← TheUPside Podcast
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Welcome to the Upside podcast, where we help you get unstuck in your life and your business by elevating your thinking and provoking meaningful change from the inside out. Boom. Okay, yes. It's Halloween week, and I'm gonna tell you if you have never been to Sea World in the month of October, I'm not sure if you're missing out or I'm gonna tell you to run, but they do this Sprite Fest thing. So last year for fall break, the kids and I and Tommy, we decided to do San Antonio. It was a great trip, great family affair. We went to Sea World, and they go all out for this Fright fest. So if you haven't been, let me tell you what happens. During the day, everything is fairly normal, obviously. Decorated from Halloween, for Halloween, all the things at night, and they don't give you a ton of warning that this is about to happen. But all of a sudden, as the sun sets and it starts to get dark, all of these creepy characters, like dozens of them, ladies and gentlemen, dozens of them, totally nasty Halloween creepy characters, start coming out of all of the hidden places all throughout the park, and they start approaching and interacting with the guests. Now, they can't touch you or do anything like that, but they definitely approach you. Okay, this is not like sitting in the audience. It is. And there's the spooky music, and it's the whole thing. And I know this probably surprises you, but I'm not a Halloween kind of girl. I don't prefer to be scared. I. That is not fun to me at all. So my girls were 12 at the time, so they were. They were excited about it. They were also a little bit kind of unsure. Jet and I both. I'm going to tell you right now, there was one point that this nasty character comes up and basically, like taking a hatchet, you know, motion at us, and they look you right in the eye. It's incredibly creepy. And the two of us just go bolting. I have not ran that fast. All the way to the exit of the park, we were like, I am out of here. This is crazy. Get me out. This is absolute insanity. But I got to thinking in all of this, as we all kind of experienced fear in a different way. We were literally the example of the ways that fear shows up in person. We all know Tommy really wasn't afraid at all. He thought it was hilarious. But the three of us girls, Jillian was probably the most chill. I wish I could say I was chill. I didn't feel chill at all. But anyways, so we're going to talk about fear today. And fear. You know, we all know that the. The four ways that, that we as human beings have response to fear. It can be to flee flight. That is absolutely what I did. It can be to fight. It can be to fawn. What am I missing? Flight, fright, Fright, freeze, fawn, or fight. Yes, the four. The four Fs of fear. But these show up in our lives not just when we go to a haunted house or we go to a naturally physically scary situation. These happen in our lives all the time. And it's important as we are wanting to be people who overcome fear. Because if you are wanting to be more successful in your life, if you are wanting to be a better leader, if you are wanting to accomplish great things, you are going to have to be a person who overcomes fear. There is just no choice but to walk in courage. And so as we want to be that person who conquers fear, I think it's important to look at how do we respond when we get afraid in our lives? Are we the person who goes into flight mode? Are we the person who freezes up? Do we fawn and become a people pleaser, or do we put our fists up and try to fight back? And There may be one or two that tend to be your natural M.O. we all particularly are going to have different situations where we may step into each of those, but we probably have one or two that we do on a more regular basis. And by calling those out and becoming aware of them, we can start identifying our fear, identifying our defense mechanisms to fear, and then shifting and adjusting our behavior. So let's talk first about flight. So flight response to fear is just avoidance and overreaction. I mean, I'm a little embarrassed to say I probably overreacted in that moment at Sea World. It wasn't my best moment. I didn't feel exceptionally courageous. I looked like an absolute moron. And that's fine. Gave me a good podcast episode. But this is how it shows up when we're people who respond to fear. With flight, we might avoid hard conversations. We might delay picking up the phone and calling somebody back. We may run from challenges. We may not even put ourselves out there, because if we can just run away from it and avoid it, well, then we don't have to be afraid. What are those things that you are putting off and avoiding in your life? And if you're honest with yourself and it's because you're fearful, sometimes we say it's because we're too busy and at the end of the day, if we really strip back all the excuses, we're not doing it because we're afraid. You could be putting off your lead generation calls and you're busy, busy, busy doing something else, working on the transaction. If you're in real estate, what have you, and if it really comes down to it, you're fleeing that moment of picking up the phone, I asking for the business and reaching out. Are you dodging uncomfortable conversations? Are you avoiding hard things? The second thing that we can do is get into freeze mode. And freeze mode is where we get stuck in indecision. We get stuck in indecision. It's the idea that if I don't decide or I don't do anything, well, then I don't have to move forward. I don't have to be courageous. And it can be show up as analysis paralysis. Sometimes when we are real professional perfectionists or we want everything to be perfect, or we get to be very analytical, we use the guys that, oh, I just am making sure that I have all the details. I'm making sure I have all my ducks in a row and we get into this place where we're frozen and we're getting ready to get ready. If you're constantly getting ready to get ready, I would challenge you and ask, are you, are you stuck in freeze mode because you're afraid to start? Are you afraid of being judged for putting yourself out there? Are you afraid of failing? And so you keep getting ready to get ready. You're busy, you're doing things, you're analyzing, you're preparing, and you're never getting into motion. Standing, waiting for the next monster just prolongs the fear. Just step out there and do it, essentially get it over with and you'll realize it wasn't so bad. All right, so we have flight, we have freeze, and then we have fight mode. And fight mode is interesting because fight really is about misplaced energy. And you oftentimes identify it when you are on the receiving end, meaning somebody comes launching at you and you think maybe not physically, like they're actually throwing punches. I'm assuming that doesn't happen probably to the majority of my listeners on a regular basis, or at least I hope not. But you pick up the phone to call somebody and maybe you, you're giving them news they don't want to hear and they launch into you, or they call you upset about something and it's not really about you, but you just happen to be the punching bag of the day. And it's that misplaced energy. You're swinging out and you're lashing out at the wrong things. I actually thought when we were at that fright fest, I thought, I wonder how many of these actors accidentally get punched because they don't touch you, but they get pretty close. And I'm going to tell you, when people are startled, I mean, they'll come up, creep up behind you and you'll turn around, they're right there. And you don't know, you know, because it's all over the entire park. I am sure some of them have been punched in the face before. But that misplaced energy when we're in fight mode, a lot of times will show up as blame. It shows up as blaming the market, blaming leadership, it's so and so's fault, blaming others instead of addressing the real fear in our lives. Fight mode often makes enemies as opposed to solving the real problem. Could there be areas in your life that you are fighting or people that are fighting with you? And the root cause of all of that is fear? And then the fourth fear response, and I think this is the one that's talked about maybe a little bit less. And that's the fawning response. And that is the, that is the person who is going to enter into people pleasing mode to basically befriend the enemy so that it is less scary. In some ways that's kind of how Tommy acts at the haunted house at Sea World because he just laughed. He just kind of thought it was funny, which is, you know, maybe a defense mechanism. I'm sure it wasn't really as scary as I'm making it out to be, obviously, but that fawning is the people pleasing. And how many times when really it's a fear issue, do we lower our standards? Do we appease other people? Do we not do the right thing or not do what we really believe in because we want to make other people happy? Because we're, we're, we're, we're feeling almost suppressed because of fear. It's a real thing. So as I've talked about these, I would encourage you to look in your life and say, okay, where am I? Where am I avoiding? Where? What have I run from in my life? Where am I frozen and stuck in indecision? Remember, indecision is a decision. Who am I fighting that really isn't the enemy? Maybe I'm blaming somebody for something and it's really at the end of the day, if we scrape it all away, that's not even the real issue. But they're just Kind of standing there as a punching bag. And then where am I entering into fawning? Where I'm people pleasing and lowering my standards. If it's fear, remember, if you are going to accomplish anything great in life, if I'm going to accomplish anything great in life, we must be courageous. So I would encourage you to call that out, to identify it for what it is and realize that when we name it, when I'm in flight mode right now, I'm in freeze mode right now, that awareness is going to break the cycle because so many times it's clouded again in busyness, or it's clouded in wisdom. What's the wisdom of waiting? It's preparation. It's perfectionism, for instance. So slow down, breathe and pause and ask what is true? What is true? Where is the threat actually happening? Is there even a threat here? Or is this just a perceived threat that I have? And then choose aligned action. Take a small intentional step, step forward. So the next time fear shows up, I'm going to challenge you to be courageous. Remember that, that being courageous is not being fearless. You don't have to be fearless. You have to be courageous. Or fear less. Doesn't mean you won't fear at all. But when fear comes and stands behind you, how are you going to respond? And I'm going to challenge you to respond in courage. So happy Halloween week, ladies and gentlemen. Let's not be spooky fearful, but let's step out in faith, step out, encourage. As always, thank you for listening to the upside. When you invest in your growth every single day, it will yield you great returns. See you next week.