#399: Using Fear, As A Compass - For What's Important.

Fear doesn’t always mean danger. Sometimes it’s your internal compass pointing straight at the thing you care about most. We unpack a simple, practical reframe that turns “I’m scared” into “this is important,” and we show how that shift changes what you do next, whether you’re chasing a relationship, a career move, a creative goal, or a personal challenge you’ve been avoiding.

We also dig into the hidden logic behind taking risks: if you do nothing, the answer is already no. If you try and fail, the answer is still no. So the only outcome you can’t get through silence is yes. That lens helps take the sting out of rejection and failure, because it highlights what’s real: progress comes from swinging, not from waiting for perfect timing or perfect confidence.

From there, we challenge the way we use the word “difficult,” arguing it often just means “new” or “I don’t have reps yet.” We connect that to bold goal setting and mindset tools like the 10X Rule and the high-performance mentality associated with David Goggins, plus the power of writing goals down so your thinking turns into results you can measure. We close with a push to stop being reactive and start creating opportunities on purpose, especially when fear shows up at the door.

If this mindset helps you, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a quick review. What’s one “important” thing you’re going to do this week even if you feel the fear?

Transcript

Fear As Your North Star

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Fear as a compass. You know, I'm going to try to say this as best as I can, but I truly believe that fear itself, that feeling, that doesn't mean you actually have to be afraid of something. But if anything, I truly believe that feeling of fear is the greatest North Star, the greatest compass your soul has in your entire being. Because typically speaking, and again, I don't want to use these negative words like afraid and stuff like that, but just for lack of better words, right? Whenever you're afraid of something, of doing something that's important to you, that's how you know it's important. Okay. You're not afraid of doing things that aren't important. Okay. But it's that fear, for lack of better words, of not accomplishing it or rejection or failure, okay, that is the most hindering thing.

The Only Upside Of Trying

SPEAKER_00 1:03

But the thing is, you gotta swing to hit the ball. The next time you see that beautiful woman, that beautiful girl you've always wanted to talk to, the reason why you're afraid to talk to her is because you know it's important. Okay. But I'm a big believer that every answer is a yes, meaning if there's a beautiful girl and you want to talk to her, okay, by you saying nothing, your answer is no. If she rejects you, the answer is still no. So realistically, if you go and talk to that pretty girl, right? The only positive outcome for you attempting to do anything can only be a yes. Because a no is of equal value when you do not try to do something compared to when you do it and you fail. If you knew that everything that you would do would only be a positive result, wouldn't you do more? Wouldn't you try to do more things? Think about that concept. What if everything that you wanted to try to do, you knew that you'd be more that you knew that you would actually make that shot uh uh in basketball or get that hole in one or get that beautiful girl you've always wanted to. You ever see some guys with girls that are way out of their league or something like that? Okay, that's because they weren't afraid. Or if they were, they used fear as a compass because they they swung, they hit, and now they got the girl, right? This applies for everything in life, okay? You need to be able to take chances. You need to be able to take risks. But what if they weren't chances? What if they weren't risks? The second that you start shifting your mindset from it will happen to it might happen, open doors are the only thing you're gonna see in your life. You know how you've heard that phrase? Um, if you think like a hammer, everything would look like it is a nail, right? Well, think about like this. I don't really exactly know what the perfect phrasing of it would be. I might come up with that later date. My point is, if you think that everything that you would try, you'd always succeed at, wouldn't you be more likely to try new things, to try different sports, to try different food, to try uh to learn flying a helicopter or to do all sorts of

Why “Difficult” Is A Myth

SPEAKER_00 3:25

stuff. When you're in these new elements, I actually said something earlier to somebody uh twice in this last week, actually, um, essentially, which is that there's no such thing as difficult. The word difficult is actually just a catchword, okay, for somebody to have a sense of security uh during the earliest phases of learning. Meaning, if you say, uh, you know, learn how to ride a bicycle, you could say that's difficult. Okay. Well, it's not. It's because you don't have any experience doing it. Okay. If I say swimming a mile is difficult, it's not. You don't have any experience in it. But if you could swim 10 miles and flash forward to when you were trying to just swim one, that first mile didn't become any more or less of a distance. The difficulty, okay, was the barrier that you put in your mind before you got into the water. But what if you lived in a what if you lived in a world, right, with no barriers? How much more could you get accomplished? How much further could you push yourself? Right?

Think 10X To Break Limits

SPEAKER_00 4:32

That's part of the reason that I love this one book. Um uh that doesn't talk about this specifically, but it does essentially talk about shooting through your goals, right? Which is by uh Grant Cardone. Uh it's called the 10X rule. And essentially talks about like multiplying your goals by 10 to get through that goal. If you try to get something 10 times bigger than what your goal is, you're gonna get your goal and then pass that and beyond, right? One of another one of my favorite authors uh served as a Navy SEAL, David Goggins, both of his books, very phenomenal. Um, and it he really just in the physical aspect, you can see how he essentially takes that principle of multiplying your mind to have your body um uh do the output that your mind wants. Instead of running 10 miles, think about running a hundred, and you'll do 10 pretty easily. It's not a mental trick, okay? It's a reality trick, okay? You're bending your mind, all right, just like uh like steel, like a spoon or something like that, right? If you ever try to bend a spoon, to bend it, it might not be easy, but the more that you work at it, the middle of it becomes hot. That steel, okay, that that aluminum or whatever it is, okay, it starts to become more pliable, right? And then after a while, you can contort it in any way that you want. Be the spoon, okay? And have your mind, have that be the heat. Start looking at everything, is not just open doors of possibilities, okay, but closed doors after you walk through it with the result that you want.

Replace Fear With “Important”

SPEAKER_00 6:06

The second you start putting your mind, okay, and not just visualizing it, but writing stuff down, as I mentioned, like in my last podcast, right? That will be the moment that you have not just that mental shift, but you'll have the physical shift. You'll go from thinking different to getting different results. And how are you going to determine that? Through fear. Whenever next time you have something, anything, doesn't matter what it is, fill in the blank, that you think this is a moment where something in your head says that you should be afraid of it, don't think of that as fear. Replace the word fear with important. Next time you get that feeling, okay, instead of saying that you should be afraid of this or you should fear doing that, or the out the negative outcome, just remember you're only having that thought because you don't want to lose. All right? You don't want to get that rejection. And you only get you only get that feeling of rejection, not wanting to lose for things that you care about, for things that are important. Okay. So I'm gonna hop off. I hope everybody has a beautiful day. But if you remember everything, just remember use fear as your compass. When you see something that's an opportunity, walk through that door. But before you walk through, know that on the other side of that door can only be a yes. Because before you walk through that door, it's a no. If you walk through it and it doesn't work, hypothetically, nothing ever changed. So there's no reason not to try. Let everything in your life be a yes.

Create Opportunities On Purpose

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Don't just walk through doors, don't just uh uh go through opportunities, make opportunities, create opportunities. Okay? Me in comedy, for example, I don't, if I'm reactive and I just wait for people to call me, it's gonna be a slow day, right? But if I start calling up businesses and saying, you know, offering and soliciting my services to create moments and memories with their staff or their comedy club or whatever, okay? I'm being proactive. You can be reactive, but you need to be proactive. You need to find opportunities to win. Always constantly creating new opportunities. And anytime you see something that is, again, quote unquote, fearful or you're afraid to do something, just remember replace that word fear or afraid with important. When you have that feeling, that just means that it's important. And if it's important, you owe it to yourself to do it. So walk through that door, accomplish that goal, and start pursuing all of these things.

Final Push To Walk Through

SPEAKER_00 9:00

The rest of your life force, that other part, is trying to push you away from. Find the fear, replace it with importance. I've been you're well done, check me out.