Can You Use Fear to Fuel Your Business?

There’s a lot of talk lately about being fearless - in your business, in your relationships, in the world at large. Cosmo magazine has a Fun, Fearless, Female.  There’s Fearless Chocolate. Heck, I’m the creator of a program with the word in the title! But what does being fearless really mean when it comes to starting and running a business? Are we supposed to completely remove fear in order to boldly follow our passions, create the life we want, and build businesses that make a difference? Do we have to ignore the drop in our stomachs as we send that first “real” offer email out to the world? Should we invest in a full scale launch of a product without worrying about the small size of our list? The way I see it, fear is a necessary precursor to building a strong business. Hear me out.  

 How fear CAN fuel your business:

• Fear steers us in the right direction when we’re not quite sure what to do - do we stick to an internal launch of our new service, or orchestrate a launch on a massive scale, with social media ads, jv partners and affiliates?
• Fear can teach us all the right lessons - reminding us of what has happened in the past and warns us that it COULD happen again.  Fear encourages us to stop, breathe, think...before we act.
• Fear guarantees we make the most informed decisions about our business - by asking for more proof about the value of what we offer and making sure we remember every detail of past similar experiences.   

  When Fear Needs To Get The Funk Out

  I do, however, think there’s a time and a place to kick fear to the curb and tell it politely to bugger off. Irrational fears like fear of failure, rejection or the fear that no one cares can hold us back from doing things we are completely capable of doing - simply because it has no information to tell us otherwise. Fear tells us that the unknown is a bad thing. Fear also crops up when we're making decisions. But again, if there’s no logical reason for the fear, then it can prevent us from being able to clearly decide to do something or not. This is getting confusing - is fear hurting or helping our business? Do we love fear or hate it? The short answer. We love it but we should remain cautious, I say (and what I’ll be telling my daughter if she brings home the motorcycle bad boy in high school). 

  1. If you start feeling fear or apprehension before you do something completely new--like writing a blog post that feels outside your normal topic, or starting a new business that your family just doesn’t get, or offering a new service that’s slightly off what people expect of you--and there’s no evidence that anyone perished doing what you want to do... IGNORE fear and get ‘er done.
  2. If you’re worrying about an outcome that has never happened to anyone anywhere and even if it did happen it wouldn’t cause irreparable damage... IGNORE fear and get ‘er done.
  3. And if you’ve put in the time on a project, know in your heart it’s something you want to do, promote, build, offer... then you absolutely must IGNORE the fear and get ‘er done.

  How It Works In Real Life

  Fear has a place in your business and your life.  It fuels you to leave that job that you fear will eat your soul.  It can completely change the direction of your business for the better - and your only job...is to listen to it. Without fear I wouldn’t have had the courage to change some pretty frustrating situations in my life. I’d still be producing animation and dreading every second of it, working at the pilates studio that gave me hives (not joking), and creating a never-ending outline for the program I FINALLY got over myself to release. Listen to fear. Decide if it’s giving you informed information.  If it is, stop and think before taking action. If it’s not, get a move on.  

  Now it’s your turn. Do you let fear stop you from taking action in your business or do you use it to push through those moments when you’re jumping into the unknown?