Successful Blog

  • Home
  • Community
  • About
  • Author Guidelines
  • Liz’s Book
  • Stay Tuned

Getting Past Fear

August 22, 2016 by Liz

Screen Shot 2016-08-26 at 6.20.34 PM

I felt the more embarrassing fear of people’s judgment.

When I decided it was time to write again, I avoided the computer for the longest time. On the rare occasion that I managed to sit myself down to write, I’d get caught up answering email or reading articles around the web, not doing writing I had sat down to do. Some people would call what I felt was writer’s block or procrastination. But those words name the behavior, not its source — fear.

Fear is a silent villain. Until we see it, we can’t make it go.

Once I could speak loud enough to be heard and had the energy to think new thoughts, I found myself on shaky ground — I was afraid that I no longer had a “voice” that is relevant to the world. But I didn’t realize that at first. At first I was lost in overthinking. I felt like a trapeze artist to fly without a net for the first time.

At first, I was lost in rationalizations . . . I’ve been gone for so long, I don’t know what the audience is thinking. . . . I don’t know what their problems are now. . . . were the most common ones.

It wasn’t until I finally listened to myself that I found out what the problem was. I was consistently there every time I talked about what held me back. I thought I was stopped by what other people think or do. I was sidetracked before I even got to that by the words I don’t know. . . . Now I was getting somewhere. That was something I could know.

When I recognized my fear, I could consider it rationally rather than trying to rationalize it. I told myself I couldn’t possibly know everything. So what was all of this “I don’t know” fear about? I didn’t fear for my safety or fear getting lost. What feared was what people expected of me. I had faced that fear before. That fear is about fighting with ghosts. No one can win the approval of everyone.

I felt the fear of people’s judgment. Which people? My family? No. My friends? No. My third grade class? The city of Chicago or the entire population of the Internet? The world doesn’t have time to decide whether I do my best?

We have to find our true value by deciding for ourselves.

Be irresistible,

Liz

Put Your Mind to It

Take a few minutes to think about what you value in yourself. Do you give yourself the credit you’re due?  Decide what you know, what you do, and what you expect from yourself. Live up to that.  

More from Liz . . .
about Getting Past Fear:

What Is the Best True Story You Could Tell about You?

Are You Using History Strategically . . . to Claim Your Business and Life Future?

Filed Under: Sharing Genius Tagged With: fear

4 Fear Busters To Jumpstart Your Business

November 15, 2013 by Rosemary

By Kevin Kelly

In my latest book, DO! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution, I interviewed entrepreneurs from around the world. They lead some of the world’s most compelling brands and companies, ranging from one to 3,000 employees, with turnovers from $100,000 to $130 million. I call them the Xceptionalists. They hail from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Bologna, Italy; from Des Moines, Iowa to Galway, Ireland. They run app companies, consultancies, clinics and sprawling technology corporations.

Given that half of all new business fail in the first five years, how did they deal with fear and survive their early failures?

1. Stop fearing feedback

Xceptionalists treat failures as feedback and a prelude to future success. Ben Milne of Dwolla said, “… I have failed in making adaptations to the product… I have failed at selecting business partners. I nearly went out of business three times in my career. When you are failing the key point is to just admit it. … The longer you drag it out the less chance you have.”

According to Peldi from Balsamiq. “Mistakes don’t really matter that much as long as you fix them straight away and put your hand up. … It is very much the lean start-up way: throw it out there and listen.”

Why fear feedback? Why stigmatize failure in the workplace when it’s bringing you closer to achieving your organizational goals. If you want to find the next big success, failure comes with the territory.

2. Face and floor it

In the early 1970’s, during the height of the political turmoil that rocked Northern Ireland, Agnes McCourt, owner of Unislim had a very frightening encounter with an armed and masked gunman, Agnes’s husband wanted to cease all business links in Northern Ireland and relocate to Southern Ireland. Agnes agreed to the house move but continued to develop the her business. Why? “In business, one has to be fearless and do what one’s inner voice tells you is the right thing,” she told me.

Devon Brooks co-founder of the unique women’s personal care business Blo Blow Dry Bars, was sexually assaulted and went through the ensuing harrowing judicial process. She made a personal commitment that she would never let her past get in the way of taking action. Devon told me, “Sometimes you live life, and sometimes life happens to you. But you always get to choose what you do about it.”

3. Find the source of the fear

Like many Xceptionalists, when fear raises its head, Patrick McKeown of Asthmacare had a strategy that works for him. He asks three questions:

  • What is the best possible outcome?
  • What is the worst possible outcome?
  • What outcome falls between the above two?

McKeown says entrepreneurs who survive in the long term take calculated risks, and tend not to take monumental courses of action with their head stuck in the sand. So the fear has no gone away, they just understand it a little better.

4. Flow floors fear

For our Xceptionalists from Brazil, WeDemand.com, fear was never an issue. They have been so immersed in an industry they love, they haven’t had the time or the inclination to be afraid. “I would tell entrepreneurs not to be afraid. If you sit around and just wish about your idea, nothing will happen. All you can lose is money and there is no shame in trying,” said cofounder Bruno Natal.

So in essence, there is nothing to fear. The challenge for you the entrepreneur is to find your passion and make fear history.

See more extracts from Kevin Kelly’s new book “Do! The pursuit of Xceptional Execution”

Author’s Bio: Kevin is an internationally acclaimed leadership and motivational speaker and best selling author. For more information: http://www.kevinkellyunlimited.com.

Filed Under: Inside-Out Thinking, Strategy/Analysis, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, business, entrepreneurship, fear

How I Got from Gratitude to Grace

November 24, 2011 by Liz

cooltext443860173_ive-been-thinking

about gratitude.

I understand the power of the words, thank you.
I understand them so deeply that as a child I was afraid to say them.
I would watch how some people use them frivolously, I was afraid that people wouldn’t hear how much I meant them.
I was afraid they wouldn’t see in my eyes or hear in my voice that I meant them.
I feel the words, thank you, like a frog hears, deeply from his tiny ears into his lungs.

As I considered Thanksgiving, I thought it’s time I learned more about what powers those words.

I did a search for the etymology of the word, gratitude, and found myself wandering through a world of connections.
Our word gratitude may have from the 15th Century Middle French word, gratitude which means “good will.” If it came from the Latin word gratus which means “thankful, pleasing,” it’s a cousin to the word grace.

Good will.
Thankful.
Pleasing.
Grace.

In some families, grace is a prayer.
In some, it’s a ritual and a tradition.
Some have chosen it to name a child.

But when I saw that word, grace, … it was all of those and more.

Grace …
Immediately my mind heard music, my heart saw this photo, which has been a friend since 2006.

grace

So I went looking for the word, grace, in my own writing.
It appears twice in these ways …

… I wish for my friends to be around me. I wish for the courage to face where I’m going, to know what I know — that I’m unprepared for what I’ll be doing. … Then I breathe. Then I breathe. Then I breathe once more…. I ask permission without words, but through the grace and gentleness of my movement. I ask for faith from sky and angels who are everywhere. I need the wisdom of one who has conquered fear. … Inside the fear is the graceful wisdom I was seeking. —The Rhythm of the Rowing

and

Head and heart together. Head and heart – it took so long to know.
When head and heart come together life is a dance.
Head and heart together . . .
grace. — Head and Heart Together

I wandered back through my life to find a conclusion. I wrote it years ago, but only realized it now.

Thank you is best offered filled with trust — breathing in life without fear.
With grace and gentleness, head and heart come together in gratitude.
That’s how I got from gratitude to grace.

Wishing you your family and friends around you.
May you move in gratitude and grace.

Be irresistible.

Liz's Signature

Like the Blog? Buy my eBook!

Filed Under: Motivation, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, fear, grace, gratitude, head-and-heart, LinkedIn

Top 10 Social Media Fears that Go Bump in the Night and How to Make Them Worse!

October 31, 2011 by Liz

Nightmare

In honor of Halloween, I’ve updated this advice, I first wrote in 2007. Read it now and be wise. heh heh.

help me

It’s the middle of the night. The wind is blowing. The moon is high. Creaking noises are sounding. Memories of comments are running through your head, and you’re thinking of emails you sent that went unanswered.

You had such hope when you started in social media. It was daytime. You were always laughing then. Now you’re just shell of yourself in despair, dejected, and broken. Your socmed fears have taken over with the things that go bump in the night.

Not to worry.
Wait, sorry.
Indeed with just a little more worry, you have the power to take those concerns beyond the social business world!!
Go for it. . . . give in to it … become a mess on the floor.

The Top 10 Social Media Fears and How to Make Them Worse

As you read, remember, the more you buy into these, the better you’ll be at crippling yourself. Here’s your chance to prove you’re good at something besides misspelling words online and making social goofs.

If you’re faint of heart, read no further. Jumping without a parachute and shooting yourself in the foot require a certain dedication to being . . . hopeless.

    10. Fear of Looking Like a Fool Don’t go near the comment box on any blog. Stay away from posting on Facebook. If you make a remark on Twitter or ask question on LikedIn, folks might find out about you. If you find you’re having trouble keep silent, translate your thoughts into a language you don’t understand. You need this fear in your repertoire — Fear the clueless, pest that everyone knows you are.

    9. Fear of Content See how much better every other person’s content is. Count the ways that you’ll never be half that good. Write the reasons. Frame them. Put them on a wall in your line of vision. Feel the fear of an undisciplined wimp who is inept when you do your best work.

    8. Fear of To-Do Lists Think up at least 5.000 urgent things you MUST do — blog tweaks, promotion spots, Twitter updates, Facebook posts, shares to buy and sell on Empire Avenue, LinkedIn status updates, blogs to read and not comment on. Don’t stop until the list could only be done by 83.479 people. (Get the math right, not 84,000 or 83,479. Be precise.) You’ve moved up a level on the fear chart. Fear how lazy and shiftless you are. [What does shiftless mean?]

    7. Fear of Code Tweak your website template for hours to fix minute details. Then copy and paste the original stylesheet back onto the site, throwing your own work away. Changing the code should fill you with fear that you are an egotistical and anal-retentive rat.

    6. Fear of the Numbers Check your stats. Hit refresh every 30 seconds for an hour. If your page views don’t rise by 100,000 or more between clicks, start reading every blog post you can about how to improve your social media ROI. Write three blog posts. Publish them. Spam all of your social networks with their links as soon as you might. Then do the whole thing again. Fear being exposed as a woeful underachiever.

    5. Fear of Ideas Hunt down the perfect idea — the one that will get you tetweeted all day and on the front page of every social sharing site. (Great ideas have nothing to do with readers.) If you don’t find that perfect idea, you are ridiculously dimwitted and slow. Fear that everyone knows what an idealess idiot you are.

    4. Fear of Relationships Link out in every sentence of every post you write. Link to anyone who has ever said “hello.” Link to rocks, trees, and statues, if you can. DM your links to everyone you’ve connected to on all your social sites, whether you’ve said hello to them or not. It will take forever, but people will notice how desperate you are. Link promiscuously, while you fear people see you as an anti-social hermit and a prude.

    3. Fear of Saying “No” Answer all email, including spam. Always do what folks ask — buy, do, sign up, attend, subscribe. You’ll prove you’re needed. Fear that those you gently refuse will call you jerk or go higher and fear that no one would know who you are or care.

    2. Fear of the Written Word Get out your dictionary and Thesaurus. Be sure you have two grammar books near. Use words so large that you can’t say or spell them. Be sure that you write unintelligible mush. See every teacher you ever had finding out how much you forgot. Fear that you’re not only a slacker, but also a bottom-of-the-barrel communicator.

    1. Fear of Your Personal Worth All of your fears come together here. If you can’t get those first 9 right, then what could you possibly be good for? This the crown jewel. You have made it to the consummate fear of all . . . fear you are a worm.

On this deep, dark, dastardly night, you no longer have to be a shell of yourself in despair, dejected, and broken. You can be crippled and hopeless too — melted down into unrecoverable mess. Follow this Top Ten List, and you’ll show the world what fear is really for.

On the other hand, if you would rather get out of your funk, give up those fears, and come back to us. . . .

Definitely, positively, and for sure, surround yourself with positive people, because positive people make positive things happen. Wouldn’t you rather …

Build Opportunity into Your Life Right Now!

Find the Irresistible Rock Start in You.

Choose and Tell Your Best True Story

Grow With the Community Who Loves to Tell Your Story

Take on the Top 10 Ways to Start Living Your Life

Happy Halloween!

Be Irresistible!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Filed Under: Marketing /Sales / Social Media, Motivation, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, fear, LinkedIn, relationships, social-media, success

Why the Brave and Smart Will Survive …

September 18, 2009 by Liz

I've been thinking . . .

about fear . . . a lot.

I know it seems that we’ve all lost our manners. Our humanity and compassion seems to be scatter shot, when it’s there. Some of us seem to care more about plants and animals than the people nearest us.

Have we really all gone bad . . . or are we afraid to admit we’re afraid?

For most of us, it’s not the most fun time to be living. We see ourselves and our friends in truly precarious positions. Clients go south. Jobs go with them. Healthcare shrivels up and stress makes that an issue.

Do we think it’s brave to deny that it’s scary? We can’t fix a problem, we’re pretending isn’t there.

It’s braver and smarter to admit where we are and act on it. Here’s how to do to be brave and smart about what scare us …

From “Oh F#@&” to OK Speed Drill

“Oh F#@&” — Reaction
Identify and acknowledge your feelings.

“I’m scared. I could lose my job. I could lose my home soon.”

Go somewhere that you can say it out loud. The act of exhaling while you talk will calm you physically. Close your eyes for a minute or two. Hearing the thought will lessen it’s power over you.

“Oh God” — Release
Regain your balance. Keep your eyes closed and breathe deeply through your nose, until you feel the thought let go of it’s hold on you.

“Oh Jeez” — Recenter
Keep breathing deeply and if it helps, keep repeating through these phrases as you breathe:
“Oh F#@&” “Oh God” “Oh Jeez” “Oh Well”

“Oh Well” — Refocusing
Now you can start to think about damage control and making the best of the situation. If you find yourself negative again, go back a step or two.

“OK” — Re-engaging
Plan what you need to do and get moving.
—Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

So you’re stranded in a situation you never expected. We all are.
We can all push aside the fear and get to how brave we are.

open-647502_discovery

The brave and smart survive because we turn fear into action. We don’t allow another option.

Liz's Signature

Like the Blog? Buy my eBook!

Filed Under: Motivation, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, fear, Just Listen, LinkedIn, Mark Goulston

Thoughts on “Rules of Thumb”

September 10, 2009 by SOBCon Authors

I picked up a copy of “Rules of Thumb” by Alan M. Webber in our local bookstore last week, and it has some interesting ideas.  First of all, being a fan of all things index card, it was fun to read about the stack of 3x5s that he has been collecting throughout his career.

“I’ve recorded these lessons on three-by-five cards that I carry with me every day at home and on the road. (This wonderful system is something that I learned more than 20 years ago from Harvard Business School professor Ted Levitt, one of the mentors you’ll meet in this book.)

Not long ago, I reviewed all the three-by-five cards I’d written on and saved. This time my goal was to capture the rules I’d learned.”

Well, I (Stephen) certainly didn’t go to Harvard Business School, but I have been carrying notecards and notebooks around for a pretty long time. After I finish reading this book I am going to have to dig into those archives and see what pearls of wisdom I can recover.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at rule #1: When the going gets tough, the tough relax.

I can get behind this idea! In fact, it reminded me of something I had read somewhere before, especially as Webber expands on the idea, “Anytime you approach a task with fear you are a double loser.” and “Don’t let fear undermine your chance to do that one thing you’ve wanted to do.”

What are you really afraid of

Indeed, fear can make a mess of things. Fear can also cause you to not make a mess, because you just might. Quoting from Frank Herbert’s Dune: (wikipedia link)

The litany against fear is an incantation used by the Bene Gesserit throughout the series to focus their minds and calm themselves in times of peril. The litany is as follows:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

(I trust that this isn’t getting too deep.) Fear is the mind-killer. The dream-killer. The slayer of ambition and innovation. Fear of the unkown has killed more good ideas than we can probably count.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when prudence is called for. But there are also times that you need to “feel the fear and do it anyway“.

Even George Costanza was able to overcome his fear and start making decisions. Completely opposite decisions to what he thought – knew –  were right:

What fears have you overcome? Or, put another way, what would you attempt to do if you believed that you could not fail? Share in the comments.

Filed Under: Attendees, Blog Conference Tagged With: bc, books, fear

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Recently Updated Posts

How to Use a Lead Generation Item on Facebook

How to Become a Better Storyteller

SEO and Content Marketing

How to Use Both Content Marketing and SEO to Amplify Your Blog

9 Practical Work-at-Home Ideas For Moms

How to Monetize Your Hobby

How To Get Paid For Sharing Your Travel Stories



From Liz Strauss & GeniusShared Press

  • What IS an SOB?!
  • SOB A-Z Directory
  • Letting Liz Be

© 2025 ME Strauss & GeniusShared