So it's the NFL football season. John Madden coached the Los

Angeles. Well, actually the Oakland Raiders for a period of time.

Something fascinating about John Madden. He won. Well, one. I mean, he

won. He won a Super bowl in 1977. They beat the Vikings. But he would

not fly on an airplane. No. And he

ended up having this van that he would go to all the

games. He was a famous announcer for a long period of time. He. One of

the best. I mean, lots. Everybody knows John Madden. I mean, you know him because

of the video games. And also he was great coach.

Great. He was actually a player. But why did he not fly?

He, he was on a really bad flight

and he, he felt isolated and he just

decided that after that bad flight in 1979, which

he. That was after he stopped coaching. He quit as a coach in

1978. He. He decided he'd never fly again. Just determined to never

fly again. And now there's a lot of things that

aren't great in your life when you don't face your fears.

We're going to talk about that today in this episode of the Decide youe Legacy

podcast. Courage Over Comfort. Growing a pair.

Yes. I'm going to tell you why I'm calling it that later on

when we do coaching with businesses, we get to see fears come out.

Now, people have fears that may seem irrational to us,

yet they're very rational to them. Somebody can be afraid of giving a performance

evaluation, being open with other people, having a

conversation, even giving feedback, having an awkward

conversation, you know, one that you don't feel like you're totally prepared for. Letting go

of perfectionism. Going to your high school reunion can be a fear.

There's a fear of flying that people can have fear of public speaking. Those are

some of the common ones. Today in this episode,

I'm going to share with you a therapy

called Exposure Therapy that has very good empirical evidence that helps. It

helps people. And I'm excited about this episode. One reason I'm

excited is this is a fun topic where people can get results right

away if they start creating a plan to do some things, to face stuff in

your life. And leaders have to face things in order to grow. There's no way

actually of doing it, of growing, unless you're going to face something. The moment you

recognize something is triggering you, there's a fear there, gives you great evidence.

So. And as you go in this episode, I'd really, if you find it helpful

at the very end, listen all the way through. You're going to find some really

Helpful tools. That's my guarantee to you if you listen all the way through. Now,

we've had some kind of cool breakthroughs recently. We had almost

2500 downloads last month, the best month ever of the podcast,

2470 to be exact. And at the end of the episode,

give us a rating and review, Share it with a friend, spread the word

so it continues to grow and help more people. That's what happens when you give

it a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. Other people pick it up. It

comes up naturally in the feeds, and that's happening right now. It's getting momentum

and I need your help because you guys listening most likely in the next week

or two, are faithful followers who are already engaged,

already find it valuable. That's gonna help it more, reach more people.

And to start, there is a lot of crap in the

therapy world. You know, I've been a licensed mental health professional for over 25

years, and I've seen, I see good stuff

and I see a lot of crap as well. I see stuff where it isolates

people from. It, divides families. So, for example, I was a

speaker at an event not too long ago,

and one of the people that was at the event, it was all mental health

practitioners, so they were psychiatrists, psychiatric ARNPs,

nurse practitioners, therapists, psychologists, a big group of people, you know, and I

was, I was a speaker. And afterwards there was a

discussion, we had small breakout group discussions, and a person

shared how they were not going to

share with parents some really significant, important information

that the child had shared with them as the therapist. And

it just rubbed me really the wrong way. And then they were defensive about it,

you know, so. And there's this elitist mentality, like we know better than

a family. So I'm all about the family. I mean, the family is the unit

that is the foundation of society. We need to

build other people up, we need to build marriages up, we need to build parent

child relationships up. There's a lot of brokenness there. There's way too much fatherlessness,

there's way too much divorce. I mean, these are big problems. So. But today,

I pretty much believe none of you are going to disagree with the

usefulness of this specific type of therapy, this

modality called exposure therapy. And exposure therapy, it

gradually exposes a person to a fearful stimuli

in a safe and controlled environment. Now, it doesn't mean you're going to engage in.

It doesn't mean you're going to want to do this. It doesn't mean it's going

to be fun, but it's going to be practical enough that you can walk away

and say, as a leader, I can, I can take action. That's going to help

me grow. Right. And today's episode, I have a guest.

His name is Sherman Orr and he's been on a couple other episodes. I think

you're going to find him extremely helpful and insightful. He's a legacy coach. At Decide

Decide your legacy, an insightful leader is going to share his life experiences as well.

And I'm Adam Gragg. I'm a family therapist and I'm a legacy

coach. So I founded Decide youe Legacy in 2012. At Decide youe

Legacy, we help businesses and leaders live courageously. So this

goes right hand in hand with it. So anybody listening that's been a

client, heard us speak in past, gone through one of our online courses like

Shatterproof or Tune it for Life, you already know this stuff. It's gonna be a

refresher, but you're gonna find it very fun and helpful today as well.

With the illustrations. I have real client illustrations I'm gonna share. And by

the end, as you go through this content, you're going to be

thinking of an area of your life where there's a fear

as a leader that you're probably not facing and create a plan. You're going to

get to devise a plan. As I share plans as examples of what we

would give a client to engage in to face the fear that they

have every episode. I like to share something that I have am

struggling with that I took at least a small little step or didn't

take a small little step. So both Sherman and I are going to share something.

And what comes up for Sherman is. I'm just kidding.

What comes up for me is the reason we want to share a fear

we've faced or tried to face, maybe it didn't go well. Is that I don't

find much more important to your mental health than being willing to step into those

scary things. And much more damaging than avoiding, avoiding and getting no

new evidence, not seeing that I can actually approach something differently and have success.

So when I am an anxiety triggering

social situation, sometimes I'm having a conversation and something will

remind me of a bad experience. So I had,

I can have a. I and I did, you know, I had an experience

where I, I saw,

I had, I was exposed to a triggering

situation. It was not, it was not. It was like

sometimes, sometimes people can remind me of somebody else. So I.

It's kind of, kind of weird. But if. If I can recognize it in the

moment. So there was. There was a situation that triggered me based

on interactions that I've had with my mom that had been discouraging and another

situation that wasn't with my mom, and I love my mom, but it triggered me

in a certain way, and I was. I was able to not run from it

and actually engage it. And I have to go into a lot of detail to

explain, but. But I was able to recognize the fact that this wasn't the situation

I was in. It was just reminding me of a situation in the past,

and that led me to feeling encouraged

afterwards because I stuck with it. Yeah. So actually, I

think back to incident that occurred to me when I

was very young. And of course, in grade school, there's

folks who are bullies and whatnot. And I remember being held

by a bunch of guys over the

stairwell into a deep, dark hole,

and I. It's just scared to live in daylights out of me.

And from that day forward, I have been afraid of heights.

Okay. And so I've just made a commitment that

I am going to try to overcome it. I still remember, oh, many

days ago, many years ago, I went to Paris, and I went to the top

of the Eiffel Tower, and it was just glorious seeing all of Paris, France.

And as I started walking closer to the edge,

my feet stopped moving. I. I don't think I got close, and there's a

nice fence around it, but I probably couldn't get closer

than four feet to that fence. And I was like, this is good

enough. All right? And it stuck with me my whole

life. I'm still there. I do take some

attempts. So that was why the invitation to go skydiving is.

Is not as exciting to you? No. Well, you know, it's partially related

to this fear of. Yeah, it's. It's. I get you. Yeah. I.

I've done some other things that. Okay. But so we.

We've been talking about doing a staff and client skydive

day for a while, and I've challenged Sherman to. To

do it, and if he doesn't at least go out and cheer us on. And

then maybe he would do it at another point, but maybe not. It's fine if

you don't. It's fine if no one has to do anything like that, of course.

But if that's actually a good example that we can discuss

today, how I would devise a plan for somebody that said, you know, I really

want to skydive, but I'm terrified of It. Or how I would devise a

plan for somebody. How we would devise a plan for someone with a fear of

flying. So we'll give you some examples of that. So my struggle here is

that my mind goes to mush when I'm triggered by certain fears in my life.

They generally are relational, related to embarrassment or rejection, and. And I can't

think straight. It goes fight, flight, freeze mode. I freeze a lot of times.

I don't have anything to say. I lose my creativity. And there's a real, real

science to that because when you're in danger, you don't need to be creative. You

need to be protective because you have legitimate danger. Your brain is very efficient.

It's. It conserves energy. You know, blood flow goes

to the. When you're in a fight, flight or freeze mode,

it goes to. Away from. It goes to the extremities where you can fight, you

know, and it goes away from internal organs. Believe it or not, your breathing actually

increases. There's certain biological. Certain things that happen when you're afraid

that are. That are predictable, really. So breathing deeply is a

great practice because it goes. It's the opposite of having a

fight, flight or freeze response. And so.

Got any stories about your struggles here? More? Yeah, actually.

So I'm. I sometimes I'm a jokester with people in

very, very subtle ways. And so one time, one of the

schools I was at, the kids kept bringing it in

wolf spiders. Just about this time of year, wolf spiders are

everywhere, and they are trying to find some place to live.

Well, they would capture them, put them in a terrarium, and then they would

die within a week. So I thought to be nice to these poor

kids, I'd go buy them a tarantula.

And so I went to the pet store and I walked in and said, I

want to buy a tarantula. And she said, okay, sure,

it's $20. And just out of the blue, I just said, well,

you know, how do I know if it's a male or female? And she

said, looked me bold in the face and said, well, if it lives

for a year, it's a male. If it lives for 20

years, it's a female. Mr.

Fuzzy has been alive for the last seven years now. All right?

So I'm also, as most people, terrified

of spiders, especially big spiders

like the rose tarantula I bought. And the

teacher, though, to get back at me, said, well, since we know it's a

female, you are the one who gets to clean out the cage.

So it was my job to clean out the terrarium. So

I was like, oh my gosh, I have to capture the spider, put it in

another terrarium, clean it out and then

let her back out again without her

biting me. And I,

it took me probably a month to get to a

point where I could put her in another container, take her

out and then clean out the cage. Are

you less afraid of doing cleaning the cage now than you were when you first

tried? Oh yeah. I did it every year for the next seven years. So you've

done it multiple times since then? Got better and better at it. Yeah.

So. So three principles on

that relate to exposure therapy. So basically three principles for you as a

leader that if you're going to face something, you're afraid to give performance review.

That's a real situation like that I had to deal with, with the leader recently.

Or you're afraid to have a meeting and run it because you think

it's going to just kind of go haywire. People are going to just, you know,

or you're, you're, you're fearful of having a conversation with your

sibling that is calm because you believe that you're going to

blow up or you're going to shut down, you're going to have that fight flight

or freeze. So you today as you're listening to this, identify something

as a leader that you're putting off, you're holding off on, you're not facing. And

as we go through this content and these three big principles

and you're going to unpack it yourself and create an action plan as we go.

So first principle is you take baby steps. One of the

reasons people are terrified about some

phobia in their life is because they are going all

or nothing. They're going from A to Z. So they're thinking if they're

afraid of spiders that in their mind, if they were honest with themselves, they're

picturing themselves getting bit by a spider or actually being in a room

covered in spiders or being involved being locked

in a closet with spiders. You know, it's with, with a million spiders.

I mean it's this extreme right type

perspective that causes the fear. And we find

ways to help people break it down into manageable

steps that will incrementally these baby steps incrementally

expose them to this specific fear. For example,

somebody's afraid of public speaking, another common fear. Yet they want to

excel in their career and they realize which this is really true that public

speaking is often a very valuable

necessary leadership skill. You have to

have it as a leader. Especially in today's world, you have to. Have it as

a leader. And you will never be. You will. You will

never be replaced. I mean, it's. It's a very. It's a

valuable skill that can never be replaced by, I don't believe by AI in any

way. Because if you speak, you're connecting like a

good book is connecting with somebody. It's a great art. If it's not

created by the human soul involved, then it doesn't connect people. That's

what art does. Art. Art connects people as they engage it. It

breaks down barriers. We can all admire it or not admire it, but

we can still appreciate it together. So you'll be never. You'll never be

replaced because you can speak from the heart and, and you're. You're touching

as you do something courageous. AI could never replace that because

we. It's a. It's an internal. It's like an aspiration. We,

we can't replace certain human characteristics that involve connection.

So what I would do with someone, public speaking, for example, is we would break

it down into 10 steps. We'd say. We'd say,

okay, well, what is on a scale 1 to 10?

A 10? 1 is. 1 is very little fear or a very

marginal amount of fear. And 10 is just absolute terror. You know, I could never

even even think about doing that. So with public speaking, it could be, you know,

speak to 5,000 people for an hour

on a topic that I'm not. You're not even really passionate about. I mean, that'd

be. Hopefully you would never do that as a speaker, and you probably never would,

because why would you speak on something not passionate about? But I mean, it could

be this terrifying thing. But now what would be a one? Well, it could be

just reading an article on public speaking skills

and 10 tips, although that might not terrify you. For somebody that

wants to move towards being a better speaker, that could actually be scary

for them. And then we, as. We don't judge them on that. We want to

make sure that we're creating a plan that they can look at and say, yeah,

that's pretty scary, but it's not that. Public speaking to 5,000 people.

And so step two could be watching a TED Talk and then actually

taking notes on what is this speaker doing that seems

to be helpful and engaging to the audience. So listening with

intentionality for the purpose of growing as a

speaker. Step three could be writing down a list of illustrations

from your own life that could be helpful

events to somebody else and connect information to

other People. Step four could be make a list of life

experiences that are kind of embarrassing that you wouldn't want to share necessarily, but could

be helpful. And then you create this plan. I mean, it could go to

the point where you volunteer to speak to your

team on a topic that relates to the team

that you're passionate about. Yeah, you're passionate about, and then you go from there.

So I'm putting you on the spot, Sherman, but what would you

devise as a plan if someone came to you as their coach and said, you

know what I want? I've wanted to do it since I was a kid, but

I'm terrified of heights. I was on a bad, turbulent flight like John Madden, and

I don't ever want to be on a flight again, but I want to skydive

before I die. And. And they're. They're 65 years old and they have.

And they have a health issue that is threatening

their life, but they want to do it before they die. So what steps would

you tell them incrementally to take? I would. First off,

with your first rule here, our first principle is what baby

steps do we need to take? So maybe the first baby step

is getting

him to an airplane, walk around an airplane, go to

an airport, look at things, check things out.

Then maybe the next step, watch some videos on people that are doing

some parachuting, see how much fun they're having,

engage those kind of things, and just slow steps. And I would really

coach that person to say, what do you think the next step would

be? That would really get you there. That might be another help.

And. And I know that, like, oftentimes when they do parachute

jumps, they'll train you on a ladder first.

And so, okay, let's get up to the top of the ladder and we're going

to jump into a pit, whatever it happens to be, and

keep working. Incremental, incremental steps, baby steps

that you are taking. Little wins that you can grasp.

And you would be surprised how much this

already happens in people's lives, yet they have not identified it as

exposure therapy. A good example is, is parents

whose kids are afraid to eat certain foods because they look

strange or because they were told they were gross.

Or a parent who has a child that's afraid of a dog.

Oh, yeah, because they went to school. Maybe some kids were talking about

dogs being bad. Or maybe they have a parent because our parents do

inheritance, environmentally inherit. I would say they

inherit our fears. So we have to be careful because if we're really negative as

parents about tomatoes. You know, there's a good chance that. Because you

have this tomato phobia, which. I have a very good friend named Donovan who has

a tomato phobia. He really does. And. And I. I tease him

about it, but he literally. Because he had a bad experience with tomatoes. And anyway,

let's not go there. It is funny. And he may be

listening because he. I'll have to tell him. But. But yeah, you. You start to

develop a plan. And if somebody. I'll give you another example here. So somebody's

afraid of being open with other people

because as a child, let's say they. They were open about their

struggles and they were invalidated. You know, get over it. Don't be a wuss. Like,

get over it. And. Or their siblings did that, or they were teased and made

fun of. Like, maybe you were. They were hit. They hit. They held you over

a high space, right. Threatened you and

they thought it was fun. And some kids would just bounce back from something like

that. But other kids, depending on the situation and how

trapped they felt and their maturity level could be

scarred by it. So. And you were impacted by it.

And so let's say it's. They want to be more vulnerable. And I

talked to a client just even today about this. So what steps would we take?

Interestingly enough, things can be

with this whole. I mean, vulnerable is probably not a great word. I would

say available. How can you be available to other people? Be open. Be open to

other people because they're afraid to be open. Why? Because they've been hurt in the

past. So what? Step one could be just,

you know, and I did this today, actually, it was interesting because step one can

be to apologize. And that really not a huge deal, but it

could be just to apologize. Step two can be to

say no to somebody when they are pushing you to do something with them. And

you don't want to like, hey, let's go out to lunch. And you're like, no,

I'm going to stay. I want to eat my own lunch. I made lunch, and

I'm going to stay. And they are afraid of doing that. That's being open with

somebody. Step two, I mean, three can be to tell somebody that

they did something really good, you really appreciated their help. And you may not think

that is vulnerable as a listener right now, but that can be vulnerable to somebody

else. So don't judge. I mean, things that are open can be very different.

Step four could be do something intentionally embarrassing. I mean, legally

intentionally embarrassing. You know, so you're intentionally

going up to somebody in a coffee shop and saying, hey, what do you read?

They're reading a book. And you're like, hey, what are you reading and how is

it? And you know when you do that, that automatically you can already predict

that you're going to feel very much embarrassed by doing that because

you know you've done something before and it just is terrifying to you. But you

go ahead and do it. That's really cool thing. And then step five could simply

be do the opposite of how you're feeling in a situation socially. So you feel

like going and you know, hanging out at the. It's

a corporate event and it's a networking event and you feel like being the

guy who goes and talks to his coworkers. You feel like. Cause you're, you're safe

with them, but you do the opposite, which would be not talk to your coworkers

and talk to somebody else. Right. So you just go. If you're bothered by

something, that's a really great thing for you to do is if you recognize that

you're bothered by something, you should ask yourself,

first of all, you know what's really bothering me about this? Because

there's something about the situation that's bothering me about this. And then what would

I do here if I wasn't bothered? And then be honest with yourself enough to

say that I would do this and this. And then that's very different than what

you normally would actually do. So you do the opposite of what you would do

when you're bothered. So you as the listener, think about ways you could start

devising a step up plan.

Starting with the lowest hanging fruit, the least terrifying

actions, the ones that are still scary, and then going to the one that actually

is the result that you're looking for. So ultimately you had a fear of flying.

We'd get on a plane and fly to Denver, you know, and I've done that.

I seriously have done that with clients in the past. So done things

and I love that part of my job is we get to go and do

the scary things that they're so go. They're afraid of public speaking, you know, so

I, I will go. We will go and actually participate and be there

to help them out, make super cool fun stuff. Like it's one of the things

I love about coach and the whole it's like the actionable

let's go out and do it kind of stuff. So the second key

principle is ignore your feelings. That's going to sound contradictory.

Yes, I am a therapist and I'm telling you to ignore your feelings. Now, I'm

not telling you to ignore your feelings in all situations. I'm telling you to ignore

your feelings in situations that are highly triggering

to the extent that they're dictating what your behavior is going to be.

Ignoring does not mean acknowledging. Ignoring does not mean being

aware. Ignoring does not mean saying something

is real or not your feelings are real. They're just not reality.

Right. In that specific situation. So when my mom, at one

point, my. Believe it or not, like, yeah, I had this happen, so my mom

told me to grow a pair. She did.

And she did it. And I was. It was exactly what I needed to hear

from my mom. Thanks, mom. She told me to grow a pair. And I was

struggling emotionally and I was struggling with

challenges related to my divorce situation. And I was just

at my wit's end and it was like, you know, hey, you. You

got to deal with it. You got to face things. You can handle it. We

believe in you, we love you, that kind of thing. And I got not.

I have. I just said, you got it. You got to step up. You got

to step up. Yeah. It doesn't, it doesn't invalidate the feelings. The feelings

are there. Yeah. But you can't be steeped in those

feelings. Don't just sit there in that feeling because

you're not going to take that first or the second or the third baby step.

Absolutely. You're going to go ahead and do it anyway. You're going to feel the

fear and you're going to step into it. You're going to do it anyway, and

you're going to realize that as you do it, which is this. Facing things

incrementally. That's when you get the evidence to realize you can handle more and more

and more and you'll be energized by it. I mean, I promise you that. I

promise you it's like the results of somebody

that can. First of all, the first step is willingness.

Okay? So you. You will not do any exposure therapy without

willingness. No one's going to force you to fly, and you're going to overcome the

fear. In fact, it's going to get worse. If I. If I decided just out

of the blue because you came to me saying, I have a fear of flying,

I want to get over it, and I kidnapped you and put a bag on

your head and threw you on an airplane. And we. And I said, you're going

to do this, you know, whatever. I would make the problem worse. There has to

be a level of Willingness. But that does not mean you can't be a creative

parent who can manipulate in a healthy way to

encourage willingness. All right, so you can do that. Because

I have actually paid my daughter to introduce herself to

people and I've actually paid my daughter to do things like have

a conversation with her teacher when she was afraid and she became willing

because I was able to convince her that the benefit was greater. This is when

she was much younger. The benefit was really great in the process. And I don't

regret doing that stuff because I feel like it built in courage. Built

courage into her. Right. And for your first example, you

go back to John Madden. He started driving to his different

gigs in a van and by the end and he never faced

his fear of flying. And what did he end up with? He

ended up driving a huge bus everywhere. His fear,

actually, it's a great metaphor for his fear. It got bigger

and bigger and bigger. And more expensive and more expensive and

then it limited his opportunities. It's interesting that his flight was in

1979. He quit coaching in 1978.

So I wonder if that impacted him taking another head coaching

job. That could have very easy. It could have very easily because

maybe he. I can't imagine being a head coach of a football

team and actually not, because whenever he was a head coach of a football team,

which he was the head coach of the Raiders for a decade, I can't imagine

you not flying when you're the head coach

football team. I can't because you getting to games and sometimes you have a Thursday

night game and a Sunday game, you got to fly. I mean, so. And they

could be different parts of the country, so. But I don't know, that'd be interesting

to see. And I'm not.

Fears are real, man. I mean, they're scary. So now for, for us

as coaches, if somebody gets in a car accident, I'm going to encourage them to

drive as soon as they're in, have the health to drive,

to not wait in the process. Or if they had a heartbreak

with a, with a gal and they say, I'm never going through that

again. No, I would say, hey, let's figure out, do you want to be married

again or do you want to find somebody to have a romantic relationship with? I

would say, well, let's find a way that if, if you can

at least be around women, you know, and interact. If it's

a man, obviously, if it's a woman, be around, at least be around some good,

healthy, quality people, you know, go to church a Singles group, be around some people

that you can interact with. You can start getting evidence that you're.

This is not reality. This is not reality. It's real. Because you have the feeling

of reject. You want, you don't want to go through it again, but it's not

your reality because there's a lot of people who would not

reproduce that situation for you. Right. So here's the next question, is,

are you always going to be able to do it? Are you always going to

be successful in your baby steps? Are you

always going to be? The answer to that question is yes, if you go

take the first baby step, which is willingness. And the

plan is devised in a way that's realistic.

Okay, yeah. Yes. Well, and this is great because

there is a famous experiment that indicates the reality of this.

So. And well, famous. It's famous in my head because I

just read the book that told me about this experiment. But it is interesting

because I, we had a conversation about it where people have a terror. They're

actually terrified of spiders in this, in this experiment. And what they do is they,

they first of all agree to be in an experiment. Willingly saying

to this group of. I believe it was psychologists, I'm not sure what university,

but it was, I'm sure some reputable. It

was, is in a reputable book. I mean the book's called, is called the Power

of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath. And they're researchers who write, they're

journalists. I trust their journalistic integrity. So. But

they, they have these people willing to go through

an experiment to overcome their fear of spiders, of tarantulas. Spiders,

but spiders. Big tarantula. Right, right, yeah, yeah, good.

I mean, I mean in some countries they probably eat tarantulas. That would be an

interesting thing. And that's a different type of fear than being in the room and

actually eating one. Although that could be like taste 10, like eat

a tarantula. So. But if you.

So in this experiment they all agreed and then at first

they were trying to see how close they could get to the tarantula's cage and

nobody could get within 10ft of the cage. And then they had

this 14 step plan that they agreed to follow. And step one

was go and

just be 5ft from the tarantula's cage. Okay. They can go ahead and do that.

You know, in step two is to actually put your hand on the tarantula's

cage. It's like a glass terrarium. So it was a barrier, you know, and then

step seven was, I think guide the tarantula with a. With a

paintbrush. Like, touch it with a paintbrush, you know? And then

step 10 was, like, actually hold the tarantula with a really thick

leather glove. And then eventually step 14 in this

specific experiment was they would actually hold the tarantula on their bare

palm. And of all these people who willingly. With the

support of this team. And that's really crucial because you have a supportive team. I

wouldn't recommend you try this on your own. So these are people who understand

how to guide someone through exposure therapy, which is crucial. I would not say that

everyone could do it if they have the willingness, if they didn't have the right

people devising the right plan with them. But that's not to say that you

can't devise your own plan. I would just encourage you to get some feedback on

it from a trusted friend. Do you think I could do this? Or to talk

to a coach or talk to a counselor and get some feedback on it? And

then 100% of the participants that were willingly participating,

they actually were able to hold the tarantula in their hand, and they were actually

able to do it a year later, 100% in this specific case. So

kind of a cool thing, but that's. Step one is you got to grow a

pair. And first of all, when you start taking the baby

steps, it's going to trigger emotions. When you grow a pair, you're ignoring your feelings.

You know, this is not just for men. I know. It's for men and women.

All right. So we figure out a way, and

we have the willingness, we have the power to ignore our emotions

in the situation and do the next right thing. We're in control. Yeah.

And for some fears, there's no reason to actually do

anything to deal with that fear, because they're rational fears. They're

a rational fear. To actually have a pet

possum that has rabies, that's not a good example, because possums don't have rabies.

But to actually have a fear of a dog with

rabies is not something you should ever overcome.

Right, Right. It's just not something to have a fear of being

locked in a. In a porta potty for a

week by your. By people, you know,

with bungee cords is a pretty healthy fear to have. You're probably never going to

have it, but it's. You know, you don't want to have that happen. No. Because

you would die. So. Okay. That. Those are rational fears. We're talking about

irrational fears in this situation. So you Ignore your feelings. And one of my

favorite quotes of all time, Carl Hume. Where your fear is, there lies your

tasks. So think about that, man. You got fears. Fears are a blessing.

And this again sounds contradictory. So ignoring your feelings does not

mean admitting you have them. It does not mean you admitting you. But you're ignoring

them in the moment. You're not even letting them drive you. My

family would say and has said at times that, Adam, you're too sensitive.

Adam, you're too sensitive. You know, but what they're doing is invalidating me because

what I'm talking about in those situations is just an uncomfortable topic that I'm actually

bringing it up. Right. And I guess I can't, I'm sure I can be

too sensitive. I mean, I have, I have challenges emotionally at times, but

they also tell me good things like grow a pair. Now, a grit called a

book called Grit by Travis Bradbury addresses this pretty well. And it's

another good book. It does a lot of research on people that have grit. So

endurance, they're willing to push through, do some stuff. So there's some principles out of

that book that helped me. And I do have this on a one page handout

that my, my personal coach gave me one time actually, front and back. And

so a couple of those things. People have grit when they, when you have,

you know, you have grit when you, you have to, to have grit, you have

to fight when you already feel defeated. You have to learn to delay

gratification. That's ignoring your feelings, right?

Absolutely. You have to make mistakes, look like an idiot, and then

try again without flinching. Interesting. Try

again even though you look like an idiot. You mess up, you fess up, you

try again. That's a big deal. That's grit right there. You

have to lead when no one else actually follows. It takes grit to do that

because your emotions are going to be telling you something very different. You're not leading

well or you're making a mistake or listen to all these people. But you have

to lead at times when no one else will actually follow you. You have grit

when you, you, you have to be the kind. You have to be kind to

people who are rude to you. Interesting stuff who are actually mean and

nasty. And you, and you are kind. Doesn't mean you're not assertive. It doesn't mean

you're not firm. Doesn't mean you're not saying, I have a boundary here,

but you're being kind. And candor is kind. Interesting.

Candor is actually kind. So the third principle

Which I find for me personally is the most

encouraging of all of these principles is to expect

yourself to fail. Expect yourself to be in

situations as you go through this exposure process, as you

ignore your feelings, to fail to make mistakes, for it

to be sloppy for you to go and say and decide to lead a meeting

or go through one of these steps and it not go very well. Expect it.

So you're prepared. That's what we're talking about is you can do things to

prepare yourself to be courageous in advance. Right, Exactly.

That's what you have to. That preparation is part of that first baby step.

And maybe step seven is doing that preparation and getting in

there and doing it. Because like you say, and

that's really what my first question is, is that really

don't worry, it's going to be sloppy. You should expect

to fail, especially on big issues, on big fears that have

controlled you for a long time. But that

doesn't mean you don't take that next little step. You don't want to be frozen

there. Yep. Here's what happens when I. So over the years

with clients, one question I'll ask is like what's your biggest fear?

What are you most afraid of? And, and then leave them with that. And they'll

say, well, what do you mean? What do you mean? People do that. They always

want me to elaborate on these questions, these open ended questions. They want me to

elaborate and I don't elaborate. And that really makes them uncomfortable because they are

wanting me to give them something that they can grasp as maybe that should be

my biggest fear. What have you seen in me? But no, I want them to

sit with it and think because when you think you lose a part of your

brain that's not emotional, it's rational. You go much deeper. You go much deeper

because you're not emoting. I mean that's the primitive brain. You know, the lizard brain

is like the amygdala, you know, the dubraga. Oblonglady. No,

maybe that's, maybe that's wrong there. Don't. I'm not, don't quote me on that. But

you start to think and then they identify something as they think. Like that's a

fear. You know, I'm, I'm afraid of being embarrassed. I'm afraid of rejection. I mean

I'm afraid of isolation. I'm afraid of dying. I'm afraid of. It could be

something specific. And when they

go through that process, then

they're able to identify something that they're afraid of and it's like,

okay, now, now what I do with that, you know,

so. And I don't give them exactly. And don't tell them exactly what to do.

But people will often want to not

fail again at something as driving

them towards this fear that they have. So something bad has happened and, and they

don't want it to actually happen again. They don't want it to be in that

situation again where they're going to feel that feeling again. And that's really

crucial to identify. But if you go and say, yeah, you know, I'm going

to, I'm going to do this thing and this fear is

holding me back, I've identified that it's actually holding me back in some way and

it's okay that I step into it and I don't do it perfectly, and I'm

not going to do it perfectly. And they're giving themselves permission in advance to be

uncomfortable and awkward and have those strong feelings and to ignore them. Super

powerful distances yourself from that specific situation. It's

like you're able to externalize it and it's not you any longer.

It's not you any longer. But I would. It's really crucial thing to be able

to admit and say, hey, I'm afraid of that. I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid

of rejection. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of having a bad relationship again. I'm

afraid of having a bad co worker that could be

whatever to me again, like the one in the past. I'm afraid of it. It's

very crucial because there's power in that externalization of whatever that

fear is. So how are, how are you? How do you. Well,

the point I. One point I was going to make though, about that actually is

when somebody's really quick to say, I'm not doing that,

or they're really quick to say, I don't have a fear here, I don't have

a fear there. Or if, if they're, you know, talking about

leading, let's say a meeting with their team, and they're like, no, I'm not going

to do that. No, I'm not going to. I'm not going to do that, then

what I hear there often is they're not willing to even think about

it with their prefrontal cortex. It's very emotional because they're so quick.

It's better to say if they can pause for a second and

then regroup, then I have a lot more confidence that there's not like

an issue that's being avoided in that situation, because our job as

coaches is to go to the core where people are held back, so they're facing

that and then they can have long term change, long term transformation. So that

quick reaction is often crucial. So

if they do a self assessment and they're quickly saying, this is all

great, I'm doing fine here, I'm doing fine there's, it's like, okay, you

know, you're not thinking here. And I don't necessarily, I can't

necessarily tell them, you know, well, you're wrong, but

right. You're not being, yeah. Honest in yourself. Reflect, you know, how's it going as

a parent? Well, it's great. It's perfect. You know, everything's great. You know, how was

your childhood? And if anybody's honest with themselves, they're gonna have

something that they can share that probably wasn't the best about their childhood.

And it doesn't mean they didn't have great parents, but that

really, they're just, they're putting a caveat to everything. It's like, it's like there's,

there's some reason they have to justify how things are okay. And they're not going

deeper, but that depth is how people grow because then they're facing the stuff that's

holding them back. You got to go deeper. Yes. And I, I actually, I love

my, I hate to say it, I love my example of the tarantula,

because I can use another example here, is that

it took me a while. I, I failed several times in trying to

clean out that cage and open, take the lid off because they can jump and

all these things. And also, you should know, unless you've had a tarantula from

as a baby, you're not to touch them, you're not to carry them

because they have to be used to humans from the very beginning. If they are,

you can hold them and all that good stuff. So I knew this guy was

not used to humans, and so I was afraid of all those things, but I

slowly got over it. And then at my

house, I went to the backyard the other day and

I noticed this black quarter sized

spider right at the water where the spigot is.

And it was a black widow spider. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And I saw as soon as she sensed my movement, she

went back behind a little electrical box that is literally

three inches from that spigot that I had to turn on.

Ah. And so I was like, dang, that's kind of cool. I didn't

see these very often when I was young and. But I Was able to reach

down and not have that fear that she was gonna jump out and

bite me. Okay, turn it on. But

I mean, if I hadn't faced that fear with that trench a long time ago,

I would have, I would have had to call my neighbor to come over and

turn on the water. Ah, but.

And that would have, that would have, that would

have been a reminder of something to face

continually. Yeah, that's pretty. So I

gotta share a couple things with you here. In closing,

people don't admit

to themselves when they're afraid. And that

is where I'm a big fan of talking about stuff and being open. So if

you think of when you're available to life, when you're open to

life, you're gonna see opportunities that you didn't see before.

You're gonna see employees that,

that are the best employees that you turn down because you weren't open.

You're gonna see, you're gonna get stuck in like, in like rules.

You're gonna see, you're gonna get stuck in these isolating

things. Like people are distant from others that have differing opinions of them

because they're afraid. And you could incrementally. I was

talking to my friend this morning who's a politician and

he's a fairly well known person in the area where we live here.

And so we were just talking about how there's so much fear.

Like he was going to interact with somebody and

they had this perception of another person. They were going to have a group

conversation with differing political opinions. And he was sharing

with me that the other person described the

third party as being hateful. And I thought there,

there wasn't a chance for dialogue because we were already demonizing

and we were distant. And so those fears isolate people.

They cause resentment. Resentment is driven by fear. I don't want to hurt, get hurt

again. So I'm going to resent them. I'm going to hate. And we have a

society right now that scares me in a way because we sense

people's distance at a greater and greater level. Yet we as an

audience, we can. If our fear is to engage people and to have

conversations, we have to be the ones that go first. And that's going to trigger

a fear in us. But we can start the dialog and we can engage. And

so that may not be, that's one example right there. But I was talking to

another client recently and he has a fear of being open with people and it

impacts his leadership at times. And so we started to create a plan

incrementally but one thing he identified in the process is that he has this

fear of reading out loud. And he's been in business meetings where he

has to read something out loud. He's a very articulate guy. He's a very smart

guy. I didn't realize how much of a fear that

was. Like, In a scale 1 to 10, it was probably firing somebody,

which can be terrifying to someone else. Could be like a 10, you know, but

for him, that would probably be like a three. And reading out loud was like

a nine. I mean, very terrifying. Wow. Yeah. And he reads to his

kids and he says that in itself is uncomfortable as well. And I said, well,

what's that all about? He made this connection. It was an aha moment. He said,

well, I had a parent growing up who was hypercritical of me and my

reading, and I had some challenges with reading. And I go back there emotionally, I

believe, is what he said. I believe to this place when I was a kid

where I guess really criticized. And he made that connection. It was like a huge

breakthrough. I mean, I felt like this was like a game changer. You know, I'll

share this with the whole team. I was going to. It's like, well, I got

to remember this. And even I said, can I, can I share it in the

podcast? Cause it was so, so, so relatable, you know, and part of his

plan was that he's a leader of a division of a. Of a company, is

that he's going to do some teaching at the beginning of meetings, like, do some,

some reading at the beginning of meetings on content that can be helpful for the

team and to be able to share it. And again, he's really articulate,

but that's very highly triggering. He's available to his team, available to criticism,

available to being sloppy. I mean, available to actually messing up. So if you're going

to work on a public speaking for, you have to be available to the fact

that it could be kind of messy, it could be kind of not going as

well as you want, and we can, we can make progress.

I'm so excited for you today. Again, like,

so excited for you to face your fears. I mean, it energizes me to hear

stories about what you have done. If you're creating a plan, share it with us.

Share it with us. Respond to the, to the video. Respond in the comment

section. Be really great to hear your example there. And, you know, we hear

some common examples from famous people, I think oftentimes. I know, I know

you were talking. You're sharing one with me that you hear a lot about how

you face things incrementally. I don't know if you want to share that, Sherman. The

one. Yeah. Well.

Which one? Oh, the one about Michael Jordan. Yeah. So actually

you think about some of the, like you said, the famous people. We know them

because they're famous and we think everything was just

roses and flowers for them. But

most people probably don't know that Michael Jordan was cut from his

sophomore basketball team. Wasn't that

good. But what did that do?

The fear of getting cut again, he didn't stop.

It just inspired him to work all the harder. And there's a

great quote I love from him actually. It's like they're

asking about how great you are, Michael. And he goes, you know, in my life

you have to recognize I've missed 9,000 shots

in my career. I've lost 300

games and on 26 separate occasions

I was entrusted to take the game winning shot

and I missed them. I have failed over and over again,

but I didn't ever stop.

And that's why I succeeded. The fear of

being a failure as a basketball player, I mean, it could have very easily

ended many other great people's careers. But he was one who

was faced that fear, got back up on

that horse and kept riding. Yeah, and that's a big example.

I like, I don't like the famous examples nearly as much as the real world

examples personally because I can't relate to that as much because he's had a lot

of talent as well, but, but the talent developed out of him not giving

up. And so he just had this, this real persistent. The

current. Yeah. So we get to see, as coaches, we get to see the little

things people are doing. They're not. Little things are big, they're huge. I mean, I

find them to be incredibly inspiring. Whether that's somebody talking for the first time about

trauma they have in their life, whether somebody for the first time actually stepping out

in a leadership role and leading and going against their feelings. Someone

actually becoming an engaged parent or husband and

mending relationships that are broken with their family. I mean, I got to see

just this week family relationships restored and engagement

and communication just improved. And that gives me so

much hope. And they all did the same process. They were willing to be exposed,

expose themselves to more and more of that thing that they actually fear. And so

that's my hope for you, the listener. You can be just like my client who

can start reading out loud more to his team. So what's it going to be

for you today? I mean, how are you gonna do this? So the principles to

follow, exposure therapy. Exposing yourself to your fears so you can become better and

bigger leaders. So take baby steps, small steps, little wins.

Ignore your feelings. Grow a pair right there. And then number, that's number two. And

then number three, Third principle, expect to fail. Be prepared for that as well. So

check out this content, Shatterproof yourself. It's this course that

we have made that I've made for you. It's on seven small steps to a

giant leap. These are all mental health principles. If you found this helpful, you're gonna

find that even more helpful. And if you it's free. You go through it in

25 minutes. It's got a worksheet that you fill out, seven

actionable items. You can apply it right now, this weekend, today, by the end of

the day, you could do something. You're going to make progress if you go through

that content. So based on this content challenge for you, what was

most helpful and inspiring for you? You're going to devise a plan to face that

fear. Are you going to take that first step of that plan? Are

you going to talk to a friend about a fear? Are you going to admit

to yourself that this is holding you back professionally by having this fear of public

speaking, by having this fear of leading, by having this fear of running a meeting,

by having this fear, this perfectionistic mentality about when I do

things and not letting it go? What are you going to do? 80% of long

term transformation is action. You're doing something different. You're

facing something and 20% or less is insight.

You gained insight today. Now what are you going to do with it? To decide

means that you're eliminating other options. And your

legacy is the impact that your life is going to have on, on

other people. Live the day, live today.

Live the life today that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're

gone. You decide your legacy. Sherman, you decide your

legacy. Troy, you decide your legacy. Nobody

else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.