SCOUR THE LANDSCAPE of phobias and you’ll bump into some interesting fears. You’ve probably heard of arachnophobia (fear of spiders), ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), aerophobia (fear of flying), and acrophobia (fear of heights). But what about somniphobia (fear of sleep), ombrophobia (fear of rain), or haphephobia (fear of touch)?
Some people are afraid of being stuck in an elevator.
Others are afraid of putting their head underwater.
There are people who are afraid of thunder and lightning.
And some who are afraid of being alone.
If you and I were to chat long enough, we might add a few entries to the list. I know this because the experience of fear is part of being human. Fearlessness is a myth.
Recently, my Unlocking Potential team worked with some staff members from the Wounded Warrior Project, a veterans service organization that has provided both immediate comfort and long-term support to women and men injured in military battles since September 11, 2001. As our conversation unfolded, I realized that the heart of the issue was plain, old-fashioned fear. For example, the Project leaders went to great lengths to organize job fairs to help wounded veterans who needed a job connect with employers who were hiring. They would reserve a ballroom, order food and drink, and prepare accommodations for hundreds of attendees, but only ten or twelve people would show up. The lackluster turnout time and again was frustrating and discouraging for the organizers.
After hearing about this issue, I voiced the question that came to my mind: “What are they afraid of?” I figured if we could get to the bottom of the veterans’ fear, we would understand why they stayed away and perhaps be able to make some helpful adjustments to the program.
The room fell silent for several seconds before a woman finally raised her hand and spoke.
“I myself am a wounded warrior,” she said quietly, “and I know what they fear. They’re afraid of coming to the job fair, talking to all these companies, and then not being offered the job. They’re afraid of being pitied because of their injuries. They’re afraid of failing. They’re afraid of feeling worse than they already feel. They don’t come to the job fair because they’re afraid to come. It seems easier to just stay home.”
I nodded my head in recognition. These folks who were staying home instead of pursuing the paycheck they so desperately needed were the same men and women who had come through enemy fire, jumped from helicopters, and sidestepped land mines. And these people were afraid.
To be human is to be afraid. Fearlessness is a myth.
My first experience with fear occurred when I was a very small child. Perhaps it was because I knew that both my parents had lost a parent, but I was desperately afraid I would lose them. I just knew that if I left their presence even for a moment, they would die. Or I would die. Or we all would die. I didn’t know the term thanatophobia at the time, but I certainly suffered from the fear of death.
Most little girls love to have sleepovers with their friends, but never once did I go. Whenever my parents had to leave town for one reason or another, it was a major crisis in our home. My sister and brother would whoop and holler, thrilled that Mom and Dad would be gone for a few days, and I would fall mysteriously ill.
“Mommy, please don’t go,” I’d say. “I’m sick. You can’t go now.”
It didn’t take long for Mom to figure out that her middle child was faking.
“I’m so sorry, but we have to go, honey,” she’d say. And without fail, that declaration would break my heart. It got so bad that my parents could be going next door for a two-hour dinner party, and yet I would react as if I’d been orphaned. I would hole up in one of my siblings’ rooms, lying in bed and reciting the Lord’s Prayer over and over until they returned.
To be human is to be afraid. Fearlessness is a myth.
But what are we to do with our fear? How do we live when we’re so afraid?
———
In one of those urban legends that make their way around the Internet from time to time, the story is told of a radio conversation between a US Navy ship and an unknown craft off the coast of Newfoundland. It was a foggy night, and every so often the ship’s captain would notice a light flashing dead ahead through the mist. Assuming the beacon to be from a Canadian fishing boat, the captain got on the radio.
“Divert your course fifteen degrees north to avoid collision,” he commanded.
A few seconds passed before a response crackled across the airwaves: “Divert your course fifteen degrees south to avoid collision.”
Annoyed, the American captain radioed back: “I say again, divert your course fifteen degrees north.”
Again, the laconic reply: “Divert your course fifteen degrees south.”
The naval captain realized that unless something changed—and fast—a collision was inevitable. With tensions rising, he radioed, “This is the USS Lincoln, the second-largest ship in the United States’ Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers, and numerous support vessels. I demand that you change your course fifteen degrees north—one-five degrees north—or countermeasures will be taken to ensure the safety of this ship!”
There was a brief pause, and then came this reply: “That’s your call, Captain. This is a lighthouse.”
Although the story has been debunked several times by Snopes and others—including the US Navy—the image of something immovable is useful for our purposes here. The fears we experience are like ships in the water: In due time, they will all pass. On the other hand, the strong and steady and secure lighthouse is like courage. It tells fear to alter its course, if only we’ll stop allowing fear to hold so much sway.
After decades of battling fears in my own life—first of losing my parents, later of looking like a fool, among others—my firm belief is that fear has two possible destinies. The good news is that you and I get to choose which one will play out. Either fear will control us, consume us, and contain us, or we will control and contain it. Both cannot be true simultaneously, and only one of those outcomes serves us well. Either we lend power to fear—and stay locked up, shaky, afraid—or we lend power to courage, and thereby find the ability to thrive.
Back when I was a manager of engineering at AT&T, my team and I had to deal with one of our corporate attorneys who needed information from our group for one of his cases. He was a real piece of work. Whenever Glen the Lawyer called someone on my staff to make a request, instead of handling the exchange like a normal, civilized human being, he would yell and scream and often hang up on my team member. He was incredibly abusive, and I got quite an earful from my colleagues every time they received a call from Glen. One day, I’d finally had enough. I picked up the phone, dialed Glen’s number, and told him, “You may not treat my team this way.”
“Respect for the individual” was one of our core values at AT&T, and the members of my team were not being respected.
“Glen,” I continued, “you need to be respectful of these people. They are working hard for you. They’re jumping through all your hoops, in addition to doing their normal jobs. They deserve better than how you’re treating them.”
Glen the Lawyer was much higher in the organization than I was, which is perhaps why he wasn’t too pleased with my telling him what he needed to do. I knew he wasn’t happy because he expressed his displeasure right then and there, over the phone. In mostly four-letter words. He ended his verbal rampage with a question: “What are you going to do about it?”
It seemed I had stumbled upon a crossroads, and I knew I had a decision to make. I can either lend power to courage, I thought, or else give power to my fear.
“Glen,” I said, “unless and until you apologize and behave differently, we will no longer do work for you.”
With that, I hung up the phone. And then I burst into tears. I may have lent power to courage on the outside, but inside I was a bundle of fear. After several moments of wondering what on earth I’d just done, I composed myself, walked out to where my team sat, and told them what I’d said to Glen. I instructed them not to do an ounce of work for him until further notice.
“I may have just gotten myself fired,” I told them, “but I stand by what I’ve done. If you catch any heat from this, you make me the bad guy. Understood?”
Heads nodded and lips drew up into subtle grins. Nobody likes to be bullied. Nobody likes to be treated like scum. Glen the Lawyer had been put in his place, and even though my knees were knocking, I knew I had done the right thing.
It took Glen another two days before he fully got the message and called to apologize. But to his credit, he apologized to my team, and he apologized to me. Best of all, he made all future requests for information graciously, and my team was happy to comply.
———
I’d be remiss if I didn’t fast-forward at this point to a more recent example of my needing to marshal a little courage in standing up to obnoxious behavior. This one occurred during the presidential debate season. In the fall of 2015, my team and I were on a cross-country blitz of key states, trying to entice voters to join our cause. One evening, I received a call from a young woman on my staff who was upset by something Donald Trump had said.
“What did he say now?” I asked, already weary of his conversational antics.
“It’s about your face,” she said.
She told me that the September issue of Rolling Stone magazine included a feature interview with Mr. Trump. During the interview with writer Paul Solotaroff, the two men evidently watched a newscast with Mr. Trump offering a running commentary. When a video clip zoomed in on me, Mr. Trump said, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”
When the others at the table, who had been laughing at his previous remarks, fell silent, he added, “I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not s’posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”[1]
My campaign aide was almost in tears as she relayed the story to me, which is probably why she was shocked when she heard me laughing on the phone.
“How can you laugh about this?” she asked. “It’s terrible.”
I’ll give her credit for being too young to know that women my age have spent an entire lifetime dealing with nonsense like this. Trump’s remarks were merely the latest in a long, long line of comments made by men over the years about my appearance, my physique, or my gender—either positively or negatively—as a means of dismissing me altogether.
I told my staff to let it go, and I did the same.
Aside from answering a reporter’s direct question regarding how I felt about the remark (I responded, “I didn’t take the comments he made about me personally because he is an equal-opportunity insulter”), I didn’t say anything about it. My second debate, with the full slate of Republican-ticket hopefuls, was a week away. I knew it would be addressed then. The only question remaining was, What would I say?
In advance of the debate, I focused on researching the policy issues I wanted to emphasize. I secured key stats and figures in my mind, and I finalized the points I wanted to ingrain in voters’ minds. Despite my usual knack for planning ahead, I did not prepare a response for Mr. Trump.
“We’ll just see what happens,” I told my team.
During the debate, moderator Jake Tapper from CNN said he wanted to give Mr. Trump a chance to respond to a comment that fellow candidate Jeb Bush had made the previous week.
“Governor Bush told me last week when I read him the quote from [Louisiana] Governor Jindal that he agrees you’re not a serious candidate,” Jake began. “Tell Governor Bush why you are a serious candidate and what your qualifications are to be commander-in-chief.”
Part of Mr. Trump’s reply included the statement, “I heard what he had to say,” delivered with mock offense. When I heard that line, I tucked it away. I knew I would be using it soon.
Later, when Jake Tapper asked me if I cared to respond to Mr. Trump’s comments about my face, I said, “You know, it’s interesting to me. Mr. Trump said that he heard Mr. Bush very clearly. . . . I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.”
As the applause in the room died down, Mr. Trump leaned into his microphone and said, “I think she’s got a beautiful face, and I think she’s a beautiful woman.”[2]
I stared straight ahead into the camera. Donald Trump’s opinion of my face, beautiful or not, was his way of trying to diminish me. He never got the chance.
In the end, I was glad I hadn’t practiced for the occasion. What “just happened” turned out to be perfect for the moment. By lending power to courage, saying only what needed to be said, and allowing Mr. Trump’s words to form their own noose, I came out of that encounter with my dignity and my soul intact.
The point I want to make is this: By the time I found myself in a presidential debate, toe to toe on national television with someone who tried to dominate every exchange, I’d had so many opportunities to muster courage and tamp down fear that I wasn’t the least bit afraid.
———
I know it sounds too good to be true, but all fear, no matter its consequence, can be contained. We don’t have to be contained by it. Mark Twain once wrote that “courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.”[3] We cannot erase fear’s presence from the course of our lives, but we can definitely put up a fight.
If you’ve ever had the experience of getting an MRI, you know what a terrible experience it is. You’re asked to dress in a hospital gown, lie down on a conveyor belt, and place your body inside a fixed cage.
“Don’t move,” the technician reminds you. “Whatever you do, for the entirety of this test, don’t move.”
The technician then goes into a different room to watch you through a plate glass window as the conveyor belt moves you into an enclosed tube. If you weren’t claustrophobic before, you are now. Through a microphone, the technician makes sure you’re “all set,” and then the imaging begins.
I don’t know why the inventors of the MRI machine couldn’t have made the sound of all those images being taken something like waves lapping against the shore or birds singing their morning songs, but they didn’t. What they opted for instead was a jackhammer—a loud, persistent, mind-rattling jackhammer. By the time you come out, you can add migraines to whatever list of ailments had you receiving an MRI in the first place.
The situation couldn’t get any worse, right? You’re sick. You’re stuck. There’s a figurative jackhammer chiseling into your skull. Now, imagine that once you’ve been rolled into the tube and placed in position, you notice something strapped to the top of the machine, just inches above your head. Upon closer inspection, you discover that it’s a live, three-foot-long snake on a box attached to the top of the scanner.
“Don’t move,” you hear the technician say again. “I’ll need to ask you to remain completely still.”
I wish I could tell you that this scene was fictional, but it’s not. Two Israeli scientists who were conducting an experiment on fear attached a snake to the inside of an MRI machine and waited as unsuspecting patients were rolled into place. Then they collected brain-scan data to see what they could learn.
The results, I think, are fascinating. It turns out that when faced with a fearsome situation, the human brain experiences fear on two distinct levels. There is the fear you register as a threat to your body, and there is fear that you merely feel. One is objective—a snake is about to land on my face! And one is subjective—if I don’t get out of here, I will surely die! The only time that fear cannot be contained is when we cave in to both types of fear at the same time.
A reporter for Scientific American said of the experiment’s findings,
You could say that you are not afraid but sweat a lot, or say that you are freaked out and sweat not at all. But here is the interesting thing: as long as these two disagree, you would act courageously. It is only when you scored high on both, sweat and fear, that you would succumb to cowardice. It is as if you have two brakes. Release either one, and you could drive on.[4]
It’s normal to feel anxiety when we decide to face fear. But sometimes we simply have to tell ourselves, “Don’t freak out.”
———
To reach your fullest potential and live the life of impact for which you were made, you will have to marshal great courage—perhaps more often than you realize. Think about it: The path to your fullest potential is paved with problems, problems you are intended to solve. But to solve those problems, you must work to change the order of things. Something is wrong that must be set right. A system is broken, a relationship is fractured, someone is being mistreated, a value isn’t being upheld.
To change the order of things, you must take action—bold, decisive action. After all, things don’t get changed on their own.
To take bold, decisive action is to subject yourself to criticism. And who in their right mind wants that?
The reason problems stick around for so long, festering until they stink, is not that people don’t see them. Everyone sees the problems! Though some people want change to happen, those who are invested in the status quo may want things to stay the way they are. So change is always difficult. One reason those problems don’t get solved sooner is that nobody wants to be criticized for making the changes that need to be made.
When I left my role as CEO of Hewlett-Packard, I left with my honor intact. During my six years there, my colleagues and I had made significant changes and solved substantial problems. I was, and am, extremely proud of what we accomplished, and yet to read the news stories that came out in the days following my departure, you’d have thought I was evil incarnate—or worse. I was “too flashy.” I was “vindictive.” Employees had “never liked me.” I don’t know how such treatment would have affected you, but it was hard for me to swallow. I’m a recovering people-pleaser. I care deeply about what people think. I want to be accepted and liked and valued and esteemed, and yet here I was being portrayed as an utter failure—and in front of the entire world, no less! And yet what was I supposed to do? I could hand over my power to the fears that tried to crop up—that everyone hated me, that I had embarrassed myself, that I would never amount to anything again—or I could take a different tack and stand my ground.
The facts were these: When I realized that two of our board members were leaking sensitive corporate information to the press, I told the entire board that the situation was intolerable to me. Either we had to put a stop to the leaks and ensure they never happened again—it was a clear violation of our code of conduct—or I would leave. Though we all knew the sources of the leaks, no one would ever own up. Another board member encouraged me on several occasions to “let it go.”
I couldn’t let it go.
Later, when it became clear to me that the rest of the board wasn’t prepared to take action against these two board members and too many were prepared to let me go instead, I could have chosen to tie up the proceedings for months, exercising my right as a board member to vote against my own firing.
I wouldn’t cast that vote.
By a majority of one, then, the board voted to kick me out.
Hours later, their outside counsel approached me with the news that the board wanted me to paint my departure as my own decision—that I had accomplished all I’d set out to accomplish and I was ready to move on to other challenges.
I did not agree to that plan.
Had I caved to all my old fears, I would have behaved far differently than I did. But courage called me to a strength I didn’t know I had. I stood firmly on my values. I accepted my departure. And I insisted on telling the truth. I wouldn’t change a thing.
On the heels of my abrupt dismissal, friends called in tears of outrage and disgust. “How could they do this to you, Carly? How on earth are you handling all of this?”
To be clear, I was not happy about what happened. In fact, for the next three years, I couldn’t even drive by HP headquarters because it churned my stomach so much. But all the drama? All the pretense? All the outrage and disgust? I was glad to have it behind me. I was at peace with what had happened. I had made my own choices, and I could live with them. I could tell the truth, and I was proud of my record.
The truth was, I had (and still have) a very happy marriage. I loved being home for once. I lived in a beautiful place, and in freedom. What right did I have to complain?
I guess I’d put it like this: I wanted to preserve my happiness and my integrity more than I wanted to even the score. Because I could live with my choices, I moved forward.
Meanwhile at HP, the board—like many dysfunctional teams—thought that if they got rid of the people who were focused on the problem, they would get rid of the problem itself. But after I was gone, and several other board members resigned, the problems continued to grow because the board never truly confronted the dysfunction that was the root cause of the leaks. Ultimately, the problems consumed the board, and the acrimony burst into public view. Eighteen months after my dismissal, the two leakers were fired from the board, the new chairman was forced to resign, and the company was subjected to congressional hearings.
———
My first public appearance following my unceremonious departure from HP was a commencement speech at North Carolina A&T. I remember looking out at the sea of fresh college grads and thinking, We have so much in common, you and I.
I told the graduates that when I’d first received the invitation to speak to them, I was the CEO of an $80 billion company with 145,000 employees in 178 countries around the world. But after my untimely exit and the blistering news reports, I’d called the chancellor to see if he still wanted me to speak.
Graciously, he’d said, “Carly, if anything, you can probably relate to these students even better now than you could before.”
He couldn’t have been more correct. Like those recent graduates, I’d been working on my résumé. Like those graduates, I’d been lining up my references. Like those graduates, I’d bought a new interview suit. And like those graduates, if any recruiters happened to be in the audience, I was more than happy to talk.
That part of my talk sparked genuine laughter from the audience and genuine growth in me. Simply showing up that day confirmed a deep-seated choice I hope I will always make: I will not let fear rule my life.
I ended my speech by saying, “I am at peace and my soul is intact. I could have given it away and the story would be different. But I heard the word of Scripture in my head: ‘What benefit will it be to you if you gain the whole world but lose your soul?’”[5]
The sustained applause from the audience overwhelmed me and lifted me up.
———
Now, to your situation. To the problems you are meant to solve. How will you overcome the fears that tie you up in knots, to unlock the potential that’s there inside? To help you sort out your answer and put fear in its rightful place, let me give you a three-pronged place to start:
- Name your fear.
- Run toward it.
- Take your power back.
As silly as it may sound, the simple act of telling the engineers at AT&T that I was afraid my conversation with Glen the Lawyer would cost me my job helped me wrap my arms around what was really behind my anxious thoughts and sweaty palms. That job meant a lot to me, and the thought of losing it—and perhaps sidetracking my entire career—was terrifying to me. Interestingly, as the words came out of my mouth—“I may have just gotten myself fired”—a rush of power came flowing in. Can something as straightforward as naming our fears kick-start the process of stripping them of the power they hold over us? My heartfelt answer is yes. I know it, because I’ve lived it. I’ve seen firsthand what naming fears can do.
Give it a try. I dare you.
What is it that you’re afraid of? What fears are tripping you up today?
Maybe you’re afraid of being pitied, like those Wounded Warriors were.
Maybe you fear being marginalized for admitting who you really are.
Are you afraid you’re never going to get married, or that you’ll never become a mom?
Are you afraid you’ll lose a job you love and not get the chance to really soar?
Are you afraid of what “they” think of you? Do their opinions haunt your thoughts?
Are you afraid of disappointing your loved ones by not doing what they think you should do?
Are you afraid you won’t hit the deadline that’s closing in on you?
Are you afraid you’ll look like a fool?
Are you afraid you’ll never get beyond a troubled relationship?
Are you afraid your life won’t amount to much?
Are you afraid that disease will take your life?
That your addiction will have its way?
Are you afraid you’ll never be able to make ends meet?
Or that by trying something new, you’ll fail?
When I chaired the board for the nonprofit Opportunity International, after a board meeting in New Delhi, India, I wanted to meet some of the women to whom our organization had issued microfinance loans of roughly one hundred dollars each. As my team and I made our way across town, the sights and sounds overwhelmed me. Piles of trash created their own topography. Hungry feral animals marauded through the streets. People sandwiched themselves one atop another, having no other place to go. The scene was grim, and I remember steeling myself as I climbed the makeshift ladder to the appointed meeting place, a primitive rooftop seating area above one of the women’s homes.
I reached the top rung of the ladder and saw the faces of the women I was there to meet. I did not see desperation. Instead I saw pride, hope, determination. These women were not brooding; they were beaming. These were women who had faced fear and won.
I asked one of the women to tell me her story.
She told me that she hailed from an ultra-traditional part of India, where strict cultural norms dictate that women are not to be taught or trained.
“It is a waste of effort,” she explained. “That’s what our culture thinks.”
You can imagine, then, that when the opportunity came for her to receive a loan from Opportunity International, her parents and husband and in-laws all insisted that she decline. This woman knew that taking the loan would compromise her relationship with everyone she held dear, but the alternative was equally disturbing: a lifetime of poverty with no way out.
“It took me one year to decide,” she said, “but eventually, I took the loan.” A full year to screw up her courage—can you imagine? And yet she finally, and decisively, showed up for herself. Day by day, she rattled off her fears, weakening their hold on her a little each time.
- I’m afraid of going against my culture.
- I’m afraid of refusing my family’s advice.
- I’m afraid of what people will say about me.
- I’m afraid of being marginalized or disowned.
- I’m afraid of all this and more.
But do you know what fear finally eclipsed all the rest? The fear of never knowing if she could have won out over them.
“What does your family think about you taking that loan now?” I asked.
“Now? Oh, they are very happy now. They all work for me today.”
To put your fears in their rightful place, first identify them by name.
- I’m afraid of failing.
- I’m afraid of not trying.
- I’m afraid of looking stupid.
- I’m afraid of not fitting in.
- I’m afraid of letting down someone I love.
Name the fear. Literally, say it aloud. Bonus points if you name it in the presence of another person. And then, before moving on, sit for a moment with the words you’ve declared.
———
After you’ve named your fear, run toward it. Relax. It’s not as scary as it sounds.
If I have learned anything about fear along the way, it’s this: The more we practice displaying courage, the more predictably we will move past the anxiety that weighs us down. Running toward our fear is like running at the gym; the more we do it, the more natural it becomes. Notice I didn’t say, the easier it becomes. The truth is, it may never get easier. It will, however, become more predictable; you will know what to expect.
If you’re like me, you never really feel like going to the gym—even though you know how amazing and strong you’ll feel afterward. You can find a million and one ways to get out of a workout: It’s too hot, it’s too cold, you’re too busy, you’re too tired, you’re too hungry, you’re too full, traffic is a nightmare, the stars in the sky aren’t aligned. And yet as soon as you set foot on that treadmill, you’re glad you came. Yes, it’s gonna hurt. Yes, your body is going to revolt. Yes, you’ll dream up sixteen different ways to cut your run a little short and head home. But if you can just push past those gremlins that taunt you, if you can persevere for just a mile or so, the workout will take care of itself. You’ll be in, no turning back.
Courage is a lot like getting in shape, I think. Is it painful to face our fears? It is. Would it be easier to stay home and keep our heads down? It would. But if we summon even an ounce of courage, that momentum can carry us forward. The reason I was able to display courage in the face of Glen the Lawyer’s bullying was that it wasn’t the first time I’d faced down fear. In that same organization, when I was a lowly salesperson still cutting her teeth, I was assigned to a crotchety man named Carl, who had been in sales longer than I’d been alive. He was horrified to be paired with me, and he made it known it in some not-so-subtle ways.
Case in point: For the first client meeting I was to be involved in, Carl came over to my desk to inform me that the client had picked the meeting place.
“We’ll be going to The Board Room,” he said. And as he turned to leave, he added with a smirk, “I guess you won’t be joining us after all.”
Moments later, I learned from a colleague that The Board Room was a strip joint in downtown DC, where local businessmen often lunched. This was Carl’s way of shutting me out of the deal. I knew it; he knew it; and the client knew it as well. I went and hid in the ladies’ room.
I cried tears of rage. It was so unfair!
I prayed.
What was I supposed to do here? Which way was I supposed to go?
Taking my own advice, I named my fear: “I don’t want to look like a fool.”
Incidentally, this was a reasonable fear to have. In those days, I dressed according to John T. Molloy’s 1977 bestseller, The Woman’s Dress for Success Book, which included detailed instruction on how to tie a bow tie, of all things. As luck would have it, not only was I wearing a very conservative suit that day, but I also had on a striped bow tie.
There on the cold tile of the bathroom, as I sat with how I was feeling, I realized there was a fear that went deeper than my fear of looking foolish—namely, the fear that I would not be able to do my job. As soon as that realization hit me, I made a decision in my heart: I would go to the strip club with Carl. I would show what I was made of. I would not let fear win.
So I went. When I told the cab driver where I was going, dressed as I was with my bow tie and briefcase, he turned around in his seat and asked, “So, are you the new act?”
This was not starting out well.
I entered the strip club, paused for a moment to allow my eyes to adjust to the dim interior lighting, and searched the crowd for Carl. As luck would have it, the place was packed that afternoon, which meant I had to work my way along the edge of a bar that filled one side of the club. Across from the bar, on a giant stage, there was a live act going on. The dozens of patrons seated around tables—all upstanding businessmen, of course—must have wondered what turnip truck I had fallen off of as I went from one corner of the restaurant to the other. But eventually, I made it to the client’s table—briefcase, bow tie, and all.
It was as horrifying an experience as it sounds, and yet I don’t regret it. For one thing, I made it out alive. But more important, Carl began treating me as a peer the very next day.
My point is this: If we can keep showing up, keep challenging our fears, keep pressing into the power we already possess, these fights will eventually be won. We’ll keep making it out alive.
———
I probably don’t seem like the type to follow the “sport” of bullfighting—and I’m not—but I remember coming across a concept from that realm that has stayed with me to this day.
Evidently, in bullfighting, there is a place within the ring where the bull will retreat when it is feeling highly threatened. At first, the bull will engage with the bullfighter—the torero—in the ring, but as barbed sticks are thrust into the bull’s shoulders by the picadors, the bull feels increasingly afraid. And then that fear turns to rage. Agitated beyond what it can bear, the bull will charge off, away from the torero, to his querencia, his hiding place, where he will assume a defensive stance.
The first time or two that the bull races off to its querencia, the torero may not recognize what is happening. But soon enough, the fighter is onto the bull.
“Ah, that is where you go to hide!”
Once the torero understands the bull’s pattern, he can beat him to the punch. He can send a picador to lie in wait in the bull’s querencia, making it all but impossible for the bull to retreat and gain strength. The matador is then engaged, and the beleaguered bull charges and is subsequently put to death.
The proposition I’d like you to consider is that we all have our querencias. We have places where we retreat when we’ve had enough of being poked by fear. We retreat to isolation. Or busyness. We retreat to addictions, or depression, or sloth. We retreat to social media. We retreat to reality television. We retreat to online shopping. We retreat—so often!—to food. We go to a place where it feels safe. What we don’t realize, however, is that we’re sealing our own fate.
It is far better, before we are weakened and demoralized by the barbs of fear, to charge out from our querencias, directly toward whatever threatens to take us down. It is far better to face our fears with confidence—sweaty palms and knocking knees notwithstanding. It is far better to steady our stance, stand our ground, and remind ourselves not to freak out. Practice may not make perfect here, but it certainly makes things more predictable. And in terms of overcoming the slithering, beady-eyed fears that hover around our heads, that’s good enough for me.
Name your fear. Run toward it. And prepare to take back your power.
———
Once you have spoken aloud the fear that strikes terror in your heart, grab a journal and a pen. It’s time for a bit of introspection, a little truth-telling, just you and your soul.
As you name your fear and run toward it, I want you to answer two questions:
What is the worst that could happen here?
What is the best outcome imaginable?
Back when I was deliberating whether to go to the lunch at the strip club, I remember thinking, Although it will surely embarrass me to walk in there, at least it will signal to Carl that I’m here to stay.
Honestly? The trade-off was worth it. The worst thing that could happen, I figured, was humiliation, and that wasn’t that scary to me. On the blessing side of the equation, the best thing that could happen was something I would only be able to see in hindsight, as I processed things later that night.
Part of what made The Board Room famous was that the women could be called over for table dances. While the men were enjoying their liquor-fueled lunches, dancers wearing see-through negligees would entertain them on the tabletop.
During our lunch that afternoon, Carl called over no fewer than three dancers to provide this added service. But on each occasion, upon seeing me sitting at the table, the dancer would say, “Not until the lady leaves.”
I counted that little act of woman-to-woman solidarity as a blessing that day.
Of far greater consequence was a fear I once faced regarding Frank’s and my daughter Lori. I wrote extensively about Lori’s life and her untimely death in my book Rising to the Challenge, so I won’t repeat the details here. But I will say that when you lose a child to addiction, you feel a certain sense of shame. A cloud hovers over your head and follows you everywhere.
Wasn’t there something I could have done?
Even as I know deep in my bones that only the addict can stop an addiction, the grief over losing Lori was utterly unbearable at times.
For many months, I avoided discussion of our loss with friends, colleagues, and coaching audiences alike. What could I say? What would they think? Truthfully, the latter of those two concerns was the one that kept me silent, stifled by fear. I was terrified that speaking of Lori’s death would paint me in a negative light. My daughter was an addict? She died from her addiction? There was nothing I could do? But over time, I realized that the only way to free myself from fear was to practice courage, one step at a time. That’s true for everyone who is hemmed in by fear.
What’s the worst thing that could happen? I asked myself.
I couldn’t think of a single thing.
I gradually began talking about how I felt about Lori’s death, about her absence, and about her pain. I opened up with family, and then with friends, and then with clients. I’ll never forget the day I told an entire audience about Lori—her struggle, her beauty, her life. Following my talk, a woman from the audience approached me and said, “Thank you for sharing what you did about your daughter. I’m in the very same situation, and you can’t imagine my relief over knowing I’m not alone.”
Someone will thank me. I hadn’t thought to put that on my best-thing-that-could-happen list, but there it was.
———
If you have spent a lifetime (or even an hour) allowing fear to rule your world, I have good news for you. No matter how long it has been since you lost your way, you can find it again, starting right now. By letting courage seep into your ways, you can choose to reclaim the power you’ve been giving away. Even if you’ve never done it before, you can practice being brave. This is the first and most important choice you will ever make. All other decisions you make to take back your power flow from here.
Psychologist Rebecca Ray has a great way of putting this idea. “It’s okay to be scared,” she writes in her book Be Happy. “Doing something that’s unfamiliar, like giving yourself permission to heal, or following your dreams, or being raw and vulnerable, takes courage. And courage only shows up when fear is present first.”[6]
Do you see? Fear is necessary in our lives because it cues us to let courage in. We know it’s time to summon our strength when weakness is at the front door.
But I have even better news: As you display courage in your own life, you’ll bring strength to many others beyond yourself. Want to know Dr. Ray’s professional philosophy? “Courage loves company.” Frankly, I couldn’t agree more. My mind flashes to the recent story involving an ill-intentioned sports-medicine doctor, Larry Nassar, and scores of USA gymnasts—just girls, really . . . third graders, some of them. Officially, Dr. Nassar was accused of molesting more than 250 young women (and one young man) but admitted to only ten of those accusations. In the Michigan courtroom in January 2018, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who was sympathetic to innocence on any count, as more than 150 women stepped to the podium microphone to detail the abuses they’d faced.
One of those spokeswomen was two-time Olympic medalist Aly Raisman, who captained the United States Olympic gymnastics team in 2012 and 2016. She looked strong as she delivered her remarks to Mr. Nassar, who was seated just ten feet away.
“Imagine feeling like you have no power and no voice,” she said. “Well, you know what, Larry? I have both power and voice, and I am only just beginning to use them. All these brave women have power, and we will use our voices to make sure you get what you deserve: a life of suffering spent replaying the words delivered by this powerful army of survivors.”[7]
Ms. Raisman later told reporters that she hadn’t planned to speak in court. “I was scared and nervous,” she said—but she chose to follow through once she heard the impact statements other victims had delivered.[8] Courage loves company—do you agree? When one of us steps up to do the right thing, others are emboldened to follow suit.