Monday morning and it’s blog time…mmm I’m sure that’s a song, oh no that’s hammer time for all those eighties retro born individuals like me. I’m sorry for my eighties reflection, I spent a lot of yesterday with my band, playing eighties music (not Hammer Time I’m pleased to say), getting ready for another round of Weekend Warriors. This is a program run by Allans Music for old farts that desperately want to be rock stars. It is made up of ammeters that can’t play very well but are willing the embarrassment and give it a go. The program runs for four weeks ending in a full on gig at a pub with a live audience. I’ve done it once before, not that I told anyone, which was a huge buzz and scary as hell. This brings me to today’s blog.
Face the fear and do it anyway…
Now when you decided to go into business, whatever you are doing, I am sure there was fear present. Some of you transitioned from a big firm to your own thing. Some of you followed your destiny and fell into your own business. Others may have had a life changing experience that drove you to changing paths and into your own business. This was my experience when I came down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. What ever your journey has been there was an element of fear that you had to push past to do what you are doing.
I often find that once you have pushed passed that initial fear, which is often overcome because of necessity and a need to make an income, we forget about consciously and consistently pushing through fears. Fear is a constant especially when you are running your own business. Whether it is a fear of making it work, a fear of putting yourself on the line or fear of pushing into areas that make you feel uncomfortable, it is imperative that we do it. Maybe business success all comes down to how comfortable we are at being uncomfortable. How willing we are to face the fear and do it anyway.
I used to snow ski for Australia, something I don’t tell many people, representing our country in international competition throughout Europe. During some of the most exhilarating experiences of my life I learnt how to face the fear and do it anyway. Imagine if you will placing two bits of wood a meter and a half long to your feet, then crouching down and be pushed down a mountain at 120 kilometers an hour. Imagine the wind in your face, the ground only centimeters from your nose and the chance of crashing and causing serious injury to yourself, or death, a constant reality. At the speeds that you obtain as a downhill skier the planks of wood attached to your feet are not actually touching the ground. As you look at them they rock from side to side as the ground rushes underneath them. What on earth would drive anyone to risk his or her life for such a sport? The rush of it, the adrenalin of it and thrill of it?
In some respects running your own business is like a downhill ski race. Once you leave the start line you are committed down the track. Sometimes it is going to be thrilling, sometimes scary and sometimes you will be racked with fear. At the end of the race you will be left with exhilaration unlike anything else. Now a downhill ski race only lasts a minute and a half and a business sometimes a lifetime. Regardless a lot of your success will come down to how you face the fear and do it anyway. Pushing through fear, overcoming those things that scare you most may ultimately be why you succeed or fail. In a ski race only the most fearless win as any amount of fear slows you down and when races are won by hundredth of a second there is no place for fear.
There is a statistic I herd somewhere which goes like this. 90% of all businesses that start today will not see their fifth birthday. Of those 10% that remain a further 90% wont make it to their tenth birthday. Not a very positive or encouraging statistic is it? So how do you become and remain in the 10% of the 10%?
There are lots of aspects to business that assist in its ultimate success, marketing, networking, having a needed product, identifying and reaching your ideal customers, finance, internet, management, the list goes on. There are also hundreds of guru’s on the Internet showing you many systematic ways to make a million and have a successful business. Even I have a systematic program to increase your business success. However maybe, just maybe it all comes down to one thing…your ability to overcome fear!
So what is your greatest fear? Public speaking, presenting, speaking with customers, dealing with finance, getting yourself out there, networking, managing, organizing the list goes on. The first step in overcoming a fear is to identify the fear. Then, and here’s the key, RUN TOWARDS IT! Summon all the courage that you have and run towards those things that scare you most. Public speaking, which is the number one fear in the world even above death, is an obvious one that most of us have (If you are going to have a successful business then this is one you definitely need to get over and quick). When we run towards our fear we always find it disappears. It is a bit like a fog, it looks thick and scary when you are on the outside however if you run into it you find that it is just a thin layer of mist.
I remember when I realised that for me to be successful I had to learn and be comfortable with public speaking. I had herd of a public speaking course offered by the Dale Carnegie group, Dale is the author of the famous best seller ‘How to Win Friend and Influence People’ a great book. It took me five years to summon the courage to do this course but I did it. Every week of the course, which runs for 12 weeks, you have to make two presentations in front of 100 people. Every week I sat in my car and said “I’m not going in, there is no way I’m going in” and every week I faced my fear and did it anyway. At the end of the course I was invited to become a leader and then a trainer and the feeling of success I felt as I overcame the fear was incredible. It helped me to have the confidence to do my MBA amongst other things. Now it did not cure my fear of public speaking but rather gave me the tools to do it. Every time I am asked to speak I feel the fear and do it anyway.
One of the tricks I learnt was to say yes before the fear kicks in, you see fear is all in the mind. It takes a few moments for the brain to realize and activate the feeling of fear so if you say yes quick enough the fear does not have time to stop you. I am sure you have all herd of the acronym for fear, False Evidence Appearing Real. It is just the brain reflecting on the past and projecting it into the future and leaving us with a feeling akin to fear in the now. Most of us have had negative experiences of public speaking, whether it was in front of family friends as a kid where people laughed at us, never in malice just how it was. Even at school a lot of us where ridiculed every time we stood up and spoke. There is no such thing as a naturally gifted speaker just those who have learnt to overcome the fear and do it anyway.
So what is your greatest fear in business? Go run toward it and do what ever you need to, to face it head on. This one action may just change your business success forever. Get out and present to as many people as possible. Take every opportunity to speak in front of an audience. Face the fear of finance by getting someone who is not afraid or fearful of it to help you. What ever your fears get help to overcome them or face the fear and do it anyway.
If you need help call me and I will assist you to identify your fears and provide you with strategies to overcome them powerfully. For when you overcome your fears you take back your power and you move forward into greater and greater success…try it I dare you!
So run toward your fears, face them head on and I bet you will find them not so scary.
Oh and if anyone wants to come to the gig I’ll try and get over the fear and let you know in my upcoming blog’s.
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