Ivan Queiroz is a kind and practical deep-thinker. He is careful with his definitions, and, as an experienced coach, he knows to listen deeply. Ivan masterfully integrates the ideas of psychological fears and instinctual fears into one: fear is there to protect us.
In other words, if all the different kinds of fear are there to protect us, why don't we pause and listen to our fear?
Watch the video interview:
Listen to the audio version:
What Ivan suggests is to acknowledge our fear right when it shows up, instead of trying to suppress or avoid the emotions it provokes. The message from our fears are just there to be heard; they are not commands we must obey.
Can we understand fear as a source of energy and motivation? What does it take to overcome fear?
I’d love to read your take on this in the comments section:
The quote above is just amazing. As I understand it, when we really listen to the message from our fears, we find the truth. Unfortunately, listening and digging deeper takes some effort, and we often rush through and jump towards ignoring our emotions. I personally believe that when we ignore our fears, they come back knocking on the door cyclically.
How to say 'Deconstructing Fear' in Spanish?
Se dice: Desarmando Miedos con Patricia Salmič.
Asi es, as you just read, our first community in Spanish is just born thanks to the energy and decision of my dear friend Patty. She is an experienced businesswoman, consultant, networker, and I dare to say, social entrepreneur.
Patty is concerned about women's empowerment, not because it is a trend, but because she understands the obstacles women all around the world face. She intends to provide inspiration and tools for women to deconstruct their personal and collective fears. As Ivan Queiroz would say, listen to their fears to motivate proactive decision making.
Would you like to start Deconstructing Fears in your city or country? Reach me out. Together with Patty, we are creating a process and information guideline to make your initiative to join as efficient and straightforward as possible.
Mil gracias Patty! es un honor contar contigo en esta aventura!
Something Terrible Happened
Well, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but honestly, I felt awful when only two persons joined my lecture at the Coworking Europe conference. But something great also happened, let me tell you more.
The conference was running using two platforms; the speakers joined via Zoom, and the participants could watch the live feeds using Attendify or join using Zoom. My lecture had an interactive section, and I just had no way to know how many people were attending.
That's the moment when the fear kicked in. I felt shame, disappointment, and tried to find reasons why that happened. One of the participants told me that there was a miscommunication because my lecture was the first one on the agenda where two tracks were going on simultaneously, and graphically looked like my class would happen after the other one, not in parallel. I found a reason to feel better; I wasn't guilty!
It took me just a couple of seconds to figure out how my fears and ego were playing the "reaction game." I consciously decided to listen to my fears and immediately decided to take action:
I communicated the agenda design mistake to the organizers so that the following sessions would have no such problems.
I used the conference platform to invite the participants to watch the video recording if they are interested in Rural/Suburban Coworking spaces.
I shared a couple of highlights from my session and shared in the public forum.
The result?
I already had two one-to-one calls with Coworking administrators interested in joining forces. I have two similar calls scheduled for the next week, and I received one fantastic offer to integrate a digital tool for managing multiple Coworking spaces. That's more than what I would typically get from an ordinary conference presentation!
Were my fears founded?
If I would decide to keep the "reaction game," I would just keep complaining about the lousy conference organization, close the platform and retreat silently. But when I found that I was afraid of:
Losing the opportunity to reach out.
Losing the chance of receiving feedback.
Losing the validation for my idea of a Coworking Network.
Losing the time I spent preparing.
Looking like a loser.
Then it was easy to see that:
I must reach out.
I must ask for feedback.
I should present my idea to interested people and request validation.
Retreating would be losing my time investment.
Withdrawing would be to be a loser.
I felt low for a day, but as soon as I started to receive feedback and meeting requests, I found I've learned something new: Be a coach to your own fears, like Ivan Queiroz.
I’m very happy to share with you that my event “Get Unstuck No Matter What” was a success. And for the participants that are subscribed to this channel, I’d like to share this audio from Alan Watts, that starts with:
"When you are perfectly free to feel stuck or not stuck, you are unstuck…"
And like always:
Share this article with anyone that could benefit:
And if you are not subscribed to our newsletter, you can…
Thank you for your attention. I wish you an easy beginning of December.
Sincerely,
Jose.
The condition Ivan talks about is:
https://www.wired.com/2010/12/fear-brain-amygdala/