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What's up, guys? Welcome back to Build. And today we are going to be talking about all things related to fear. So I wanted to do a little bit of a different episode today. I wanted to talk about fear because it's been something that's been on my mind. And I actually just did a podcast a couple days ago where the host of the podcast, you know who you are, started off by saying, you know, you just seem like to the outside, to everyone that, you know follows you. I think we all just see this person who's, like, so perfect and has it all together. And it's so funny because, like, I'm listening to this, and as she's saying it, I'm, like, trying to not, you know, speak over her to be like, is this a fucking joke? Like, how many times do I've talked about the amount of fears that I have that I've had to overcome? Like, the things I still deal with all the time, every day. My husband knows, and she's like, I know. I just don't think it's real for us. And I was like, okay. So I started really thinking because she said, you know, what are some of the, you know, things that you're thinking about, things that you fear? And I was sharing some of those things. And as I was thinking about it, I was thinking about how I'm really in a season right now of. You know, I dealt with a lot in the last 18 months around my health, and it created a lot of fears that I didn't have before, and there was a lot of stuff that I just wasn't. It wasn't even a thought in my mind before all of these issues arose for me. And as I've moved into a season where I'm healing and taking more care of myself or better care of myself, I said, you know, it's not just about being healthy in my body. It's about being healthy in my mind, and I need to get over. Or I would. I want to get over all these fears that I have that have accumulated because I was in a. A tough place where I didn't really have the capacity. And honestly, I don't even think I knew that any of those fears had formed at the time. And just to give you guys an example of some of these things, you know, for a decent amount of, like, six months, when I was dealing with all these health issues, I didn't know what was going on. I was in a ton of pain. I felt terrible. I was on so many antibiotics, and the antibiotics were making everything Worse. And I had terrible stomach aches all the time. And I literally, during that time, I remember realizing, like, I was even scared to eat, like, so much to the degree that I lost, like, 20 pounds during that time. And I didn't realize it at the time that that's why I wasn't eating. I just was like, well, I'm in pain all the time, et cetera. But I was scared of eating food because it made the infection feel worse, it made everything feel worse. It. Et cetera. And so I had to get over, as I was, you know, recovering, et cetera, like, the fear of eating food, which is crazy to think because I was in. I went to school for exercise science. I've been in fitness most of my life. I have never been scared of food, but for a decent amount of time, like, I was terrified to go eat out after my surgery. I was terrified to eat anything different. I ate, like, four different foods for, like, eight months of my life, and that was it. And that did create more problems, by the way. Don't recommend it, but, you know, like, I'm not gonna beat myself up for it. So, anyways, I just wanna share, like, I'm fucking human, and these things happen to me, too. And I still deal with this stuff all the time. And I'm really in a season right now where I'm like, okay, I want to figure out all the things that I've accumulated, the new fears I've accumulated over the last year, and I wanna confront them. And so I made a plan with my coach and therapist, and I said, I'm gonna overcome all these fears. I'm not gonna flood myself, but I'm gonna overcome all these fears in the next six months. And so I feel really excited about that. Maybe it'll take longer than six months. Who knows? But I put together a pretty aggressive plan that I feel good about. And, yeah, so it's been really top of mind for me. And I think that going with that, a huge quote that went viral for me a few years ago is one that I said, which is, fear is a mile wide and an inch deep. And I said it on the podcast because I said, you know, one thing that I've realized in my life is everything that I fear. It's like I have all these scenarios that play through my head. I think about all the things that are going wrong, how terrible it's gonna be, and then the moment that I step into the fear, it's like I realize that this thing that I was so scared of for so long Isn't really that bad. Like, it's really not that bad. Like, the worst thing that happens is anxiety, is panic, is fear. And I can deal with that. And so as I was thinking about this and thinking about how this is a season for me of going back into overcoming some of my fears, which by the way, I've been doing, and I'm pretty, pretty proud of myself, like, this week was the week one for me and I didn't back down. I conquered all of my, quote, fear goals and I'm feeling good about it. So that being said, I posted in my Layla direct channel, which is on Instagram, if you guys don't know. I have a broadcast channel where I kind of give like behind the scenes and little tips and tricks and, you know, pictures of stuff or, you know, whatever it might be. And so in that channel, I also posted like, hey, what are your top questions on fear? And I was like, so shocked you guys had so many questions. And I was like, man. So I am going to answer them by the ones that are ranked the highest. Meaning, like, people liked those answers the most, they hearted them, et cetera. Because what that tells me is that those are things that everybody's dealing with. So I'll tell you guys the first one. How do you tell the difference between fear that's protecting you and fear that's just keeping you small? This is a great question, and I actually have a fairly easy way that you can delineate the two. There are normal things that we should be scared of. Like our brains are wired to have certain fears, certain things that disgust us, et cetera, to keep us alive. But if it's not something that is life threatening, then it's most likely something that's shrinking you. A great way to ask yourself the difference of if this is a fear that you should get over or not. Is this question, is this fear preventing me from doing something that's aligned with my values and my vision for myself? If the answer is yes, then it's probably a fear that you should try and get over. I think that a lot of the times the ones that are protecting us are fears that we don't really question because we know that they're inherently there for a reason. Whereas the fears that are keeping us small, and they're the ones we think about a lot, and we think about them a lot because we know intuitively that there's something there, that maybe that fear is somewhat self induced, maybe we've reinforced it by avoiding something. Maybe it's something that we used to do. And now we're terrified of maybe it's something we used to think about. Now we're terrified of whatever it might be. It's more self induced than it is induced by your circumstances or your nature. And so the question that I just ask myself is, is it getting in the way of, of me living my life in accordance with my values and my vision? Because what that tells us is that this fear is actually decreasing my quality of life. Because me having this fear, right, decreases the likelihood that I can be the person I want to be. And I will tell you, my number one motivator for conquering any fear is that it is always. And that's always where I start. Because there's some things that I'm scared of. And I'm like, yeah, conquering that fear, I don't really think it's gonna help me be more of the person I wanna be. Like, I'll give you an example. I am scared of heights. And so, you know, very long ago I went skydiving to like big give a big fuck you to this. Which by the way, passed out, blacked out in the air. So that fear is real. But I was really proud of myself for doing it. I used to go to high ropes courses, et cetera, things like that. And so, you know, not that long ago, it's like someone was like, hey, we're going to go on this trip, we want to go cliff jumping. And I was just like, could I get over that fear? Yes, I could get over that fear. Is that aligned with the life I want to live? And the honest answer for me was no. I was like, I actually at this point in my life ask myself a risk, reward things that are a little more contained like skydiving or a ropes course where you have a net, et cetera. That makes sense to me. It's conquering the fear. But there's not a risk of my safety. Cliff jumping in Mexico? Yeah, that's a little too seedy for me. So I was like, you know, I'm not that person. I am really responsible. I'm probably err, on the side of caution when it comes to things that could hurt my body. Like I don't even ride on a motorcycle. Which by the way, yes, I used to date somebody with a motorcycle. And pretty sure everyone I dated that had a motorcycle. Plus everyone that my sister dated that had a motorcycle all crashed at some point, broke a bunch of limbs. Which I asked myself, is it worth the risk? And for me the answer is no. There's just Certain things that aren't. So I think those are some good questions that you can ask yourself if you're trying to figure out if this is, you know, just your body protecting itself to keep you alive, or if it's just a fear that's keeping you small. Another question that you can ask yourself to kind of filter that is, does this fear shrink or expand my life? And if this fear means that it's taking away options that you have in life, it's probably again, a self induced fear that's keeping you small. And it might be something you want to look at. Hey, how can I overcome that fear? Next question. How can we overcome the crippling fear of being seen or judged for doing something? It's a visceral feeling, like wanting to throw up. Oh my God, I love this one. I love this one because I used to care so much what people thought, and I cared so much about being judged. And let me tell you, you can try and avoid this one, but it will find you in some way, shape or form. So even if you try to avoid it, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna find its way to you. This one is a very relevant one. And I think everyone has the fear of being judged. And the reason that you have the fear, I just wanna, like, you're not weird and you're not abnormal. We naturally fear being judged because it means I'm not gonna be taken care of by the pack. Like, I could be left out. The crowd isn't gonna want me. I'm not gonna. And then if in the our cavewoman, caveman days, that meant that, oh my God, we don't get food and water, we don't get shelter, et cetera. Now it just means that somebody unfollows us on Instagram, but we still feel like it's the same thing. It feels the same in our body. And so, like, let's be honest about that now. How do you get over the fear of being seen or judged for doing something? So, oh man, you guys are gonna be like, she's fucking weird and I don't care. Judge me. When I was first starting making content and speaking on stages and appearing publicly, I know it seems weird because I'd made all this money and I already had a successful business, but guess what? I was fucking scared. And I was irrationally scared of making content and of speaking and doing all these things. Why? I don't know. I just thought people were going to judge me. And for some reason that scared me, which now I can Tell you, it doesn't at all. Like, not. Not even a little bit. In fact, people write articles about me and how just crazy shit. And like, it doesn't even bother me to read them anymore. And so I feel like this one I have certainly mastered. So I read a book called Manage youe Anxiety. I think it was like Manage youe Anxiety before It Manages yous by Albert Ellis. I love Albert Ellis. And in his book he had talked about a patient, you know. Cause he was a psychologist that he worked with who had, you know, a fear of being in public, public shame, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And I remember in the book he said what I had that patient do is I had them go around saying Happy Birthday to strangers on the street and like, remarking on, like, random things about strangers as they saw them. And I remember hearing that and I was like, that is insane. And I'm gonna go do that. And so I shit you not. Every day when I would go on a walk, because I would walk in the morning, I would think of new phrases to say to strangers. And I did this, like, knowing that people could be like, is that Leila Hormozi saying this weird ass shit like a crazy person? But I swear to you, it was like the most liberating thing I could have done. And I'm so glad I did it because I got over that fear so quickly. And I also just realized, like, who gives a shit? You know, most of the time people just didn't even know I was talking to them. The other percentage of the time, they thought I was like a crazy homeless person or I was drunk, right? One of those things. And I just got to the point where I was like, it doesn't really matter. I feel proud of myself for overcoming this. And so the biggest way to overcome fear of judgment is to put yourself in situations where you can be judged. Now we want to put ourselves in manageable situations. So the example is like, you don't want to go straight to the thing that you fear the absolute worst, but think about things that make you uncomfortable. Like, whew, that would kind of suck. Like, I might be up a little bit the night before. Might be ruminating. Might be like, really thinking about this thing if I have to do it, but I'll get through it. And it's not like, utterly terrifying and paralyzing. That's where you want to start something that is what I say, a manageable challenge. And so that might be going up to a stranger on the street and saying, happy Birthday, that might be wearing a weird outfit in public and wondering if people are going to say something to you, that might be singing in public and wondering if people are going to judge you. That might be posting something weird on Instagram and letting people say weird stuff in the comments. Like the. The goal is to. To seek out the judgment before it seeks you and to do it in small ways. And I will tell you that it works so well. So find ways to be judged. Find ways that are fun, that are funny, maybe that make you laugh. I had one where, like, you know, I went out in, like, this ridiculous outfit and went on a walk, and I was like, I just look like a complete fucking clown. And I did have some people say some stuff to me and yell some stuff at me, and I was like, whatever. I am doing this for me. It is my life at the end of the day, and it helped me get over my fear. And so the fastest way to get over your fear of anything is to start overcoming it with small steps. And what you're doing is teaching your brain that you can handle it, and you can. And when you do it on your own volition and you do something in a way that's, like, funny or, like, just kind of, like, kiddish, it actually, like, diminishes a lot of the power of the situation, in my opinion. I think that, like, I don't know about you, but it is so hard to genuinely laugh and be scared at the same time. And so oftentimes when I'm dealing with fears, I, like, make fun of myself. I'm like, oh, my God. Like, when I was dealing with the fact that I was, like, scared to eat different foods and I was scared to eat out, et cetera, because of all the pain I'd been in and scared that the food would make it worse or some correlation between the food and the health. And I remember being like, I'm scared of a fucking potato. And I would literally say that to myself. I was like, oh, my God. I was like, I'm scared of a goddamn potato. And I used to just make fun of the foods that I was eating because I. What I did is I introduced foods one by one, and to eat new foods again. And I would just make fun of myself. I was like, I can't believe I'm scared of this onion. And I would look at it and be like, how do you cause me anxiety? Right? Because. And I'm laughing now because it was funny, and it's still funny to me. And it's. Is there an element that's, like, semi embarrassing. I mean, sure, I don't really like telling people that I was, like, scared to eat food, but I also think it's reasonable, given what I went through. Our brains are not rational. They are only built to keep us safe. And so my brains correlated the food with all my health issues and was like, only eat these safe foods or whatever the fuck it was. It is what it is. Like, shit happens. And so, that being said, sometimes if you make fun of yourself, it definitely helps diffuse the situation. Like, you. So you can't take yourself so seriously. Like, okay, so what, you're scared of comments on Instagram? Like, come on, you're scared of Jared, who has a pickle emoji as his, you know, profile picture, and, you know, probably jerking off in his mom's basement with Cheeto fingers. You're scared of that. That's not. That is not something to be scared of. Okay, let's go to the next question. Let's see. How do you rebuild trust with yourself after you've made mistakes or had expensive lessons? Lack of trust or confidence equals fear. It's really interesting question because I think that that comes with a. There's an underlying or unspoken expectation here, which is that you shouldn't make mistakes, and if you make a mistake, then you shouldn't trust yourself. That's what I'm hearing as I'm reading this, guys. You're like, I don't. I don't know how many times I got this. Like, I. Why do I share all the mistakes I make and the things I'm scared of? Because I want you to know that it does not matter how successful you are. These things still exist. And I know so many very successful people who have tons of irrational fears and things that they deal with. And, God, sometimes I think that more successful you are, the more you have them, because you can just pay to avoid things more easily than other people can. Like, I could technically probably avoid eating all of those foods for the rest of my life if I wanted to, because I have a private chef and I have this, and I have that, and I can usually get people to do a lot of things I want to do, and if I really wanted to do that, and I don't want to live my life that way. So all that to say, you cannot expect yourself not to make mistakes. Mistakes are part of the plan. Because in getting over any fear, you're not going to do it perfectly. You're not going to be a perfect student, and don't try to be that's kind of what I tell myself like. And a student of what? Student of myself, I guess is the right answer. But you're not going to be perfect. Don't try to be expect mistakes, be okay with it. It's not a big deal. So when you're thinking about this, right when you are trying to overcome your fears and then you say, oh my God, Layla, there was a setback or I did this, or this happened and now I don't trust myself. I actually just want you to throw that out of the gate and just say from the get go, I trust I'm going to make mistakes. I also trust that I'm going to try my best and get back on the horse the next day, the next moment, the next hour. So for example, if you have a fear of heights and you got invited to go do something that you know involves heights, or maybe it's a fear of public speaking and then you turn something down and then you suddenly are filled with this immense guilt. You're like, oh my God, I avoided the fear, I made a mistake. I should have done that. Like I should have confronted it. Well, the next best thing you can do is say, let me go seek it out. I'm going to call that person back, I'm going to tell them I made a mistake. Or I'm going to seek out another opportunity that's equally as scary to me. Like you can always correct your actions. You can always seek out another opportunity. So don't feel like just because one thing happens that your self trust has gone out the window. It's kind of like, okay, so say you're on a diet and you eat one cookie and then you're like, well, I ate one cookie. That means, I guess, you know, might as well just eat the whole fucking jar. It's like, what? One cookie is fine, just get back and eat some vegetables next. But like if you eat the whole jar, it's like, oh my God, now we've just sabotaged ourselves. So understand that it's all about how quickly you correct. And it is not about avoiding mistakes. In fact, mistakes are part of the plan. You are not perfect. Our brains are confusing and crazy and there's nobody who's mastered their own brain. Even the people that claim they have and are brain experts, I promise you they have issues too. So I know plenty of them. Some of them have more issues than you, than probably anyone listening to this. Great. Okay, so the mind logic protects us and ensures survival. The heart can lead to breakthroughs, but also painful lessons. So when should we follow our heart versus our logic in a situation? It's interesting. I actually disagree with this question because I don't know if our minds are logical. In fact, I know a lot of people who think they're logical, but they're actually quite emotional. So I'm going to take a different approach to this question, which is I believe that part of us, something in us, wants us to survive, right? The other part of us wants to break through and reach new levels and reach our potential as a human, which I think is our desire to evolve. And I think that humans have the desire to both survive and evolve because I think that is built into our DNA. We need to do both of those things to procreate and make more humans and continue the race. And if we think about why do we exist, it is to continue on our species. That is like what we're wired for. And so it's like, okay, if that's what we're wired for, then there's two inherent desires. It's like to survive and also to grow. Right? So that we can advance the species. I would say this. You have to ask yourself where you sit in terms of your stress management abilities. So let me explain what I mean by this. If you are looking at tackling things that scare you and you have very low ability to manage stress, then you can probably. And when I think about things that scare you, this is more from the heart than breakthroughs. You probably have less of an ability to manage some of this, these situations and the stress. And so that means that we probably don't want to tackle too much at once and we probably want to take it pretty slow. So it's about knowing yourself. For example, for me, I have to ask myself, in going into any situation, where is my stress management at right now? Am I managing my stress well? Am I sleeping well? Am I eating well? Am I taking care of myself? Do I generally feel like a generalized sense of anxiety or doom or gloom on a daily basis, or am I feeling good and I'm taking care of myself and I'm not feeling that way? I think that when we're taking really good care of ourselves and we are able to manage our stress, our lifestyle, et cetera, on a daily basis fairly well, you can take a lot more leaps of faith that are connected to your, quote, heart because you have more tools to deal with the painful lessons. When we are very stressed, we have less access to our tools. And so for me, it's about how stressed are you? Do you have a parent who's ill, a child who's sick, a newborn baby, a this or that. Do you already have something that's taking a lot of your mental resources? If you do, Maybe we err on the side of caution for taking on so many breakthroughs of the heart right now, and we revisit when we have more of those tools accessible to us. That's how I think that through. What to do when your brain is painting a picture of your doom and gloom with such certainty that it grabs ahold of your em emotions and it feels as if your downfall is certain guys super normal. This is how our brains work. I think that the first thing that you can do is label it. The first thing you say to yourself is, silly brain. I'm having a catastrophic thought. My brain is catastrophizing. I'm having a doom loop. I'm looping my doom and gloom. And so it's like you want to label the thing because this is not you and there's nothing wrong with you. This is how all of our brains work, right? And so when you have something like that happening, the first thing you can do is label it. The second thing is, after you've labeled it, you do not want to listen to it. Instead, you want to do something that's aligned with your values. So, for example, if the doom loop is telling you that this is going to happen and that's going to happen, then this person is going to hate you and leave you and your business is going to burn down. If you do this thing and then you say, oh my gosh, I'm in this doom loop now. If you listen to the doom loop and you avoid doing this thing that's actually great for you as a person and aligned with your values, then you have essentially given power to the thought or fear. If you don't give power to the thought, it won't grow and you'll start to break the cycle. Meaning you'll have less and less of those thoughts over time because you have taught your brain that they're not important. And when something's not important, your brain stops telling you to pay attention to it. I'll give you an example of how this works with the body. So I, after I had surgery this year, had recovered and I was probably five months in, and then I was exercising and working out, getting back into it, and then I probably pushed it too hard one day. And then I got a lot of pain from my surgery site and I was in so much pain that it was like I wasn't even walking Much whatever. And it wouldn't stop. And, you know, I go to the doctor, they look at it, they say, everything's fine. This is nerve pain. And I'm like, well, what the is this? This is not okay. Like, this is very uncomfortable. Like, it hurts. And they're like, yeah, it's nerve pain. You gotta, you know, understand that. And, you know, hey, you know, maybe you should read a book on opaid. And I was like, okay, not helpful. So I read a book on nerve pain. Well, turns out that a decent amount of nerve pain is neurological. What does that mean? It is related to how I treat the pain and how I think about the pain. My brain produces more nerve pain the more that I stop and react to it. So when I learned this, I said, okay, when I have the nerve pain, I'm sure it's nerve pain. My doctor has confirmed there's no tissue damage. It's literally nerve pain. Right? So always make sure. Then I'm going to do the things that aggravate it anyways. And I'm going to say, I can deal with this discomfort because it's nerve pain. And if I avoid it, I will create more nerve pain in the future. And after about two weeks of doing that, my pain completely went away after being there for about three months. I shit you not. I just didn't listen to it. I didn't give the pain power. And so if you do this with your thoughts, if you listen to them, you give them power. But if you don't listen to them, that they have nothing to feed on and they eventually starve off. So when you want to get rid of this, quote, doom loop, you get rid of it by saying, what was I planning to do before this thought popped up? What was aligned with my values? What was aligned with my goals? I'm going to do that. I'm not going to listen to this loop. And it might feel really uncomfortable. You might say, I don't want to feel this way. But you can handle it. You can handle feeling that way and you will get through it. And whether you want the feeling to or not, the feeling will eventually go away. The thing about feelings is that they don't give a fuck about you. They will go away or come without any effort on your part. Great. Do you have a mental checklist or internal script you go through before doing something you're afraid to do? Oftentimes I would say that what I probably do is I try really hard not to reassure myself too much because I actually think I don't need to Be sure. And I can't be sure in a situation where I'm, you know, conquering something that I'm fearful of. Instead, I just tell myself, it might be easy, it might be really terrifying. You might feel great after, you might feel fucking terrible after. You might feel terrible hours later. You might feel terrible immediately, but you can handle it. Like, you can handle whatever it is that you're doing, and that's that. You can handle it. You can handle it. It might feel awful. I might have so much anxiety. I might this, I might that. You know, even thinking about this right now, I'm like, oh, I can think of, you know, scenarios that very recently where I had these thoughts. And I just kept telling myself, you can handle it. You'll survive. It will get easier with time. Just keep at it. Just keep working the plan. It'll get easier. You can handle it. And I think a lot of us say, I can't stand this. I can't handle this. I don't want to feel this. And it's like we're resisting reality. But the moment that you stop resisting it, you say, that's okay. I can allow this feeling in my body. It's okay. That's the moment it starts to go away. Okay, I'm going to take one more question. What mindset shift tricks are useful to move faster despite fear. The fastest way to move despite fear is to face the fear. There's nothing faster. All things that get around the fear take forever. The fastest way is to just go through it. And that's anything in life. It's like you think about the easiest way through life. It's often the things that are the hardest to do, the scariest to do. And so we find all these crazy, complex ways to work around them. But the reality is that we just took this very straightforward path, confronting the fear. We would go so much faster. So I usually just tell myself, fuck your mood. Follow the plan. You can fucking handle it. If you treat yourself like you're fragile, you'll start to believe you are. And when you believe you're fragile, you believe that fear is stronger than you, but it's not. Fear's not stronger than you. If you are a force to be reckoned with, then wouldn't you face fear head on? It's a question you should ask yourself. And if you right now are listening to this and you're like, you know what? I am a little bit fragile. I do think I've been treating myself that way. Never a bad time to start treating yourself the opposite way because you can handle it. Guys, this was fun. You had so many good questions. Maybe I'll do a part two with a different theme next time. But I love these questions on fear. I appreciate you guys. I hope this is helpful. If you are going through something and you're scared right now, please know you're not alone. I would say that this is. Everybody on the planet has something they're scared of. Multiple things they're scared of, many things they're scared of. And we all deal with these things. We deal with them in different ways, and we often hide them because we don't want to be judged by others. We want people to think that we're stronger than we are. We never want to appear weak. That is a normal human thing. But also remember that everyone, everybody, no matter who they are, faces these things, deals with these things. And you are not alone. So I hope you have a great day. I hope you conquer your fears. I hope you do some fucking courageous shit today and fuck your way to follow the plan.