Fear Is A Beacon

I have spent a lot of time in schools and in libraries. As a matter of fact just last night I was at a university library. I was reading Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer's book The Progress Principle. It is a very interesting book and it disputes a lot of what we think we know. But, that book is not the point of this post.

What I have found, over time, is that scholastic aptitude is not the main determinant of success. Meaning, book smarts do no necessarily translate into success. We all know this. But, have you ever wonder what does lead to success (I usually prefer the word “effectiveness”)? I have wondered that question and I believe the main determinant seems to be how we handle fear. Most people avoid it.

Do you know anyone who is really smart, anyone who talks a big game, but never really accomplishes much? Of course, you do. We all do. Regardless of whatever excuses they may make, what holds that person back is fear. Some might say underachievers simply lack motivation but I do not believe that to be the case.

I agree that lots of people do lack motivation. But why? I believe that fear zaps our motivation. A big problem is that we often do not even realize we are afraid. We simply feel uncomfortable. (This is something I wrote about here) As you know, there are lots of things we fear. But, one of the most insidious forms of fear is doubt. Because we can doubt ourselves and be in complete denial about it.

What is doubt? Well, at least when it comes to success and effectiveness, doubt is basically the fear of failure. We often doubt that we can succeed and that is the same thing as saying we are afraid of failure. All-in-all, fear, in all its various forms, will destroy your life. Because, as Dan Gilbert says, we don't regret the things we do nearly as much as the things we do not do.

What I am saying is, not only should we not avoid the things we fear, I believe we should do the very things we fear. If you fear it, do it. We should actually use fear as a beacon to point us towards the challenges we must attack. Why would we want to do this?

A couple weeks ago I talked about how growth is an imperative of life (Here it is) In addition to that truism, I also believe that humans yearn for freedom. I hope you can agree with me when I say that fear makes slaves of us all. The limits of our courage dictate the limits of our freedom.

So, on the one hand, we want to overcome our fears so we can enjoy the rewarding feelings that come with growth. While, on the other hand, we may want to overcome our fears so we can free ourselves from the mental shackles that hold us down.

Whatever the motivation, I recommend we overcome our fears. Because I believe it is largely fear that zaps our motivation. The fear of failure. The fear of being judged. The fear of being seen to be less than perfect. And on and on and on. My prescription? As counter-intuitive as it is, I recommend we use fear as a beacon to point us in the direction we must travel. Stated differently, get comfortable being uncomfortable or spend the last of your days under the avalanche of regret.

The Drucker Paradox

Peter Ferdinand Drucker was born in 1909 and died in 2005. In the course of his 95 years Drucker forever changed the world. Today, his legacy lives on in southern California. It is in Claremont, California that you will find The Drucker Institute.

The Executive Director of The Drucker Institute is a gentleman named Rick Wartzman. Mr. Wartzman works diligently to keep Drucker's legacy alive and effective. In one article, Wartzman talked about what he calls the Drucker Paradox.

Wartzman wrote, “Many of the concepts that Drucker introduced in the 1940s, '50s,'60s, and beyond have been built into the DNA of the world's top companies and embraced as second nature by a generation of social entrepreneurs.” Druckers' ideas are so ubiquitous, they are taken for granted. That is to say, Druckers' ideas are so ingrained in modern thinking that we do not even realize they came from Drucker.

Wartzman explained the Drucker paradox as follows, “His imprint is everywhere, so much so that his contribution has become, in many ways, imperceptible. Yet, at the same time, there are lots of people in business, government, and the nonprofit realm who forsake his wisdom each and every day. The need for effective management and ethical leadership—the need for Peter Drucker—has never been more pressing.”

The following passage comes from Wartzman's article:

A few Sundays ago, I was sitting in my home office, working on an outside writing project—an historical narrative that has nothing to do with my day job as director of the Drucker Institute. The think tank's mission is to advance the teachings of the late Peter Drucker, the man widely hailed as "the father of modern management.”

My stack of reading this day included a 1939 article from The Nation magazine that explored a long-forgotten pension scheme, popularly known as Ham and Eggs, which failed twice at the ballot box in Depression-era California. I was breezing right along—that is, until I got to the penultimate sentence, which contained these six words: "as Peter Drucker has pointed out." I shook my head, burst out laughing, and raced downstairs to tell my wife about my serendipitous discovery. "Geez," I said, "this guy's following me everywhere.”

In the weeks since, though, what has struck me as most remarkable is not that I stumbled upon Drucker in a nearly 70-year-old magazine story. It is that hardly a week passes when a major publication somewhere in the world doesn't invoke him in the very same manner: "as Peter Drucker has said," "as Peter Drucker has pointed out.”

The Big Idea

How many people can you name whose ideas—and ideals—were being discussed in 1939, in 1969, in 1999, and will be, undoubtedly, in 2039? Likewise, how many people can you cite whose counsel was requested and (to varying degrees) followed by both General Electric (GE) Chief Executive Jack Welch and United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez? How many get credit for inspiring an organization such as the Girl Scouts while also helping guide a financial giant like Edward Jones?

Drucker's extraordinary staying power and his wide reach speak to several factors: the depth and breadth of his insights, an uncanny ability to anticipate the future, and a prose style that is as clear as mountain water.

But perhaps most of all, he remains highly relevant two years after his death at age 95 because he reminded us again and again that responsible management is not about buzzwords. It's not about fads. Ultimately, it is not even about developing new products or fattening the bottom line (although he believed those things are important).

Drawing From Drucker's Tenets

Rather, it is about far more fundamental tenets—a philosophy that grew directly out of Drucker's experience as a young writer who had witnessed the rise of Nazi Germany (which in the early 1930s banned and burned the Austria native's work).

Drucker wrote that management, at its core, "deals with people, their values, their growth and development—and this makes it a humanity. So does its concern with, and impact on, social structure and the community. Indeed, as everyone has learned who…has been working with managers of all kinds of institutions for long years, management is deeply involved in moral concerns—the nature of man, good, and evil.”

End of quote.

Peter Drucker is everywhere yet he is nowhere. Meaning, we do not even realize his pervasive nature. In that way, he is kind of like the air we breath. I hope you just enjoyed your daily dose of Drucker. Come back often.

The Vulnerability Paradox

A few week ago I posted an article about Brene Brown (Here it is) Brown is a shame and vulnerability researcher. And, what she says is that we are here, on Earth, to connect to other human beings. A lot of people agree.

One of the world's hottest areas of scientific study is an area called “Positive Psychology.” Some people call it happiness research. Different scientists have slightly different perspectives on what causes happiness. In fact, some do not even like using the word “Happiness.”

That said, regardless of their persuasion, or lingo, there does seem to be one thing that all positive psychologists agree on; relationships are central to happiness. Humans are a social creature, and relationships can make life a heaven or a hell.

Back to Brown. In her book Daring Greatly, Brown writes, “Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives. The power that connection holds in our lives was confirmed when the main concern about connection emerged as the fear of disconnection; the fear that something we have done or failed to do, something about who we are or where we come from, has made us unlovable and unworthy of connection.”

One of the things Professor Brown found is that fear inhibits connection. Which should not be a surprise. But, what do we fear? One of the main things we fear is being vulnerable. And, this leads to an important paradox. Brown calls it the vulnerability paradox. Very simply it goes like this. When it comes to connecting, with another human being, vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you, and it is the last thing I want you to see in me. Big problem.

One of the ways we avoid feeling vulnerable is perfectionism. We often try to be perfect, and flawless, to avoid feelings of inadequacy or unlovability. The problem is, in an ironic twist of fate, the solution is the problem.

Trying to appear perfect, to others, can actually backfire. When we put on this flawless front we often think people will be impressed. As it turns out, the exact opposite is usually the case. People cannot relate to perfection. We all know the truth of the saying “To err is human.” We all know that we all make mistakes. So, when somebody presents themselves as being free of error, we have a hard time trusting them.

I know I tend to be a perfectionist. And, what I have learned it that perfection is a problem. Perfection is really hard to relate to precisely because it is impossible to attain. Yes, I believe perfection is an illusion. I do not believe perfection is even possible. At least not in this existence.

How about an English example? Is it really all that important if we get our possessives grammatically correct? Does it really matter if we put Midas' or Midas's? How about "their" versus "there"? And, is that question mark supposed to be inside the quotation marks or not? And, if you have a pet peeve about any of those mistakes, is it possible that you are a little to perfectionistic? (and, yes, at least that time, I misspelled "too" on purpose)

Back to the vulnerability paradox. We search for vulnerability in others and try to hide vulnerability in ourselves. Don't you agree? And, if you agree, do you see how self-defeating this approach can be? So, I guess the next question is, how do we resolve the vulnerability paradox? In a word, courage.

If we are here to connect, that is to say, if we wish to build relationships with others, we need to have the courage to be vulnerable. So, how do we do that? How do we develop courage? The answer is simple, we develop courage just like we develop any skill, by practicing.

Professor Brown has coined a term for the process of developing courage. She says we develop courage by “couraging.” In essence, what the professor is talking about is practice.

I believe that courage is one of the most important traits a human can develop. For this reason, I recommended baby steps. I believe that small steps are big steps (a paradox in and of itself.) Most people never take a single step towards their fears. So, even the smallest of steps is relatively enormous when compared to doing nothing (doing nothing – another paradox.)

First admit that fear is a problem. Then begin developing courage by taking the baby steps of practice. As a little hint, we often do not even recognize the existence of fear. We usually just feel uncomfortable. So, when you feel uncomfortable, accept that you must just be nervous, and begin Couraging. Give it a try.

Do the Thing You Fear

Some people say it is crazy to write a blog about paradoxes. I disagree. I believe paradoxes are central to our existence. And so, I think it is a good idea to understand what a paradox is and how to make sense of it.

As you probably know, one way to explain a paradox is that it is an idea which seems to be a contradiction but is in fact true, or may be true. An example would be, “The only constant is change.” That statement contradicts itself but it is true.

In addition to paradoxes, I am a big believer in intuition. I believe it is often a good idea to follow my gut. However, I do realize there is a problem. The problem is that a lot of reality is counter-intuitive. For example, paradoxes are counter-intuitive. So, I believe we need to practice identifying the boundaries of our intuition.

Let's run through a quick example. Emerson once said, “Do the thing you fear.” Totally counter-intuitive because, understandably, most people avoid the things they fear. We do not always admit we are avoiding things. We might say we are too busy or we might say our spouse won't let us. When in reality we are making excuses for our avoidance behavior.

I think it is safe to say, the idea of doing things we fear seems practically insane (This is something I have written about before) We construct our lives to be comfortable, so why would we intentionally make ourselves uncomfortable? To my way of thinking, the reason we should do the things we fear is because growth is the imperative.

It appears we have been put on this earth to grow. Each of us might have different strengths and different callings. But, one thing we all have in common is the desire to grow. In fact, we are hard-wired to grow. We enjoy growing.

Think about it. Think about a time when you accomplished something difficult and worthwhile. Something that caused you to grow. Something that cause you to improvement yourself. Do you look back at that accomplishment with pride? Are you happy you did it?

We do not necessarily enjoy the growth process while it is happening. However, upon reflection, a lot of our best experiences are times when we struggle to accomplish a worthy goal. We are literally hard-wired to enjoy growing.

Why am I saying this? Well, let's go back to Emerson's quote. The complete quote is, “Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.” What was Emerson talking about? He was talking about growth. For most of us, fear is what holds us back. By definition, growing means changing. And, most of us are afraid of change. Oh, sure, we do not usually admit we are afraid. As I said before, we come up with all kinds of inventive excuses, blames, and justification. But, in reality, this is just a way to hide from the fact that we are scared.

Why have you not asked for a raise? Because you are scared. Why do you not have more clients? Because you are afraid. Why have you not pursued that promotion? You got it, fear! Fear keeps us small, and it violates the very reason we were put on this earth. Fear keeps us from growing.

So, how do we solve this conundrum? In a couple of words, baby steps. That would be a paradox in-and-of itself, ya know? “Small steps are big steps.” The truth is most people never takes any steps towards conquering their fears. So, no matter how small the step, it is a big step compared to doing nothing. And, over time, small steps add up to big steps.

Again, I believe we were put on this earth to grow. And, the main thing that keeps us from growing is fear. That being the case, how do we overcome our fears? One small step at a time.