In my client sessions this last week, I’ve seen fear being faced and fear being conquered, resulting in great achievements.
I woke up this morning to an email from Carrie Green of the Female Entrepreneur Association, talking about the fears she faced when she first set up her business – and if Carrie Green has fears, then I guess most of us do, right? And so I thought it would be a great topic for this week’s blog.
Fear
I’ve recently worked with a client who had a great attitude to fear within her business – she just took it all on the chin. “Yeah, I’ll give it a go – what’s the worst that can happen?” she’d say when we would talk about something that might take her out of her comfort zone. I really admire her approach; she doesn’t stand in her own way and her business thrives because of this.
But it isn’t that easy for everyone. I know that for myself, I have to work hard on the inner work to get past some of my fears. In the back of my mind, I always have the title of the Susan Jeffers book ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ and that’s stood me in good stead.
This morning as I was thinking about this, I was reminded of a situation that happened to me back in my employed days – a story that really made me quake in my high heels – and I thought I’d tell the story to you today.
A long time ago, back in 2009…
I was SO relieved when my meeting with Lord Sugar was cancelled!
For me, it was a very scary opportunity – but it didn’t come to pass.
It was 2009, Sugar was in his position as (Prime Minister at the time) Gordon Brown’s ‘Enterprise Tsar’. I was working as a consultant for a Government funded service provider and we were told that Lord Sugar (I think he was Sir Alan back then) was coming to the West Midlands to visit some companies. It was quite an exciting prospect.
And then… I was pulled into my manager’s office to be told that I was the lucky business consultant chosen to take him to meet one of my clients 🎉… 😱.
I was given all of the details and as it happened, I had a client visit booked in for the day in question.
My client was ecstatic. Imagine – Lord Alan Sugar, one of Britain’s most celebrated business moguls, casting his eye over their business. The potential for them, even with just one meeting, would be huge.
I, however, was petrified! I felt incredibly sick.
My peers were in 2 camps – some were relieved, very thankful it wasn’t them! Others were extremely miffed – extremely miffed indeed. Why hadn’t they been chosen?
I’ll be honest, it was the reaction of the ‘miffed’ that made me step up (because I could have been very easily persuaded to pass the opportunity over to someone else). They made me realise that whilst I knew I could this, I was the right person to be chosen. I’d ruffled the feathers of the older male peacocks (I did this more than once) and I was a bit fed up of being made to feel like ‘young Fay’. Their reactions gave me the impetus I needed to push the fear down as hard as I could.
But whilst on the outside I was stepping up, I couldn’t help but imagine sitting across the desk from Lord Sugar during our meeting with him pointing his finger at me telling me I was fired. 👈
I had convinced myself that he would be critically assessing my performance as a consultant – and as hard as I tried to quell the fear, I couldn’t get past being petrified.
Time passed and the day drew nearer, I was doing a lot of deep breathing exercises at this stage but I’d psyched myself up for the visit… only to be called into my manager’s office once again to be told the meeting had to be postponed due to a more pressing engagement for Sugar. But not to worry as it would be re-arranged.
It never was.
My client was devastated. I wasn’t – I was shaking with relief.
You see, I only ever thought about myself and my performance as a consultant – and that I would do something or not do something that would let me down.
I’ve not thought about this much over the years but a few months ago, I did – and suddenly I realised that I’d only ever thought this was about me.
Of course, it wasn’t and it never would have been about me – my role would have just been to connect Lord Sugar with my client. This was an amazing opportunity for my client, one where they would have had a conversation with Lord Sugar that really wouldn’t involve me that much, as they’d be wanting to make the most of the time they had available. An opportunity that very sadly, they didn’t get to have.
It would have been an amazing opportunity for me too.
Feel the fear and do it anyway
I’m sharing this story with you because it shows how important it is to see situations from different sides before you let fear get in the way. And why talking through fearful situations can really help as different people will always bring a different perspective. And if fear does still rear its ugly head – sometimes, in order to get ahead, we have to feel the fear and do it anyway!
Right now, there’s a lot of fear around. Related fear to Covid-19 which is totally understandable – but the fear we feel in our businesses will always be there unless we go all out to conquer it. This means actively pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. (Read more about how the magic happens outside of your comfort zone here).
How are you going to push yourself out of your comfort zone to feel the fear and do it anyway today?
