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Fear is the Price of Progress: A Leadership Paradox
Fear is the Price of Progress: A Leadership Paradox
By Jeffrey A. Mangus
“Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.”
—Dale Carnegie
Actress Jessica Alba entered the business world because of her personal passion for making families and children’s environments safer all over the world. She became an entrepreneur after developing an allergic reaction to a common baby laundry detergent while pregnant. Noticing a lack of safe consumer products, she filled the market gap with affordable, eco-friendly, and non-toxic household items.
Alba, with no business background, felt driven to pursue her vision. In 2011, she co-founded The Honest Company with Brian Lee, Sean Kane, and Christopher Gavigan. Creating the company involved overcoming many difficulties and uncertainties. Faced with doubt and fear, Alba didn’t back down. She didn’t just face her fears; she persevered in the face of them. With great dedication, she delved into the world of business, product development, and the consumer market, immersing herself completely. Alba’s persistence paid off. The Honest Company launched in 2012 and gained traction, a significant milestone that validated Alba’s vision and efforts. Jessica Alba overcame her fears and took calculated risks, which led to extraordinary success, even amid uncertainty and initial skepticism. She showed that it’s possible to transform a personal concern into a thriving business with passion, perseverance, and the right team.
Fear can be a significant obstacle to success in the business world. Fear, anxiety, uncertainty, discomfort, and confusion are tolls—a price to pay to drive and reach your goals. When you encounter a toll involving fear, instead of letting it detour you or become a roadblock, you need to pay the price, get past it, and keep moving forward toward success.
Picture yourself on a beach, and on the horizon, something amazing is waiting for you. The fear is the sole thing that hinders your progress. If you embrace this fear, it means you’re pushing your limits and exploring new territories. In essence, you’re going for it, and by leaning into your fear, you unlock doors you didn’t even know existed. It gives you the guts to face challenges and the strength to keep going when things get rough. So, don’t let fear stop you; turn it into a stepping stone. Every fear you face knocks down another barrier to your success.
Growing in business means dealing with fear. This idea comes from the fact that progress means taking risks and entering unknown territory, which can be scary. Embracing and accepting fear helps you become resilient and conquer challenges, leading to personal and collective progress. You can adopt this mindset in different areas of life, like business, education, relationships, and self-improvement.
The key to success lies in shattering the limits of your own capabilities without succumbing to fear. The key to success in sales profitability and leadership improvement is doing what you don’t want to do. This aligns with my experiences in ghostwriting. Whenever I encounter a new author or submit a new chapter, I confront anxieties about receiving feedback, criticism, and comments that could cause discomfort or uncertainty. Despite my initial doubts, I tackled what I believed was impossible. In my early days of ghostwriting, working with Harper Collins Leadership and the country’s top editors and agents, I had a big job to fill. I was thrust from being an unknown writer to catapulting and working with a major publisher, and I had to face the fear and do something I had never done. But I knew I had to because it was the only way to achieve the book’s success that I wanted to experience. It was the only way, and I didn’t let fear rule over me; I accepted it as just the price I would have to pay for the personal progress I would make in my new career.
William Shakespeare said, “He is not worthy of the honeycomb that shuns the hive because of the bees’ sting.” He was right: don’t let fear stop you from taking small steps in your development and leadership growth. You never know where fear will take you. The key is to turn your fear into who you want to be and what you want to do. Don’t stress about what you can’t control and the things that go wrong. Shift your mindset, change your approach, and transform your life and business by using that internalized fear as energy to make something positive and meaningful happen.
Most individuals often link fear to feelings of anxiety. Still, fear can be a potent motivator in pursuing success. By embracing fear and recognizing its potential for personal and professional development, we can use its force to propel us toward our objectives.
Yet before we can use fear, it’s vital to understand where it is coming from. Most of our biggest fears are about failure and falling on our asses. It haunts many leaders and founders. Mishaps, missteps, and failures fill the journey to success and haunt many leaders and founders. So, it can trigger fear and anxiety, and although there is a huge promotion of life or death or of failing fast, no one wants to fail.
Why does it make us so afraid? Because failure in business often comes with grave consequences like bankruptcy, home repossession, social stigma, and job loss. Research has proven that failure and fear are major barriers to leadership and company success. But you can turn it around, and instead of fear being a hindrance, you can use it as a source of motivation. Les Brown said, “Fear is not the enemy. It is a compass pointing us to the areas where we need to grow.” Fear of failure can fuel motivation, not just deter your entrepreneurial pursuits.
While many on-the-surface things cause fear and hesitancy in business and leadership, some of the tangible factors include:
- Financial stability
- Capability to finance the business endeavor.
- Individual capacity/self-confidence
- The idea and concept’s potential.
- Dangers to social reputation
- How well can the venture be executed?
- The costs of the opportunities.
All fears differ, so knowing and recognizing their origins is the only way to beat them. To find out what they are and where they’re coming from, ask yourself, Are you worried about opportunity costs, financial security, or funding? Is this you? Or are you afraid of humiliating yourself in front of your loved ones and colleagues, and it consumes you? Are your fears and hesitancies stopping you in your tracks?
If so, confront your fears head-on and use them as a driving force. But here is the hard part. Facing your fears exposes your vulnerability, but it’s the authentic cost you must pay to lead your company and team.
If you don’t allow it, fear cannot immobilize you. Don’t suppress fear – let it fuel your business growth. Building resilience and strength through pushing past comfort zones and confronting fears has wide-ranging benefits in your leadership life.
It all begins with looking within and practicing meditation. Carve out some time for deep reflection to uncover the underlying reasons behind your fears. What’s causing your fear? What do you think about or remember from the past? The first step to overcoming your fear is understanding where it comes from.
Pause, refocus, and break down your goals into smaller, attainable steps. This can help you gain a sense of control over the outcomes. When you break your goals into smaller steps and celebrate each milestone, you can increase confidence and minimize the impact of fear.
If you find yourself in a deadlock and need help, seeking guidance from a mentor or reliable acquaintances is a clever move. It’s okay to acknowledge when you require help. The first step is to overcome the stigma of needing everyone to believe you possess all the answers. Having a supportive network of friends, mentors, or coaches is essential for overcoming fear.
To be an effective leader, it’s crucial to differentiate between worry and concern and acknowledge that not everything is within our control, considering the broader perspective. Those who worry acknowledge issues, but those who care overcome their fears to seek solutions. Leaders solve problems and focus on what they can control. The primary factors to consider are your attitude and aptitude when interacting with your team and controlling your actions. Keep your head up and stay strong, no matter how rough things get.
It’s great to have a mindset that can handle unexpected things. Just take it one step at a time, and you’ll be able to see the future. The best thing to do is to be ready for the challenges ahead. Fear is just a natural part of doing business. It’s tough, but it is the one thing that opens the door to progress and success.
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If you are a leader and have a book idea you would like to discuss, please get in touch and get on my schedule.
About Me
“My name is Jeffrey A. Mangus. I work with powerful executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, and new authors who have incredible, life-changing stories and want to put it all into writing their business books or memoirs. Authors I work with have beaten adversity down, survived gut-wrenching challenges, and overcome them to reach the top. I love rags-to-riches stories that show tenacity, grit, and determination. I partner with individuals committed to motivating others, going the extra mile, thinking innovatively, and leaving a lasting impression.
Jeffrey A. Mangus is a 5x #1 Amazon bestselling ghostwriter and author with thirty-five (35) award-winning and bestselling books to his credit. Jeffrey has written for several major publishers, including: Harper Collins Leadership, Harper Collins Focus, Rowman & Littlefield, Tantor, Blackstone, Highbridge Audio, and Audible.