Ep135
===

Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about overcoming your fears. This is episode number 135, and I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I have been a family therapist, a mental health professional for over 25 years. [00:01:00] Also a coach for. Over 15 and a speaker as well. And my passion is helping people find clarity so they can ~face their biggest fears.~

~So they're inspired to ~face their biggest fears and live their legacy. I talk about stuff that. I struggle with myself, hence the topic, overcoming your fears. I still have a lot of fears. I don't have it all figured out. I'm a fellow traveler. I learn as I go. And I'm going to learn today as I talk as well.

So I have had a lot of fear in my life. And a number of these fears were formed when I was really young. Not trusting adults, Not believing the best because I had been hurt, but out of my biggest struggles come the greatest abilities to help other people. I love creating worksheets and whiteboards and resources for people.

I'm going to discuss some of these concepts today as we go through this content in the podcast. I [00:02:00] enjoy giving people tools that if they apply them, it's going to work. It's going to make a big change in their life. So I recently did something I faced a fear. I did my second tandem skydive on Saturday. I told myself all year that I was going to have another sky to get another skydive in before.

Well, when I was 50, I did one when I was 46 and it was the last day of my 50th year of life because my birthday was yesterday. So I got it in and. It was fun. It was a blast. I was afraid that I would talk myself out of it. So I didn't tell anybody. I had talked a big game with certain people, you know, who you are saying, Hey, let's go skydiving.

And then we talk about a date and everything. And then I start thinking and making up excuses. So I figured that if I didn't tell anybody that I was going to do it, I committed to doing it on Wednesday, at least I told the Skydiving Place, Air Capital Drop Zone that I wanted to sign up to skydive on Saturday.

But I didn't tell anybody except Lloyd at the very end of the day on [00:03:00] Friday when the jump was on Saturday, Saturday morning. And then one other client because I felt like that con, I felt like it was relevant to the discussion with the client. And it was awesome. It was amazing. It was cool. Next one I do, I'm not going to talk a big game yet, but I will say I'm energized by it.

And the next one I would potentially do would be solo with a static line. And that would be from about 4, 000 feet, I believe, when we jumped on Saturday from a little over 10, 000 feet. So we have these things we're afraid of in our life. You know, it can be something like heights, snakes, clowns, but usually what I see is it's social fear.

For most people, it's a fear of failure, a fear of judgment, a fear of embarrassment. A fear of looking incompetent, a fear of rejection, people pushing you away. I mean, that is scarier than most of these phobia type fears that are pretty rational. Jumping out of an airplane with a parachute on is not really.

That's a pretty rational fear. It's not just out of the ordinary to be [00:04:00] afraid of that. I mean, come on, but we have all these things in our lives that we can be afraid of that really don't have as much danger involved.

Casually in our lives, like driving at times, especially after 1pm when there might be a lot of drunk drivers out on the road in a big city, but we do those things without even necessarily thinking about the danger involved. So I want to share, and I do share something uncomfortable that I've done recently in every episode.

I've already done it, which was to go skydiving. So On Saturday, but the reason I share something and want to, it's because I want to challenge you to do the same. When we play it safe in life, that's going to damage our lives. We don't want to be people that play it safe. That's my definition of an old person versus a young person and an old person Plays it safe.

They don't do anything new. They stay comfortable. It may appear to outsiders like they're doing some risky things, but they're doing things in the area of competency. They're not being stretched to grow. Young people are consistently wanting to grow. It has nothing to do with age. You can be 80 years old and be a young person.

So what this is a podcast that you do, [00:05:00] you don't just listen to it. So that means you get to take an action and you get to start thinking about taking an action as well to face a fear in your life. So for the first action for you to take today is what is something that is a big fear for you? And it may be skydiving and it may be snakes and it may be something that's very specific, a phobia, but For most of you, it's going to be something socially.

You don't want to be embarrassed and you're afraid to put yourself out there when you could fail or you might not be good enough, or you may make some mistakes, you could do something where you get rejected or embarrassed. So what is that thing? I want you to write it down, write it down somewhere today, write it on a piece of paper.

Type it into your phone. Be committed. Some way of having some clarity. I'm afraid to talk to my boss assertively. I'm afraid to ask for help. I'm afraid to address a concern that is bothering me with my wife or my husband or my kids. I'm afraid. So there's four facts about fear that motivate me [00:06:00] to step into my fears.

And to do something that is uncomfortable, which I have something else that's uncomfortable tomorrow because in the morning I have blocked out a significant chunk of time to reach out to clients and to generate more opportunity, to uncover more opportunity in my business. Processes in opportunities that I have in the business.

So to reach out, you know, that's, that's, it's scaring me even just thinking about it right now. But when I recognize that there's these four facts about fear, and one is that everyone living with courage is going to experience fear. Everybody that's growing is going to experience fear. And that confidence number two is that confidence comes after I faced my fear.

So me not feeling it when I first am ready and committing to stepping into something that I'm afraid of. Isn't a surprise. I wasn't really confident as we flew up in that little Cessna 182. I was comfortable enough to do it, but I had to talk myself out of the fear consistently by focusing on the adventure and the journey and the other [00:07:00] guy who was doing a tandem skydive with me, which I didn't know his name's Elijah and he was going, he's 23 and he was doing his first.

It was awesome. So we're bonded for life, right? I bet. So number three is that habitually facing my fears will always improve my life. That's the third fact about fear. And number four is that courage today is much less frightening than living with regret tomorrow. So we, we don't get second chances in the years of our life.

If you start that business 10 years from now, well, and your age, You know, 35, well, you're starting the business at age 45 and maybe that's okay. I mean, I'm sure it is okay. It's better to starting at age than starting at age 55, but you start now.

Courage today is less frightening than living with regret down the road. I love To think about those things to motivate me to realize I'm not alone. I can do this. I can get out there and those, whatever that next fearful thing is, then I can go out and do it.

It's so important to have a big vision. When you go through things, it'll propel you through the fear. Really, really crucial. So, so [00:08:00] some, some truths that motivate me to not play it safe. I want to talk to you. About the damages of not facing your fears. So we're, the name of the podcast is, is overcoming your, your fears, right?

So overcoming your fears when you realize how damaging it is to not work on your fears, it's going to motivate you. So number one thing to think about here is the missed opportunities that you have. You have a chance now to start that big thing. It'll be 10 years later if you wait 10 years, you know?

So now is the time to start. Now is the time to push forward. Don't wait. If you listen to your fears, you're listening to lies, things that are taking away opportunities from you. Avoidance causes you to miss opportunities. It's the primary, it's one of the primary reactions to thoughts that are fearful.

We avoid those situations that are triggering. We get angry at other people rather than facing the situations. We blame and live in drama rather than facing the actual situations at hand. [00:09:00] You miss out on the positives. You waste so much time. It keeps you small. It keeps you from even being willing to create that bigger vision because you are focusing on the fear, the obstacle, what could go wrong.

So you don't live life. That's the main point is you don't actually live life. You live life when you experience life, when you have those opportunities, when you have those memories that are being made, when you're doing those things that are scary. That's when you're living life. All the time that I've wasted in my life by getting stuck in my head, thinking about things that could go wrong, thinking about what other people thought about me, thinking about the failures that I could have, thinking about the stuff that could hold me back rather than what could propel me forward.

And even right now, as I think about making calls tomorrow morning, I can get stuck on wanting it to be perfect. My sales talk, you know, my way of expressing to other people in business is how we can help them. Rather than just letting go of that and being [00:10:00] curious, trying to understand their problems.

I love what I do. I love the fact that I have solutions. I love the fact that I get to help people open up. You know, just last week, I got to see some really cool transformations in the lives of clients where they were talking about things. For the first time in some situations, the first time in many years that we're holding them back, lies that they were believing, emotional things where they got to be honest with themselves.

And I could see the stress leaving their bodies as they were getting clarity on their life and on their business and on the opportunities ahead. So cool. I mean, I'll ask clients at times how much time they spend worrying in a typical week, and if they're honest about it, it can be an upwards of 15 hours a week that they could save if they stop worrying about those things that were bothering them, whether it's that conversation at work, or the conversation with their spouse or their kids, or facing some health challenge, or going to the doctor.

So to work on this, if you really want to make a difference. And let this sink in that [00:11:00] you are missing tremendous opportunities to live life because you're succumbing to fear and listening to fear. Well, just make a commitment to do something that you know is right. You know, I made the commitment once I decided to tell Lloyd, who obviously works for Decide Your Legacy, that was the big moment for me, where at that point I had told one person that I was committed to going, that I had planned on going skydiving in the morning.

And that was when. I knew I was going to do it. And the fear actually started to decrease. I was very irritable all day. That's why I actually told him because he could tell, he could tell that I was focusing on something outside of the work challenges that we were dealing with.

There was something that was weighing on me I had scheduled a dive, you know, and so I told him, I said, this is what's going on. I'm fearful, I'm struggling. And then he listened to me and we talked. And at that point though, I knew I could do it.

It was like the fear decreased because I was admitting that I had it. So we don't want to miss opportunities. The second truth that's crucial is that. This fear that you [00:12:00] have is hijacking your brain. It's robbing your brain from all the good stuff in life. That it's like a terrorist taking over a plane.

Your brain is the plane. It's going to crash the plane. When we let fear on the plane, we have the option to not. We have the option to focus on things that that are not fear driven, but we choose not to for some reason. I mean, it's like we're more comfortable living in that fear than we are living in freedom.

When I'm focused on fear, I can become angry because that's safer than being scared. I can get stuck in this cycle of worry and it escalates and it decreases my ability to be creative, it decreases my ability to build friendships, to be social, to have fun, to laugh.

I lose my sense of humor. All the good stuff in my life just goes away as this hijacking happens because when my brain is hijacked by fear and I'm letting it. I'm choosing to let it, then it becomes useless. It's a tool to help me solve problems, but it's no good. It's only [00:13:00] good for really three things, running and fleeing from that situation, avoidance that is, fighting whatever it seems threatening, and then freezing up and doing nothing.

I mean, that's it. That's what happens. And that's what the science shows us. We are no good at that point right there. We lose all the good stuff in our lives. Our ability to, to, to be, to solve problems. I mean, we're more negative, we're, we're feel threatened by things. We get defensive in relationships. I'm basically miserable in those situations.

I've shared that I've been divorced for almost seven years. And I've been on a lot of different dates. I've been on a lot of first dates. Let's say not a lot of second dates. I've been on a few second dates, not a lot, you know, and I'm laughing at myself and I know a lot of it's my own issue.

I'm not blaming other people here, but I'm just telling you, I've had a lot of dates and I've had situations where I've liked Gals. I mean, it's not like I haven't liked any of them. I have. And I, what happens to me is when I really start to be attracted to somebody in whatever way, you know, personality, [00:14:00] physical attraction, all that, you know, we kind of jive and connect.

Then I start getting anxious because that's when the hijacking comes over and I want to, I want them to like me at that point. So I monitor and watch what I say at a much higher level. I watch how I look at a much higher level. I don't let my sense of humor come out because I'm letting fear take over the fear of losing that relationship.

I mean, that's because I have an attraction to them. So that's a little hint to people out there that I get anxious when I'm attracted to somebody, but when I'm not, which I've worked on this. So I think I've gotten a lot, I've come a long way in this process, but I will tell you that when I'm not as, focused on them liking me than I'm myself.

So when I'm less, and I can still be, like I said, I'm working on it here so I can still be attracted to people and then be myself and be relaxed. But that temptation to be to impress somebody, it increases significantly when I'm succumbing to fear and listening to fear. I can just let go of it.

So the best times I can have is when I'd let go of that [00:15:00] fear. I just enjoy the other person. I am myself. I'm funny. I laugh at their jokes. They laugh at mine. We have a good time. The conversation flows, but I'm not overthinking it. I'm not stuck in my head. I'm thinking about myself less. My anxiety decreases when I think about myself less.

And I just am myself. And that's what you can do. And so if you want to work on this, put yourself in situations where you're exposing yourself to the fear and you're proving to yourself that you can walk through the fear to the other side. I had a client not long ago who he is single and was struggling with anxiety.

Would like to get married at some point. Very successful guy, professionally. I'm not his dating coach. No, but I'm helping him in his personal and professional life. He's investing in coaching and he's doing some really cool, amazing stuff. So recently we talked about how he could expose himself to more of these anxiety provoking situations.

So dating for him [00:16:00] He has some insecurity. He doesn't want to get hurt. He's had some hurt in the past. So I talked to him. He doesn't live in this city, but he lives in a much bigger city than where I live. But I talked to him about doing some things like speed dating and they have different forms of speed dating.

They have some that are. Ultra speed dating, like two minute conversations. Some that have ample time to actually get to know somebody, maybe 10, 15 minutes. But just the thought of that was terrifying to him. And then I said, there's one caveat. If you do this, I don't know if we'll actually do it, but the one caveat was, and I've talked to a number of clients who are single about this.

I think it's a great opportunity. It's a great action to take. Even in business as well. Like if you want to get better at sales, well do some networking. There's speed networking events where you can meet lots of people quickly. But the speed dating event, you know, the thing I told him is said, do not plan to make a romantic connection in this environment.

In fact, go into it, not expecting that to happen. Go into it thinking it's not going to happen. Even that's better than expecting it to happen. That sounds contradictory to what I encourage people [00:17:00] to do. But the reason that I do that is because then you learn to let your guard down and learn from the experience.

Then you're going to be yourself because you don't have this expectation that I'm going to meet Mr. Or Mrs. Right in this speed dating situation. Now people have, I'm not saying it's not possible. It absolutely is. Possible. Who knows? I thought maybe I'd somebody skydiving this last weekend. Who knows? It didn't happen. I met a really cool 23 year old guy named Elijah who I hope I really stay in touch with, so I would just challenge you to do things where you're overwhelming your central nervous system.

It's like on overload. So you're getting a stronger central nervous system. That's what happens when somebody does speed dating. They start getting a stronger central nervous system because they're having a lot of fear push up against it. They don't have time to freeze up, they don't have time to run, they don't have time to get all negative about it, they don't have time to even overanalyze the situation, the situation, because they're having so many different conversations.

Sure they can do that later, but they're fighting now. That hijacker [00:18:00] keeping that hijacker from taking over their brain and crashing the plane. So you got to check something out here. Shatterproof yourself is live. You can purchase this course, seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health. One of the sections, section five is on Owning your emotion.

It's on emotional health and you get to dig deep into effacing your fears. There's worksheets and whiteboards that explain concepts that I've been using with clients for 25 years. This is the stuff that works. I've whittled it down. I give you the best content and it's always being refined. So you're getting in right at the beginning.

It's a brand new course. Check it out. Hit the link to purchase. Shatterproof yourself. Seven steps. to a giant leap in your mental health. So the third motivating fact when it comes to overpowering your fears is to realize and recognize that it is significantly damaging to your [00:19:00] relationships when you give into fear.

Because fear, again, it makes you fight. So who wants to be fighting and in drama all the time? It makes you run from dealing with conflict, from dealing with connection, from intimacy. And it makes you freeze up, like I do when I'm attracted to some hot person on a date. Alright? I freeze up like a possum.

So, not anymore. Or I did. Ha! At least that's what I'm telling myself. Okay. So, that's not good for relationships. We don't want to distance. We don't want to not deal with the core issues in a relationship. We don't want to take almost everything personally and lose our sense of humor and our creativity and our fun and our romantic side and have fun and be goofy and enjoy.

That's, enjoy the whole situation. That's what we want when we're dating. We want to have that stuff. We want to be spontaneous. We want to go do crazy stuff. Like one lady, she thought I was going to take her skydiving on, it wasn't our first date, definitely. But, nope, I wasn't going [00:20:00] to do that on the first, on that date.

I don't know if I'd actually do that and surprise somebody skydiving. I tried to do that to my dad. It did not go well. He did not jump nor did I. But if you live in your head, you're dead. Live in your head. You're stuck. You're not going to let go. You're going to be in a bad spot.

You bond with people when you don't give in to fear and you let go of it and you push it aside. On the plane ride up with Elijah to do our tandem jump, he had never jumped before, and then there were two instructors in there that had thousands of jumps in between them, and a pilot and myself who had one jump, okay, previous jump, but we talked on the way up and instead of being anxious, we just talked.

Talked about all kinds of stuff, where he went to church, what is his job? We talked about, you know, the adventure, the amazing stuff that we were going through and going to do right now. And that 10 minute ride up or 12 minute ride up wasn't nearly as anxiety provoking, hopefully not for him, but I know it wasn't for me because I was not stuck in my head the whole time worrying about when [00:21:00] we were going to get there and when we were going to jump and all the sounds on the plane.

And if The shoot was going to come out and all these things that would have been horrible for the whole experience. I was just trying to focus on having a conversation with Elijah and it was a good conversation. It connects you with people when you connect with them and you don't think about the fear.

Because how can you build relationships when you're thinking about yourself all the time? When you're not thinking about yourself and you're letting go in those interactions, then you have a chance to build a healthy connection. One of the biggest problems people have in relationships is they think about themselves so much.

They're stuck. That's the ego saying, let's stay safe. And then outside the ego is ourself. Our self is more powerful than the ego. The ego is just one part of our self, that part that's trying to keep us safe. That big self, it's like a big circle surrounding a small circle, that big circle can overpower that and we start living life because it's out of our self, our true self.

Now that's, that's a cool place to be right there. So the challenge I'd have for you with this is to have a [00:22:00] vision, as I have even talking right now, like I have a vision for meeting somebody special, getting remarried. Having this cool stuff in the future with a new wife. And that's it.

That's all my mind. I mean, that motivates me to be a better person today, to make hard decisions, not going by short term impulses, but to be the kind of guy that I can feel good going into another marriage. I mean, to feel like I'm a standup guy, not making decisions to compromise.

And, you know, I like the person that I am. I like the decisions. I don't make perfect decisions, but I've made some hard decisions and I want to continue to make hard decisions to stay healthy. And that I have my sense of just my sense of self as I go into other relationships and then I can be myself and have those healthy dynamics there.

So it's going to hurt relationships if you give into fear and relationships are such an amazing part of life. I was talking to a coaching client last week. He was telling me. That one of the coolest things he's learned over the last few years is how [00:23:00] significant relationships are in his life now and how in the past he didn't recognize how significant they are.

And it's opened up this whole new world for him and excitement to him in his life, building relationships and connections. And there's this joy that comes out of him. He doesn't always see it, but I see it when he realizes all the opportunities that are ahead because the relational part of his life is getting healthier.

Very exciting and crucial. So to review big facts about not facing your fears, damaging stuff. So you got missed opportunities. You don't live life. Number two is it hurts because your brain gets hijacked and that damages just life in general. You're not creative. You don't enjoy people the same, not a good thing.

And then it hurts relationships. So I just challenge you now. To purchase Shatterproof Yourself, Seven Small Steps to a Giant Leap in Mental, in your Mental Health. [00:24:00] It's never going to be at this low of a price. Again, you're getting in on the ground floor. This is the fifth section is on, and the fourth section is on mindset.

The fifth section is on your emotions. You're going to deal with fear in both of those sections. And section one is on vision. Step one is on vision. That's a huge part of fear and dealing with fear as well. That's going to propel you through your fears. Worksheets, whiteboards, content that's going to be very impactful as you go through it, check it out, hit the link to shatterproof yourself, seven small steps to a giant leap in your mental health.

As a reminder, in closing, 20 percent of transformational change is insight. You've gained insight today in this podcast. 80 percent is action, putting your feet. On the ground, moving forward, taking a step forward. What step are you going to take? An okay plan that you act on is a hundred times better than a great [00:25:00] plan that you do nothing with.

What resonated with you most today? By the end of the day to day, apply something, act on something that you learned. If you really want it to stick, teach it to somebody else. I'm going to sign off today the way that I always do, make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone.

You decide your legacy, no one else. I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time.