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Your Fear is a Valuable Messenger
I appeared recently in an entrepreneur forum as a panelist. One of the questions asked was, what was the biggest challenge you faced when launching your business? My answer? Fear.
Fear is like the annoying text messages that won’t stop until you answer.
Fear has been described as, ‘False Evidence Appearing Real.’ I get it. It’s a way to diminish those lizard brain signals of, Danger, Danger Will Robinson! (you had to see Lost in Space to get that one). When you do calm that lizard down, you can step back, see that all is not a disaster, and see a way forward.
However, it misses something really important about fear. Fear is not false. It is telling you something really important.
Fear may not be proportional to the observed threat. You may be misled about its source. That doesn’t mean that it’s not evidence of something.
Fear is evidence that something is wrong. Wrong for you and your safety, that is.
Fear is a healthy response, telling you that something has gone awry. It may not signal an existential threat for many of us, though people of color face that regularly when in the wrong company, whether or not in uniform. Outside of these scenarios, fear is an indicator of something less immediately and existentially threatening.
