Fear Isn’t The Enemy

Growth rarely dies from lack of strategy; it dies from fear wearing a clever mask. We pull that mask off and name the four big blockers—judgment, success, failure, and visibility—then show how they sneak into your day as “one more tweak,” “I’ll launch later,” or “I don’t want to bother my list.” If your plans look busy but your numbers don’t move, you’re likely paying the hidden costs of hesitation: missed podcast guest spots, skipped list swaps, slower audience growth, and goals that play small to stay safe.

We share a pragmatic reframe: success is a tolerance-building game. You don’t wait for fear to leave; you outgrow it by acting with it still present. That starts with a weekly rhythm—identify the fear running the show, pick one visible action that confronts it, and ship: pitch a podcast, publish the post, raise your price, or send the email. Public actions create momentum because they invite response, feedback, and reach in ways private planning can’t. We also dig into why podcast listeners move across shows and how smart outreach compounds growth far more efficiently than polishing your website for the tenth time.

Email gets a focused spotlight. Many creators write once a month out of worry they’ll “bother” subscribers, but silence is the real nuisance. Consistent, value-first messages with a clear offer build trust and shorten the path to purchase. We lay out a simple loop you can run this week: name the fear, create the artifact, publish publicly, follow up, and review. The goal isn’t to become fearless; it’s to be led by commitment instead of caution, and to prove to yourself that action shrinks anxiety.

If this resonates, subscribe for more practical, psychology-savvy growth ideas, share the episode with a founder who’s stuck in tweak mode, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What’s the one visible action you’ll take in the next 24 hours?

Chapters

• 0:00 Naming The Real Problem
• 0:14 Common Business Fears Unpacked
• 1:13 How Fear Disguises Itself
• 1:38 The Hidden Costs Of Hesitation
• 2:44 Growth Requires Tolerating Discomfort
• 3:13 One Visible Action This Week
• 3:39 Email Your List Without Apology
• 4:00 Act Today Toward 90-Day Goals

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Your business isn't stuck. It's scared. Or more accurately, you are. It is barely likely that you have silent fears that are constantly running through your brain. For example, the fear of being judged. What will they think? I remember when I first started my food blog and I didn't want to share in social media because I didn't want other teachers realizing that I had another business that I was running because it was that fear of not wanting to be judged. You also may have a fear of success. You might feel be afraid that you're going to outgrow people by being, or that you're going to be too busy, or that you're not be going to be able to maintain the workload that you were hitting. That fear of success can hold you back from actually wanting to move forward. You may also have a fear of failure. So you don't even want to try because you don't want to fail. There also could be a fear of visibility, showing up fully, giving your true self and who you are in order to help solve the problem that you know that you can for your people. Fear often shows up disguised. It'll say, I'm not ready yet. There'll be endless tweaking. You'll be undercharging. You may not be pitching other podcasts, other people to do list swaps. And you may be hiding behind planning. This could also be why you're holding out on putting out your launch of your product or service. Here's the true fact, though. There are many hidden costs of fear, starting with missed opportunities. If you're not reaching out to other podcasters to get onto their podcast, you never know what could have come from that. Or if you're not asking to do a list slot because you think your list is too small. That is huge missed opportunity. You also are likely to have slower growth from that. You need to remember that if you have a podcast, podcast listeners are podcast listeners. They're going to go from one podcast to another. They're less likely to go from a blog post or a YouTube video to a podcast if they don't normally listen to podcasts. So missing out on that will give you that slower growth. You're also going to find that you're going to have smaller goals. They're not going to be as big and as needle-moving as they could be for your business. And you're going to likely become a watered-down version of yourself, holding yourself back, not allowing yourself to move forward, or just kind of staying where you're at because it's comfortable. I need you to have a reality check. You need to understand fear doesn't leave. You outgrow it by taking action with it still present. We always say that uncomfortable feeling that you're about to take is because growth is right around the corner. You have to understand success is a tolerance-building game. What can you actually tolerate when it comes to that uncomfortable feeling of the unknown? So here are some things that you can actually do in order to help yourself. I want you to identify the fear running the show this week. And then I want you to take one visible, uncomfortable action aligned with it. So whether that's pitching, a post, a launch, to raise prices, or to send an email. Too often I hear people saying, I don't want to bother my list. I don't want to bother my people. So they think they should only email once a month. That is huge missed opportunity. And they are on your list for a reason. So don't let that become what holds you back from sending your list. You need to realize fear isn't the enemy. Your silences. So I want you to take action today. Figure out what one of these is holding you back and take a visible action that is going to move you forward to hitting your 90 day goals that you have set.