victim, pointing the finger, denying, lying, all to avoid fear, it's just going to keep showing up because it hasn't been addressed. I know it's fun, isn't it? (quiet audience laughter) Sometimes fear isn't as powerful when you face it as what it is when you think of it. Does that make sense? The scariest thing, I'm just gonna tell you the scariest thing that happened to me. Is that okay if I share a story? So the scariest thing, I've had a few scary things happen, but the scariest thing that happened to me was I just finished filming and I was tired. I wasn't in a great place. I was in L.A. I was working. And I got a phone call. And the phone call was from my partner. It was January. I can tell you exactly what I was wearing and what I was doing. I had just filmed a segment with Joan Rivers and got this phone call on a Sunday morning from a friend that happens to be a physician and said to me, "You need to get "on the next plane and come home." And proceeded to tell me that my partner was in hospital with a brain tumor and was going in for brain surgery. And I tried to, I wanted to talk to her and she couldn't speak. She'd lost the ability to speak. So, I had her on the phone and she could get out a couple of words. And most of it was "come home." And it happened to be bloody blizzard on the East Coast, which is always the way it goes. And I couldn't get a flight. And I was stuck in L.A. not knowing what was happening, not knowing what it meant, knowing that it sounded bad, that brain surgery sounded just monumental. I had someone call me who was family member to tell me that she probably wouldn't make it anyway. She probably wouldn't make me even getting the flight. And I probably wouldn't... It was slim pickings that I'd even be able to get back from L.A. in time. And I was petrified. It's really one of the scariest things ever. I was just petrified. And I got on a flight. And I flew back from L.A., got to New York, straight to the hospital with my bags, had no idea what I was walking into, no idea what I was gonna do, and no idea how to fix it. And let's face it, I'm Tabitha and I take over. I needed to fix it, right? I just needed to fix it. That fear is a real fear. I couldn't change the outcome of anything, right? What I realized with that fear is I couldn't give into it. Because I wasn't going to let that fear win and feel paralyzed to not show up and be present and be 100% there and do everything that I needed to do to make sure that I could take care of her and have the best outcome that we could possibly have. Right? So, I know you want the end of the story, so do I. It's four years later (knocking) and I'm tapping wood. And it's been rough. And it's been scary. But the thing that, again, I told you I would teach this class from my experience and what I know. That was an extreme fear. I hope no one ever has to go through that fear, but I know many of you will in some way or another, right? Because that's life, and life's like that. That fear, whether it's a monumental fear like I'm telling you about, or a small fear, the feeling's the same. Your body reacts to it in the same way. It does. The knot in the stomach, the pounding in the head, your chest, right? You tense up. Everything physiologically feels the same, and it makes you stuck. And if you give into fear, you will never live up to your full potential. You will never have the life or the business or the success of your dreams. And fear is really the worst part of it is what we make in our heads. And we stop ourselves from moving forward.