Reframing Fear

So hoping, hoping someone will take me for an event in the new year 2023. But going to an event, I've never been to an event. And so I went to TEDx Wolverhampton, which is Wolverhampton is about 90 minutes south of where I live here in the UK. And it was a great event, it was really interesting kind of being there for the whole day, as opposed to just seeing individual talks. It was a really well relevant. You know, there was a good number of people there, but it wasn't too

big. All the speakers tall speaks in all were all really amazing, inspiring, had really great personal stories that they shared. And really kind of, you know, made you think the whole purpose of Ted, the whole tagline is ideas worth spreading. And each of the speakers had a great idea that was definitely worth spreading. And the really good thing was that they had a q&a with the speakers at the end as well, which again, is something that obviously you don't get when

you're watching talks. So that was great. I had a really, really great time. And why am I telling you about this? Well, it's kind of leads into what I want to talk about in today's episode, public speaking, giving a TED talk, giving a presentation at work, whatever it may be, is something that induces fear in people, I know I have been there. And it's something that sometimes people want to do, but just don't do or it takes them a lot to really work through. And so today I want to talk

about the idea of fear. But before I do that, obviously, one of the three C's in The Triple C Project is courage. And I want to start with a definition of what courage is. And this definition is taken from Merriam Webster, you can also find it in chapter seven of my book, The Triple C Method. And courage is defined as having mental or moral strength to venture, persevere and withstand danger,

fear, or difficulty. Okay to withstand the mental or moral strength to venture persevere and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. And so, thinking of public speaking, or thinking of anything else, I want to talk about fear. And the one sort of focusing on the fear aspects of that definition when we talk

about courage. Now, we talk a lot about fear, I talk a lot about fear, the whole personal development world talks a lot about fear, and fear in different aspects, fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of other people's opinions, all of these fears that come up when we start to think about or start to initiate change, change

in our own lives. When we start to grow, when people start to see us think differently, walk differently, dressed differently, as we become more of who we are, and sort of step more into the person that we want to be. But fear well, is what we're really experiencing in those scenarios. Fear, I guess, is my question. Now, before your gun for me, and say, of course it is I really feel this and this is fear, and I'm really scared. I'm not talking about this to minimise your

feelings, your emotions. Your feelings are real, you know, we have to feel the feelings that we feel. And we have to recognise what we're feeling and not just gloss over them, as I've talked about before. But just because what we feel we think is something does it is it really that what I mean is if we what we're feeling we identify as and we think of as fear. Is it really fear? Or is it something else? So, to answer that question, we have to kind of get to well, what is fear? And again, I come

to a couple of definitions. So again, Merriam Webster, I don't know why it seems to be the the Online Dictionary of choice that I go to when I take definitions and start to break them down as I talked about in my book, but that's what I'm gonna use. So, what is fear? Fear is an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. Okay, so taking that definition, in order for there to be fear, there has to be danger. That danger can be an anticipation of danger and

awareness of danger. But there has to be danger in order for there to be fear. So, the most obvious question then is, what is danger. And again, we go to well, friend Merriam Webster. And two definitions of danger here are two aspects of danger. One, danger is involving persons involving possible injury, pain, harm, or loss, or able or likely to inflict injury or harm. So that's what danger is. So fear is an anticipation or an

awareness of danger. For that to be danger, there has to be the possibility of injury, pain or harm, or what you're going to do, the action that you're going to take has to be likely to inflict injury or harm upon you. Okay, so we've defined what fear is, and we've defined what dangerous. Now, if we look at really what fear is, if we think back to prehistoric times, let's take one of the fears, let's take fear of other people's opinions. We want to, we want to, we care what people say

about us. And that stems from these prehistoric times. Because back in the days, no way before my time and your time, we lived in tribes, and we needed to keep together to keep safe. And if people didn't like us, we could be banished from the tribe and be left to fend for ourselves in the wild. And being out alone in the world, among the elements among the wilderness among the unknown, was likely to lead to death. So that's where that

stems from. And I talked about in the book, coming back to fear, I talked about this aspect, but also talk about a more personal aspect of fear. So I talked about when I crashed my car into the central reservation on a on a motorway on a freeway. In that moment, I experienced fear. Because there wasn't awareness of danger, I crashed my car, fairly high speed. And in doing that, there was the possibility of injury, pain, harm or loss, either to me or to

somebody else. Unfortunately, there was no one else around fortunately, neither of us in the car were injured, at least not seriously. We were shaken up, but there was no injury. But what I felt in that moment, when I realised what had happened was fear. It meets that definition of fear. Now, something like sharing content on social media, recording this podcast, or standing up for yourself and having a difficult conversation with somebody. Those things may induce the same feelings that I

had when I crashed my car. Those feelings where your heart's beating really fast. The adrenaline's pumping, your palms are sweaty, you're nervous about what's going to happen next. Those feelings may be the same. But is what you're feeling in that situation in those situations. Is that really fear? When you want to make a change in your life, you want to do something different. You want to show up in a way that people haven't seen you show up before.

You want to quit your job and do something completely different. You want to start a side hustle alongside what you're doing. You want to quit drinking, you want to start going to the gym, whatever change it is that you're trying to make, you're changing how people see you. And that change can induce those feelings. What will people think what will people say? What if this doesn't work out? But again, the question is, is what you're feeling fear?

Now I say, No, it's not. Because if we go back to what are the definitions of fear, the definition of fear is anticipation or awareness of danger. And now if we go back to what danger is, including involve in possible injury, pain, harm or loss, none of those things that we've talked about sharing content, recording podcast, changing your job, going to the gym, you know, dressing differently, having a difficult conversation is going to cause it's going to put you

in danger. It's going to lead to possible injury, pain, or loss. Really, if you think about it, you can I'm sure if you really wanted to be nitpicky, you could go into well, there's degrees of harm or there's degrees of loss. We aren't doing that here. This is what happens, okay? You're not feeling that. So therefore I say that in those situations, what you're not you're not

feeling fear. So, if you're having these very real emotions, these very real physical reactions to the thing that you're going to do or about to do. And if that isn't fair, then what is it? What I say it's discomfort. That's what it is. recognise those feelings, I mean, the feelings which I also have. And I recognise that they are real. But the distinction that I'm trying to make here is that they're not fit. That's not fair. It's discomfort. So what's

the difference? What's the difference between fear and discomfort? We're going to come to that, right after this. Hey, I'm interrupting myself, to give you this short message. Now, if you're listening to this pod, you're likely looking to change your life. Here's the thing. Transformation doesn't happen by doing what you've always done. It happens when you change your thoughts about

what's possible for you. My book, The Triple C Method helps you do that by giving you the tools and strategies to stop living a life of lethargy, and start living life lit. Described as a transformational toolkit. and the book I wish I'd had when I decided to leave corporate, The Triple C Method will change how you see yourself and how you live your life. Available now as paperback, ebook and audio book, read by yours truly, head to iamryanspence.com/book, or over to your favourite bookseller to

grab your copy today. So you can stop living a life of lethargy, start living life lit! So fear, discomfort, is what you're feeling fear? Is it discomfort? How do you know? What's the difference? So imagine this, you know, I would say that discomfort is uncomfortable, but it's not life threatening, it's not going to render you seriously injured, or dead. Simple as that, that's the

simplest explanation. If you just take an example, say you're walking along the street or walking through a field, and there's a rusty nail, and you step on that rusty now that may induce fear, because stepping on a rusty male with you on your shoe could go through your shoe could go into your foot, it could cause serious damage to your foot, it could lead to tetanus in I mean, there's all of these ramifications that can happen from stepping on that rusty nail or from having that

now stuck in the bottom of your shoe. So if that happens, and you get that sharp and take a breath, and you get those feelings of that fast beating heart, the sweaty palms, the nervousness, I would say that that's that's fear, rightly, because there's a potential danger there. However, if you're walking down the street, and you know, when you're walking in, sometimes you get that annoying

little stone in your shoe. And you're trying to walk and you can kind of feel it and it's a little bit uncomfortable, and you can't really plant your foot properly. That's discomfort, you know, that stone in your shoe is uncomfortable, but it's not putting you in danger. It's not going to cause you serious harm and injury. And at some point when it's appropriate to do so you can start, take off your shoe, shake the stone out, put your shoe back on, and off you

go continue as normal. So that's what I would say is the difference. There's lots of other examples that you can you can take, but one in one scenario is potential danger. It could lead to your loss of life, it could lead to serious injury, and then another, it's just uncomfortable, a little bit annoying, a little bit frustrating, but you're not going to die from it. So how do you know if what you're experiencing is fear or discomfort. But I've kind of just said a bit about it there.

But I'm going to share with you my fear checklist. And this checklist is interesting because it actually came about when I had a hypnotherapy session, and it was there in my subconscious. It just came out. And I was like, Oh, wow, this is actually pretty good. So I'm going to

share it with you today. When you're faced with change when you're faced with taking a step towards what it is that you want, when you're faced towards doing something new, reading through this checklist, experience the things that you're feeling, and then run it through this checklist. So first question, Will this kill me? If the answer is yes, then it's fair. If the answer's no, ask yourself the next question. Will this lead to injury, pain, harm loss for me or for someone? Yes?

If the answer is yes, again, what you're experiencing is fear? If the answer is no, what you're experiencing is discomfort. So then, if you recognise that what you're experiencing is discomfort, no matter how severe the symptoms are, then you've got to ask yourself, is the discomfort worth it? Is it worth going through that discomfort, doing the thing to get to the other side, what's on the other side of that discomfort. Because when you know that, you can decide whether it's worth going

through. There's no point pushing through for the sake of pushing through because you think that you should do something. I mean, that's just, that's not even discomfort. I say that suffering. I mean, you're, you're suffering through something just because you feel I really, really must do that. You're shutting all over yourself. And I've been guilty

of that. But now when I first left the globe, when I first became a coach, in fact, and I was sort of following the coaches or the programmes, and they were saying, This is how you do this, and this is how you do that. And I was trying to kind of still force myself into following a pathway that just didn't feel right for me. And I was like, actually, no, this isn't, this isn't just

uncomfortable. It's actually because it doesn't work for me, you know, I mean, it's not worth it, it's not worth me going through this discomfort of doing things that I don't want to do, because it's just not me. So I decided not to do it. And this is the dialogue you can have with yourself, when you recognise that what you're experiencing is discomfort, is whether the discomfort is worth it. And if it is, then push through, figure out a way to keep going. And if it's not, don't do it.

And go back at the checklist, if it is fear, does it mean that you shouldn't do the thing? Well, not necessarily. Because again, you can ask yourself the same question is the fear worth it? In me is the is the potential of what could happen is the danger of what can happen worth it? And you see people do this all the time. These people go on these expeditions, climbing mountains, I mean, really gruelling Ultra races through the deserts, those sorts

of things? Which, yeah, the the possibility is that they could end up in serious injury or death, and sometimes they do. But then the question you still have to ask yourself is, but is it worth it? Is what I can potentially gain on the other side of that fear? Is it is it worth it, not to anybody else, but to you. And this comes back to identifying why you're doing the thing, or why you want the

thing. Because knowing that will then make it easy to answer the questions, whether it's in relation to the fear, or whether it's in relation to the discomfort. And, look, the thing is, if you decide that it is worth it, then it doesn't mean that you still have to suffer. Because there are ways that you can get to where you want to get to courage stacking, carrier stacking is one of the processes that I use, I shared the process of cross stacking with you in an

earlier episode. And you can also find it a bit about it in the book as well, The Triple C Method. Courage stacking is going to help you temper that discomfort so that the discomfort doesn't lead to you being overwhelmed. But you can use that discomfort to fuel you to spur you on. And it will help you get to the other side because you'll be clear on what's on the other side. And that experience and the discomfort to get to that is

worth it. So hopefully this episode has helped you think about fear a little bit differently helped you to reframe fear. And I'd like you to take this episode with you. And the next time you come up against something which is scary. I mean, where you start to feel those feelings. The adrenaline starts to rush through your body, you start to get those sweaty palms and that

nervousness, that anxiety. I want you to run that run the thing that you're thinking of doing or the thing that's inducing that through that checklist and figure out is it fear? Or is it discomfort? And whichever it is, then went through the process of is it worth it? Not for anybody else? Not because you feel that you should do it anyway. But is it worth it for you? How will pushing through that fear or that discomfort serve you what's

on the other side? What's going to help you live your life better live your life in the way that you want. Create that life that's lit once you know that, then you can start to utilise the process to make that happen. And courage stacking is a great way of doing that.

And if you haven't used the process of courage stacking because I know how many books have you read which have given you great tool Some strategies, but then you've got really inspired, but they've never actually gone on and done the work and implemented the habits and the strategies in your own life. I know I've done that many, many times. And I know people have done it with my

book. And they people who've read the book got really inspired, but they're not got the workbook not done the work, and then probably still doing the same things that they've always been doing. And look, I get it, no judgement, no shade. But I want to help with that. So this is why I will be running a new course, just for you five days. And it's called Triple C 101. Triple C 101 is basically take you through The Triple C

Method. Very simple, very straightforward, I'm going to take you through the process of how to gain clarity how to boost confidence, and how to build courage, I'm going to be running this live. So it's not going to be some passive programme that you get you buy you download, and then you never use again, I'm going to be running it live. And here's the thing, it's going to take you no more than 30 minutes a day to turn up, watch

the live. And then you can go ahead and do the work in your own time, however long that takes you, it's gonna be over the course of one week, it's gonna be five days. And the added benefit of it is that as well as me sharing the lesson with you each day live, which should only be 10 to 15 minutes, or very short. And they're gonna stick around and give you some

coaching. So if you want to be coached on anything, within that lesson, from this podcast, within the book, I'm gonna stick around and be there to coach you in the group session. And even if you're not the one being coached, you'll be able to watch that and get the benefit of that, too. So look, it's, it's a pretty, it's gonna be pretty fucking good. Okay, I'm telling

you that right now. So if this sounds like something, which is going to really help you take some of the things which you've already learned and heard about, Thanks for tuning in. But before you go, the weight of limiting but actually start to implement them, then you're going to want beliefs is heavy. It literally weighs you down and keeps you to be a part of the inaugural Triple C 101 Live. So to do stuck in that life of lethargy.

I know. It's why I stayed in that, send me an email, Hey, at iamryanspence.com, put Triple C biglaw for so long. And it's why so many of my clients don't believe they can do the things that they want to do. Or causes 101 Live in the subject line, and just say, I want in, and those limiting beliefs. It's a lack of confidence, lack of I'll send you the details. Or you can do the same on confidence in the belief that you can do the things that you Instagram, LinkedIn, wherever

you find me. Come ahead, join want to do. And I've got something for that. It's my confidence journal. It's six journal prompts that I created, the party. It's going to be great. It's going to be running that I've used to help me get from where I am to where I want some time later in October, more details to follow. And, yeah, to be, to help to give me the belief to do the things that it's going to be a lot of fun. So Triple C, 101 Live. It's seem outside of my control

outside of what I can do. If this sounds like you, you need to get your hands on the going to help you gain clarity, boost confidence and build journal. Best thing about it, it's free. All you have to do is courage. So you can live life lit! Actionable, practical, lots head to iamryanspence.com, hit the button for confidence journal, and get your copy today. It's going to help you of fun. And yeah, let's make it

happen. Let's get you moving start to reframe your thoughts and get you thinking about what forward. As we start to roll towards the end of the year. you can do instead of focusing on what you can't do. And shed Let's do the work, let's make it happen. And let's get you to that load of limiting beliefs that you don't need to be carrying. See you again next week. And until that time, stop stop living a life of lethargy.

And you know the drill, start living a life of lethargy and start living life lit! living life lit!