Host: Beau Billington

Guest: Yishai Barkhordari, PhD

Beau 0:08
Hello everybody, Beau Billington again with another episode of Finding that NextGear got Dr. Yishai here. Thanks for joining us.

Dr. Yishai 0:14
My pleasure. I am so excited to be here. And I’m honored to be invited to be on your podcast.

Beau 0:19
Yeah. So thanks for coming. And this is actually our second discussion on my Podcast that is fourth overall, as you’ve had me on your podcast twice, previously. Today, we’re actually gonna talk about fear again. And the initial discussion we had was on The Free Agent podcast where we discuss fear.

And today, I really kind of want to talk about fear as it pertains to entrepreneurs and the entrepreneur’s setting. So again, thank you so much for being on. I really love this discussion. And I know that fear is near and dear and not necessarily dear, but it’s prevalent in all of our hearts.

Dr. Yishai 0:53
I hope that it becomes a little bit more dear to you. And to all of you out there listening. I know that might sound really paradoxical. And we’ll get into that.

Beau 1:02
As the more discussions we have, I’m starting to learn how to harness it and the importance that fear really is. But prior to jumping into everything, if you just give us a quick bio of who you are, what you do, and how specifically you help entrepreneurs in your practice.

Dr. Yishai 1:17
Yeah, thanks for asking. So I’m a licensed psychologist, I’m also an adaptability expert, and adaptability hacker, as I like to call it. And I also do executive coaching, and I do consulting for companies and entrepreneurs. And I really like to speak, and I also have my own podcast, the Business Coach with Dr.Yishai, where I really dig into how psychology affects business.

And that’s both leadership and entrepreneurs, as well as working with your teams, your clients, I mean, psychology is everywhere. And for me, that’s really the work that I do. And the way that I help entrepreneurs is I help them really see it, understand how their psychology potentially gets in their way, or slowing down their growth and their success, and also how they can in that kind of same way, or in that same vein, they can harness that psychology to really expand their growth. Of course, I don’t do that. As the psychologist when I’m doing coaching and consulting, I really do that more as a coach and consultant.

Beau 2:18
I think it’s great. I think any successful entrepreneur or aspiring successful entrepreneur realizes that self help is a huge component of the entrepreneur’s journey. And I personally try to budget 15 to 30 minutes a day of reading some sort of book. That kind of just helps me get closer to my mission. And generally, I feel like it starts from within.

So, it’s a super cool topic. And thanks again for joining. So prior to getting into the details here, let’s define fear. And I feel like most of us really feel like fears are archaic in motion. And we talked about this on the other podcast, typically talking about saber toothed tigers, and how it made a lot of sense at that time, but fear is still here.

And based upon our previous conversation, you feel like it’s still an extremely relevant emotion, not archaic, and nor should it necessarily be seen in this negative view that we all tend to kind of see it in. Why is that kind of give us your thoughts concerning fear and how it’s not archaic, but extremely relevant.

Dr. Yishai 3:24
Yeah, so I’m going to take another step back. And I think we need to define what an emotion is. And then we’ll get to fear as an emotion. So I think a lot of people make a lot of mistakes, or misunderstand in a really fundamental way, what emotions are, we tend to think about emotions as consequences, we tend to think about them as a disruptive, physiological and mental experience, something that gets in the way of what I want, or what I need, or what I’m trying to do, especially with fear.
And the thing is, from everything that I’ve learned about emotions, that’s completely one wrong way to think about it. In the sense that emotions are actually our brain, creating, generating a reaction in our body to help us gain a new awareness. Because we need to engage in a new analysis, and we need to take a new action, meaning emotions don’t show up at random.

I really like to use a couple of examples. If I were to figure out what your favorite meal is, Beau, and I were to deliver it to you on an extremely busy day, would you be angry?

Beau 4:29
No, I’d be delighted.

Dr. Yishai 4:33
You would be right. There are parameters under which we feel emotions, like delight and joy or anger. On the other hand, if I in some way, shape or form disrespected you or got in your way, or crossed a line of yours, are you going to feel delighted? No, you’ll be angry, most likely, it might feel other feelings as well.

And so an emotion is that process, it is our brain generating a reaction in our body to get us to slow down and stop. So that we can know, I said it before I call it the three A’s. So we can have new awareness, new analysis and new action.

Okay, now let’s get to fear. Fear, I like to say all emotions show up under parameters. What are the parameters for fear? Fear shows up when we perceive danger. Right now, there are different kinds of fear, I love to say also, emotions come in at least 31 flavors, and you can walk into the kind of Baskin Robbins metaphorical.

Yeah, you can walk into the metaphorical Baskin Robbins, and really look at and taste. And for many people fear shows up in slightly different ways. And so it can be hard to actually make sense of it or talk about it in generalities.

However, when you really drill into it, fear has parameters, even if it shows up in a lot of different types of situations. I like to say there’s a difference between fear and anxiety. And the research actually bears this out. Fear shows up more when we experience a clear, present immediate danger. And it needs to be a kind of danger that’s really either to my body, it could be to my finances, it could be to our relationship, but it’s really a danger, there’s this damage, that might just happen in an imminent kind of way.

Beau 6:24
That makes you kind of feel it in that moment.

Dr. Yishai 6:27
Yeah. And again, that feeling is under these specific parameters. So you have a slightly different set of parameters under which anxiety shows up, which is a type of fear, perhaps, but might also be distinct. And so what the research shows about anxiety is anxiety shows up when it’s not immediate, it’s not present, it’s not clear.

Instead, it’s kind of unclear, or uncertain. Anxiety shows up in a lot of uncertain situations where there might be something that doesn’t go well, it’s not directly harmful, per se. And those are the conditions or the parameters under which anxiety tends to show up. It’s not clear. It’s not imminent, it’s not present. And it’s not exactly dangerous. It’s something that might not go well.

And it might have longer term consequences. When people have all over the kind of exploding worst case scenarios in their head. What if this? What if that, what if that, there’s sometimes walking down this road of all of what might happen? And again, it ‘s different than fear, because fear is like, Oh, my body’s in danger, or my bank account is in danger, right? Or my marriage is in danger, right? So when we think about defining fear, I think it really helps to step back and understand the parameters under which it happens.

And also understand that all emotions are a process, they are an adaptive process. It’s actually your brain or a part of your brain that we call the limbic system, which filters every experience, you have all the sensory input every input from all the parts of your body in your life, it filters, all of that relates it to your past experiences your memory, and then starts to tag it. I sometimes call it a snag and tag process.

Beau 8:12
No, I appreciate that. And also to like how you got to do delineated between your fear specifically, as well as anxiety and talking, I was thinking about anxiety, and how that’s almost like this lingering effect, and it can be there for an hour, 30 minutes, it can be there for a month if you allow it. And so there’s a lot of different flavors, and I kind of lumped them into the same category.

It sounds like that’s not necessarily incorrect. But the different emotions where fear is this kind of initial gut response. And perhaps reaction. And anxiety is more kind of this mental “Oh, my gosh, what could happen”, allowing your brain to go on this tangential path or about all the negative consequences that you may experience due to this trigger.

Dr. Yishai 8:59
Yeah, and a lot of it’s about your perception. And I think we’re going to dig a little bit more into that I can talk about a little bit. Now. Sometimes you perceive something that isn’t realistic, right? That isn’t reality based. And again, I said this before the snag and tag process, and our brain uses our past experiences or memories. And it’s not always conscious.

In fact, a lot of times it’s not conscious as a process, but it’s using our past experience to try to predict or anticipate what’s going to happen in the future. Our past experiences, though, are not really predictive of the future, though they’re actually useful when we know and understand how to contextualize or how to harness them, how to understand them, and then how to apply them and recognize, do they apply in the present? Or do they not apply in the present? In fact, that’s the analysis. When I talk about those three days, the new analysis your emotions try to do is it’s snagging and tagging and then it wants you to slow down so that you can do a different kind of analysis or figure out is this the same? Is it not the same? That’s why our emotions keep stopping us in our tracks. I think fear is a great example of that.

Beau 10:02
No. So I think that’s a phenomenal point as well, because we talked about negative emotions. That’s kind of you know how I teed up the question. But you’re essentially saying that it can also serve as a reminder that something happened, you receive this negative response or this negative situation. And the fear in your brain is simply reminding you about what happened. And maybe that’s an opportunity for you to kind of change course, and not allow that fear to impact you the way that maybe it had previously. And I think maybe that could be a difference maker with how people leverage fear.

Dr. Yishai 10:33
In a sense, I will say I like to reframe fear. Fear is not the thing that’s getting in your way. Fear is your brain saying there might be or there is, or I’m perceiving a danger. And it’s kind of like this. Let’s imagine you’re in a car. And the car has no brakes, and no steering, and you’re headed to the Grand Canyon. What happens when you get there?

Beau 10:54
You fly off?

Dr. Yishai 10:57
Yeah, you’re flying off the cliff, there’s just no turning. Right. So in our lives, our habits are kind of like that car. But where’s our steering? Where’s our brakes? What process does that? The answer is, it’s your limbic system. It’s your emotion system. Fear is one of those when fear stops you in your tracks, guess what fear just did? Slammed on the brakes? Yeah.

Because it slammed on the brakes, because it perceived and told you, you need to stop because you’re in danger. Now, it’s very different to say, I don’t want fear to affect me the way it used to. Which perhaps just because your fear perceives something doesn’t mean it’s, it’s helpful, or it’s true.

But the flip side of that is, even if I could, I’m going to switch into the psychologist part of my brain for a moment. I say this to patients all the time, even if I could surgically remove your fear, I would not do it. It’s actually really dangerous to do so. And there’s actually some medical cases of that. There’s one case of a patient who had damage to their amygdala, the part of their brain that does this nagging and tagging, especially in specifically with fear. And what happened is, there was a young woman, maybe her late 20s, early 30s. I still call that young.

And because of that she could not identify when her body or she was in danger. So she would walk at night, through parks that people were constantly getting mugged about. And you know, some people like to say, or they would say, you’re doing it with no fear and good for you. Well, what’s the other side of that? Yeah, you don’t have the brakes and the steering to tell you, you don’t have the awareness, you’re struggling and she was unable to do that. And the doctors were so worried about her that they said, we actually went and hired people to coach her into being able to identify dangerous situations with her thinking brain, because her emotional brain wasn’t able to do that, because of that damage. Right?

And imagine that we were as business people, of course, we need to take risks, right? Entrepreneurs, leaders, running a business involves driving and sometimes driving at high speeds, right. And at the same time, you need to be able to see or notice. And I would say even harness, when you might be going off a cliff, if you can’t tell that you’re going to drive your business straight into the Grand Canyon a failure.

Beau 13:35
Right. Which obviously, is the number one thing you don’t want to do. That’s the whole point is to stay the course, upward and onward. So that’s interesting. And so it tends to take that a step further.

So we all face fear, fear of failure, and being an entrepreneur of setting is a big thing. For me, personally, I think fear of judgment was a big hurdle that I had to jump because you had a good job, had a nice lifestyle and had a great situation. And it’s like what are you lacking, so afraid that people are gonna think to themselves, like what’s going on with him and his brain that he needs to put at some risk to his life, and jump out into corporate America.

And so for me, that was a huge hurdle. In fact, I’d say, I had the concept of the free agent for three-four years before I actually jumped out of corporate America because I was so afraid, of course, to feel that failing was a big deal. But the judgment as well, because I didn’t know many other people. My peers weren’t doing that. They weren’t starting companies.

Dr. Yishai 14:40
And it sounds to me like you experienced the judgment

Beau 14:43
Yeah I did. And it really held me back. And to my detriment. I mean, maybe the flip side of that coin is that maybe it allowed me, it held me back from jumping out too early.
Dr. Yishai 14:56
I was gonna ask, what did you do during those three years that you were kind of mentally planning or investing, you’re thinking about The Free Agent and you weren’t doing it yet, what was happening during those three years for you? The Free Agent?

Beau 15:05
Well, scenes on the company, the business plan, everything, but I finally got to a point where I was like, What am I doing? This is just busy work, am I actually going to do something with this? Or am I not? And that’s where it kind of went from fear, fear of failure, fear of judgment really kind of reared its head. And I was able to identify that, “hey, there’s something that’s keeping me back from doing this”. I’ve got short videos, plans, but I’m doing absolutely nothing to take it from idea and concept to the market.

Dr. Yishai 15:34
Yeah, so I’m going to actually dig into the question and kind of share some thoughts that I’m having here. One thing that’s coming up for me is, if you didn’t have a fear of failure, you might not have thought and anticipated and said to yourself, “Well, I really need to put together a business plan, I need to have a clear idea and goal and direction”. In other words, you basically built your own business GPS, because of that fear of failure. Now, if we were to surgically remove that fear of failure, would you have done those things?

Beau 16:04
No, I would have probably dumped down full-heartedly, failed, moved to my mom.

Dr. Yishai 16:09
And so there’s two sides to this. One side of it is if you didn’t have any fear of failure, then you would never have built out the GPS that’s allowed you to build the free agent to what it is today and continue growing it forward. Right. And that same process is still operating in a lot of ways. And who says that’s bad? To me, that’s actually really useful and important to acknowledge. Because you can harness that. There’s a flip side to that, which is the other side I’m hearing is there is a point or there came a point where that fear of failure was a perception.
But the perception was misaligned with reality. And if you stay in that situation for a longer period of time, then you are holding yourself back. And so if we dig in a little bit more, it’s not how do we get rid of fear of failure, it’s how do we harness the fear?

Beau 16:59
How do we identify because honestly, I don’t know how. But I came to a point where I literally was. I told my wife that I’ve gotten the business 80% of where I can get it, I’ll never get to 100%. But I need to be at 90%. And I can’t get that extra 10% unless I jump out of corporate America. But honestly, I could have envisioned myself kicking the can, until even today, because it’s so easy. Just to keep doing things, below the radar, and not introducing risk to your situation.

Dr. Yishai 17:31
Yeah, so it’s one thing to introduce risk with intention. And it’s another thing to take your car over the Grand Canyon. And so the whole point, and the idea here is, and you said it, how do you? How do you get aware? How do you identify what that fear is trying to do for you, when it’s useful, how it’s useful, and in what way or ways it may not be as useful any longer. And a lot of that is from my perspective. So I’ll say a couple of things.

One, I’m gonna start with a disclaimer, I may be a psychologist, but I’m not your psychologist. You Beau or, of course, you the audience, you listener. And so make sure you do your own research. And don’t just take what I’m saying at face value.

The second thing I’m going to say is there is a skill. There’s a really important skill, a lot of people lean away from fear. Like I said, a lot of people when they speak to me, whether they’re patients or clients, or I’m doing consulting, they’re like, Can you just help me get rid of the fear? Or can you help me get rid of my anger? Can you help me get rid of my anxiety? And I often say, we don’t want to get rid of it. We want to help you learn to work with it. Remember that kind of near and dear with the fear, right?

We want fear to be near and dear to you, not in a way that it’s holding you back in a way that you understand it, and it can be helpful to you. Right? What I’m saying is we all have a relationship with ourselves with our emotions, including our fear. And for many people, because they blame or they stick the finger, they point the finger at fear, and they say the fear is holding me back. Well, if that thing’s holding me back, then I got to get rid of it. And that makes a relationship with fear where I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to deal with it. I don’t want to ever experience it.

Well guess what your fear is, it’s job is to protect and take care of you, your business, your company, your family. It has deeply important jobs. And if it’s not fulfilling that job, there’s danger to you. There is very real danger. And so the goal here is not to reject or get rid of the fear. The goal here is to get nearer and to have a relationship that’s more dear with the fear.

And so, if you’re asking how, I’ll give you a couple of recommendations: one is Consider Therapy, and or coaching. Now, it could be one or the other. It depends, sometimes there’s personal stuff, or stuff from our upbringing, or stuff from past experiences that’s really affecting us. Well, that needs to get addressed. And that’s a really hard thing to do if you’re not in front of somebody who is trained to do that. And it’s really important to be intentional about that. Right? One thing that you shared about your experience is when people judge you about your idea,The Free Agent leaving corporate America, it has stuck with you.

And that experience continues to be a part of what you anticipate, how you think, even how you process or perceive the world around you? Well, of course, that’s going to be really difficult. That may even get in the way. So it’s really important to be willing to do the work on that. And that work is not going to be easy. And it’s really hard to do on your own sometimes.

Can you do that work on your own? Yes, if you want, I’ll give you a bit of a framework for that. I can even share some handouts. With you and the audience, and and all of you listening, so that you can start to kind of walk yourself through that.

Beau 21:25
Yeah, great, I think the handouts. And I mean, so fear of judgment from me, and I want to kind of get into this here in a moment, it was bigger on the onset. And then when I actually jumped out, served my company, it kind of lessened over time. And now, I’m approaching five years with my company. I’d say, once a hit about the two and a half to three year mark, maybe it’s three and a half, that judgment completely subsided.

Now part of that was due to finding success validating the business model, things like that, that basically helped me kind of neutralize that judgment. But also, I think part of that was due to the reps like repetitions and encountering the judgment over and over, having the ability to kind of overcome it verbally, but also having the proof points.

And so, how do you feel about leaning into your fear? And if you don’t like public speaking, then you should do more of it. I mean, is there some relevance? And is there some validity behind that thinking? Because it seems like in my situation, that’s kind of how I’ve overcome a lot of this and just push through it, putting your head through a brick wall?

Dr. Yishai 22:37
Yeah. So it’s interesting, I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of the like: just push through it or just do it? Because again, I look at how you think about and relate to this emotion? Is it near and dear? Or are you trying to make it go away? Are you treating it like it’s unwelcome and doesn’t belong? And so I like to think about it differently than the way I think about it.

And with this will come the framework and the PDF, the worksheet, I’m happy to share with you and the audience. We want and I would want to shift and change how you look at and respond when fear shows up. What if when fear shows up, you really understand and you can extract critical data, understand the direction that it’s trying to help you accomplish work towards getting to, or maybe trying to protect or prevent? And what if you could actually extract motivation from that? What if it could give you more and better direction? What if it could even give you greater motivation?

Well, you can do that. In order to do that you need to lean in, not push through or push away. It’s kind of like if you got a best friend. Or if it’s your partner, or a business partner, if you got someone and they’re rooting for you, and they give you a piece of feedback, they’re like, “dude, if you go down, if you go in this direction, you are going to crash and burn”. Are you gonna punch that person and be like, get out? I’m just gonna keep doing it. Is that what’s going to do for your relationship with them?

And let’s say that they’re incredibly dedicated. They never give up on you. How are they going to respond back? So why do we treat our fear any differently? Because ultimately, its job is to protect and ensure that you, your business, your relationships, that you are protected, safe, and even moving forward, but not going off the cliff. It’s the steering and the gas and the brakes. So I would say you really need to shift that process. And here’s the framework that I have that I’m happy to share with you. I’ll give you worksheets, so you can share them. The framework, I call that The 3D adaptation framework, the three Ds are data, direction and drive. So whenever fear pops up, it’s an exercise you can do on a daily basis with any emotion, and we’ll stick with fear for the moment, I’ll walk you through how you do that with fear.

Beau 25:14
Probably the first Friday next time. Let’s keep going.

Dr. Yishai 25:18
Yeah, sure. So the first place to start is to ask yourself, what data is this emotion trying to give me? And that includes what is the perception of what might happen? I mean, really dive into all the data, all the data that this emotion gives you, it can also help to take a step back, and I’ll do this with you. And for all of you listening, fear shows up, we talked about the parameters, when do people look afraid when they perceive danger? Is that useful?

Much of the time, yes, sometimes that perception is not aligned with reality. That’s why we need data, you need to compare your data with reality. So collect that data? What is my fear trying to tell me? What are all the dangers? What might happen? What are the outcomes we actually lean into, I say you want to lean into all the what ifs, you want to lean into the catastrophes, but you don’t want to just do that. You need to take that data, and compare, you really do want to walk into all those things.

So my fear might say, I might, I might call someone up and they laugh at me, and then I don’t get a client. And then it might happen every time I reach out to a client. And then if that happens, I’ll never get any revenue, I’ll never book any clients. And if I don’t pick any clients, my business is going to be a failure. And I’ll keep draining my bank accounts, and I won’t be able to support my family, and then my family is going to be homeless, and we’ll lose our house and we’re living will have to live in our car, and then we’ll have to sell our car. Just go all the way down that road, all the fears.

And I would even recommend grabbing a piece of paper, drawing a line down the middle and writing every one of those things. Write every single one of those things down. In fact, this is an exercise that’s well known in stoicism, you write out all of your fears, and then on the other side of the page, rate them on a zero to 10, how likely that is to happen. Now we’re getting realistic. Now we’re actually analyzing this data.

How likely is it that if one person rejects me, everybody’s gonna reject me? Is that logical? Is that realistic? No, okay, zero, right?

How likely is it that if I don’t get this client, I’m going to never make any money in my business? not logical, right? Zero.

Or maybe we’ll say one, if it keeps happening, that’s problematic. Or if I don’t make any changes, or if I’m doing something the wrong way, or barking up the wrong tree, then maybe that won’t be helpful.

So that’s actually going to lean into the direction piece, because your fears are actually trying to help direct you when we get there in a moment. But you go down this whole list, and you start reading them, and really analyze that. That’s the whole point of the data. If you didn’t have your fear, you would never be able to see any of these things, we would all just keep driving off the cliffs.

Beau 27:54
And this is great, though when you’re first talking, you’re talking about all the different fears that you have, the anxiety, and literally that was my thought process six years ago. Like, “oh, my gosh!”, and so I could completely relate, because that’s what your brain says. And then you started quantifying the probability or the possibility of that actually happening. And it kind of detached me from it a little bit? We’re like, yes, that’s possible. Is it probable? Not really. It’s fascinating.

Dr. Yishai 28:23
Yeah, of course. And I’ll say even one step further, you could even say, under what conditions would actually do I. Would me not getting this client lead to me not getting any clients, right? Because again, the thought process will perhaps even help mitigate or shift over, you can ask yourself, Is this my ideal kind of client? If I keep chasing the kind of client who’s not interested in my product? Is My Business likely to succeed? Maybe not. That fear was leaning into the direction side for a moment. Again, we’ll come back to it.

I wanted to say I think, again, when our relationship with fear, the way we think and believe about fear is that the fear itself is a problem that all my what ifs are actually working against me. Then what do you do when they show up? Well, you keep trying to make them go away. But what is the emotion that keeps me going? It keeps shoving it in your face? Because it’s trying to protect you.

Beau 29:12
There’s an issue, right? And maybe in a business setting, you can be leveraged to help you pivot, right? And that keeps appearing. So maybe I’m the problem and there’s something else that I need to be doing so it’s not presented anymore.

Dr. Yishai 29:24
Exactly. And again, that’s why I say you don’t need to push past your fear. You want your fear to be near and dear to you. You want to treat it, like not just a welcome guest but an honored guest. I say this about emotions, treat all your emotions, as if they’re an angel sent from heaven. As if and welcome them in. Like they’re an honored guest.

I would say the President of the United States but people have very conflicting relationships depending on when they’re listening to this and who the president is. Treat them like royalty when you invite them and invite them into your home. invite them into your heart into your brain. And then get curious about them like you’re a scientist. Because we judge our emotions so hard.

Beau 30:11
No, I think that’s fascinating on the original podcast that we did. I mentioned that I personally was so concerned with fear or anxiety that I literally actively was trying to kind of make my life devoid of it. And since I go, it’s a trigger that helps me identify that something is going on.

There’s some sort of catalyst out there that’s making me think, but to kind of look at this a little bit differently.

How do you actually identify when fear or anxiety is present? Because one of the things I would consider myself an extrovert, one of the things that I loathe doing is networking. Networking is so critical to my business, if I’m not doing it, my brands are not getting out there. People don’t know I exist, they don’t know to call me. So as the face of my company, part of my charter is to get my brand out there, get out, shake hands, kiss babies, etc.

And there was a period of when my business was growing, but I got very comfortable sitting at home and not going to these networking events, because I loathe them so much. But I was unable to identify what was really going on. And again, similar to kind of jumping out, I feel like I got lucky that at some point, I just kind of identified that, “hey, this is what this may be holding me back, and I’ve got to fix it and write the ship”. But I was unable, again, I just kind of uncovered that maybe this was what was holding me back from success.

And once I identified it, I was able to write the course. But how could somebody actually identify that maybe it’s fear or anxiety, or something that’s allowing them to focus on what’s easy? And stay away from what’s hard? Because that’s critical.

Dr. Yishai 30:53
Yeah, absolutely. I’m gonna come back to something I said is your emotion system. I call it your adaptive brain. And I call it your adaptive brain for a reason. It’s there to generate that new awareness, new analysis and new action.

What I’m hearing from you is the difficulty identifying it came from a place of trying to get rid of it, instead of slowing down and welcoming it in. The question is, how do you welcome it in? How do you tap or tune into it? And there’s a lot that goes into that. And so I’m going to say, this is the reason that I started. Both my podcast, The Business Couch with Dr. Yishai and my coaching and consulting company, because people don’t know how to do that.

And I’m going to be honest, the “how to do it” is not going to get you from step zero all the way to 100, it’s not going to get you there. It is a consistent effort. You talked about self development, self development happens in increments, you need to dedicate the time, energy and effort.
I will also say having a guide, someone who can help you learn or develop that skill, I think is absolutely critical. So it’s not an easy thing to do. And again, what I’m going to come back to is the framework and the worksheet, which is you need to be willing to take it in instead of just brush it off and try to reject it when you were losing.

Beau 33:18
That’s what I did. I mean, literally, I guess nobody for three years because it is just not now, not the right time. So never. Yes, not the right time.

Dr. Yishai 33:25
So the thing to do is you need to stop brushing it off, right in front of you out there. Just take a moment.
I want you to ask yourself, really be brutally honest with yourself. When you feel something, especially something uncomfortable. Do you brush it off? Or do you slow down, recognize and relate to it like it’s near and dear? Recognize it’s there to generate new awareness, new analysis and new action? And do you really invest the time to listen to it, like it is your business partner, your best friend, your guide?

Because it really is your guide. I don’t think of myself as the guide for my clients, it is their own adaptive brains, that is their guide. I just helped them tap into that. And I think that’s really key.

So the process there is you want to do this data work, you want to slow down so you can get this data, do the analysis. And then with all of that analysis, you can be intentional and select your new direction.

Ask yourself: What is my fear trying to protect me from? What does it want for me? Instead of what is it doing to me? People get so stuck in what is my fear doing to me that they want that to go away?

 

Beau 34:45
Right, the thought of how you flipped it? What is it? What’s it doing for me? And I want to underscore it, you mentioned it to me, what I’ve kind of heard is this. It’s an iterative process, learning how to deal and identify it. But also to take a moment to sit back and think about what your fear is.

And I’ve started journaling recently, which could just be anything, it’s 10-15 minute exercise, whatever. But I’m trying to kind of sit down and think about “Alright, what’s going on with my business? Where are my gaps?” Think through it, and then think about am I doing something and nine out of 10 times it’s me, right?

And just like any other entrepreneur, you yourself is your worst enemy. But I think it’s your greatest asset. It totally is. But I’m sitting back and trying to identify where the gaps are, what’s holding me back, write those down, and then think through those uses of the process that you mentioned earlier.

So that means to me. That’s an actionable insight. And I greatly appreciate you sharing that. And so it seems like I’m on the right path. Again, I think I just fell backwards into it. And maybe it’s due to all the self help books that I read. But it has been, it’s crazy.

Dr. Yishai 35:50
Yeah, a lot of not only self help, and self development, and a lot of business coaching out there, they really dump on our emotions. And again, I think what they’re doing is all they’re doing is teaching you to hamstring your own adaptive brain, or teaching you to dislike or try to get away from and again, all this language, it drives me nuts when people say you need to just push past the fear.

Pushing past the fear is like saying, when your business partner tells you that the business is at risk, go punch them in the face, push them out of the way and do whatever you think your business is supposed to do.

I mean, seriously? Really, it drives me absolutely nuts. And that’s why I say and I hope that as we’re having this conversation, as we’re talking about it, your understanding, and those of you listening, you’re really getting to recognize that your fear, really deeply cares about you. It’s not trying to get in your way, it’s trying to protect you.

And if you treat it like near and dear, and if you learn how to harness it, because it’s trying to help you adapt, which is a challenge, I will acknowledge that. And of course, like any skill, whether you’re learning to ride a bike, or you’re learning how to do marketing, or writing copy, or you need to learn how to do networking, the first time is not going to be easy. And not every time you go to do it, is it going to work perfectly? Not only is that okay, it’s more about the process and the growth than it is about flipping a switch from being bad at it to being great at it.

Beau 37:14
I think that’s great. I think that’s phenomenal. And again, it’s given me some great tidbits that it’s all an iterative process. It’s all about identifying and figuring out how you can maybe change the course, because it is their President who tells you something. I think it’s a great segue into, fake it until you make I know everybody’s heard this.

And it’s something that I’ve tried to adapt, adopt and utilize in the real world. What are your thoughts in regards to that thought process because to me, that goes hand in hand with maybe kind of trying to put your head through a brick wall, and just alleviating the fear pushing past the fear?

And maybe it’s not that simplistic. Maybe there are situations in which that makes the most sense. Maybe there’s times where it doesn’t, but what are your thoughts in regards to kind of fake it until you make it because it’s worked for me in certain situations, in networking, continuing to show up? Public speaking events continue to do them, it’s gotten easier and easier and easier.

Dr. Yishai 38:11
Yeah, so I’m going to say differently, I think, and as you pointed out, and I think research actually shows this, faking it till you make it doesn’t always work. In fact, a lot of times it doesn’t, and it can actually contribute to a mindset where you consistently feel like you’re not there, and you don’t really belong, and you’re not really someone who’s good at this or that you’re not really capable.

You just have to keep faking it. So I’m going to reframe and rephrase that my way of thinking about it is try until you identify, try until it is part of your identity. It’s not about faking it. It’s not about making it, it’s not about one day waking up and suddenly or that, I’m willing to try, I’ll keep putting it in. I’m going to slow down and pay attention to when my emotional system, my adaptive brain is trying to help me address something or anticipate something and then is not going to stop me from continuing.

In fact, I’m going to harness it. We’re going to get back to that. We talked about direction, how it can help direct you, do you need to turn, do you need to brake, and we’re gonna say drive as well, your fear is a big drive, your anger is a big drive your frustration is a big drive. Your desire is a big drive. These are all emotions, they’re also your adaptive brain. And a lot of it is about being tuned in.

So that the concept of faking it till you make it can really create this mindset that either you are it or you’re not. And that it there’s the research is actually showing that it can contribute to or even create imposter syndrome. And that’s to me, that’s not only mind blowing, it’s like, “oh, we had this wrong”.

Beau 39:53
Yeah, so no, I like flipping the script to it, I feel like with you, a lot of it is just perception, right? And so it’s coming, you literally kind of did a 180 with the finger to make it. It’s like you’re trying to identify, I think staggering and I never thought about that. But maybe you continue to try to fake it until you make it, you never make it. And then all of a sudden you feel like, “well, it’s me-problem”. And maybe there was something else that was going on outside of your control.

Dr. Yishai 40:16
Yeah, and there’s a lot of subtlety there. I like to say this is where I kind of draw on my background in psychology, which is how we relate to our thoughts, to our feelings to ourselves and to our sense of selves, really makes a massive difference in the long term. It really, really does.

So the thing about fake it till you make it, is like there’s this idea of what you’re supposed to be or how you’re supposed to do. And you’re just trying to emulate that as if emulating it is suddenly going to give you all this skill. But trying until you identify, try until you identify is try something if it doesn’t work, you can tinker with it, it doesn’t have to go perfect, right.

And then you keep going and going or it’s try, iterate, tinker. And you do that over and over and over again. And the thing that you try over and over and over again, and you continue trying becomes part of how you identify, how you see yourself in the long term. It’s a very different process. It’s not that I need to be this person or be this way, it’s I want to try this thing I want to expand or push myself further or I have a mission, I have a goal, I have a dream.

And in order to accomplish that, I need to take some action. And my emotions along the way, they’re going to show up and they’re going to try to help me they’re going to give me some data, they’re going to try to direct me and they’re going to drive me and sometimes they’re going to slam on the brakes, but times are gonna slam on the gas.

And the whole point here is to shift how you relate to those things. Because how you relate to them really affects not only how you think but how you make your decisions, and how you then perceive the results or outcomes of it, and then how you also perceive yourself along the whole way.

Beau 42:01
That’s great. So what I’m hearing too, is that it’s an iterative process, like anything in life, kind of take some notes, try to fix it, keep iterating over and over until you get better.

All right, last question for you, Doc, appreciate your time. If you were to give an entrepreneur one piece of advice in order to harness and conquer their fears, what would be? One piece of advice.

Dr. Yishai 42:22
One piece of advice, I’m going to take a moment and think.

Beau 42:24
Of course, putting you on the spot, I realized that.

Dr. Yishai 42:27
Start thinking about fear as a friend, not as an enemy. You don’t need to conquer your fear. You want your fear to be a part of you. Join your fear. That doesn’t mean you’re a slave to it. But this kind of like conquer or be a slave to, master, manage. This is a very powerful dynamic with your fear.

And that’s not going to get you to where you want or need. Because it’s not going to let you tap into your fear and your fear in many ways, not only is trying to help, but it is helpful.

So shift, work on shifting that relationship. Harnessing your fear is not about sticking a saddle on it and writing it. It’s about inviting it in, having an interactive conversation with it, like we talked about before, right? And I’ll give you a link and you’ll be able to get the worksheet so that you can do the 3D exercise. And that’s a way of really shifting that relationship with your fear. If your fear is a source of data, do you need to get rid of it?

Beau 43:35
No. In fact, I didn’t ask yet.

Dr. Yishai 43:37
That’s the thing. Yes. And that’s what my advice would be.

Start asking, get curious, build a different kind of relationship with your fear and with any other emotion. And if you need any help, I’m happy to be here and in any way that I can really kind of help you along the process.

Beau 43:56
I appreciate that. How can folks reach you?

Dr. Yishai 43:59
Yeah, so the best way to reach me is, there are two ways one is my website. DrYishai.com, and the other way is through LinkedIn.

Beau 44:11
Excellent. Well, Doc I really appreciate you coming on not once but twice. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Until next time.

Dr. Yishai 44:19
My pleasure.