Facing your fear
According to Merriam Webster, fear is A : an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. B (1) : an instance of this emotion (2) : a state marked by this emotion. While undeniably accurate, it doesn’t necessarily elicit any type of emotion. Perhaps giving a couple of minutes to watch slackliner Faith dickey on youtube may add some reality todefining one type of fear.
She walks across 1-inch wide webbing thousands of feet over canyons, between mountains and moving semi-trucks. Sometime with a harness, sometimes without. Sometimes in heels, sometimes not. Sometime naked, most of the time not. I attended Worldblu Live recently where she shared her experience of living with fear and facing it and describes the moments when those fear ridden thoughts creep in ‘like gnawing rats’ and attempt to eat away at what we know is possible, inhibiting us from what we want.
When I speak with clients I often hear of one particular time and place where fear creeps in and starts to gnaw: performance management. This aspect seems to muster up fear on either side- giving it or receiving it. For those who have felt these pangs of self-consciousness, I would like to share an inspirational Wordlblu Live moment with you. DaVita CEO Kent Theiry (who considers himself more a mayor than a CEO), spoke of how he shares his own 360 feedback with the entire organisation. Once every year, he stands up in front of the DaVita community to be asked questions and share how he will address the areas he scores low on. You can hear him share a similar story here.
This level of transparency is his choice to come from some place other than fear. What would it be like if you were to make a choice like that: to being be more committed to your own development as a leader, not living in fear? What might change if you were be able to stand in front of your team/organisation and be completely vulnerable? What would it take to make the change?
You can start by simply investigating your decisions on a day by day, choice by choice basis to see how fear shows itself in your life decisions (not just in the workplace). The skill in becoming a freedom-centred leader lies here: the moment by moment choices you make for yourself, your team or your organisation. One tool you can use is a ‘fear list’. Write down all of the fears you have have on a daily basis for 5 days. Fear loses power – some if not all of it – simply by naming it. It also allows you to see exactly what you are afraid of and as we know, awareness leads to increased choice. Lately, I have been talking about it like a choice you make of which socket to ‘plug into’. If you plug into ‘fear’, then that will lead you down one set of actions and decisions. If you plug into freedom and with it, trust, purpose and love it leads to a different type of energy and power.
Worldblu is one lighthouse that takes this power and transforms it into light, guiding individual leaders and organisations in the dark of command and control default management. It is a beacon, inviting workplaces to shed their internal fear and by doing so tapping into a type of energy that supports them to achieve new heights, often looking back down on their peers – and that loving your work, living and working as an empowered being, having personal autonomy and delivering great results becomes the new type of default. If you don’t know about it check out their new Freedom Centered Leader programme, specifically designed to support individuals and organizations to lead from freedom and tackle fear.
This is why I passionately support Worldblu personally and professionally (I consult for clients seeking to become Worldblu certified) and am proud that Future Considerations is a leader in this field
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