Everyone has to deal with it.
Show me a person in the world that is afraid of nothing. I truly don't believe there is a person out there that has no fears.
Even the people that don't appear to be afraid of anything have fears. They have just learned to suppress or ignore them.
The sooner you can master your fears, the more successful you'll be. Nothing will hold you back from accomplishing your goal. Take cold calling for example. For some people, calling strangers on the phone and asking them for their business is not a problem at all. But for others, it is terrifying. So while today, we're going to focus on getting over the fear of cold calling, these strategies can really be used to master any of your fears.
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Now before we get into how to master your fears, it is important to realize why we fear certain things.
Try to imagine yourself as an early homo sapien navigating the dangers of the world. I'm talking prehistoric times without civilization. If you're out living in the jungle and you come across a 20 ft. snake, that would scare most people. But hypothetically speaking, what if you aren't afraid of anything? So you don't run away from this beast. You continue on your way and immediately get killed by this huge animal.
So fear is actually a good thing. It is your biological "fight or flight" response to dangerous stimuli. It protects you from things that could harm or kill you.
But in today's world, our brains are so developed that fear has gone too far. We are now afraid of things that don't pose a real danger to us.
For example, there are certainly people out there that don't make a post on social media because they "fear" they won't get x # of likes. To them, they are fearing a loss of reputation. Now, I'm not saying to completely disregard your reputation. Your personal brand has never been more important than it is right now.
But try to think: is this going to have long term consequences to me as person? Walking past a 20 ft anaconda may. Only getting 87 likes on your instagram post will not.
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Is cold calling a stranger closer to walking past an anaconda or only getting 87 likes on your instagram post?
Here are some steps you can take to see if your fear is rational:
- Will this action cause harm to my body or mind?
- Will this action cause me long term consequences?
- Will the consequences be irreversible?
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Okay, now I know you're thinking "if it were that easy then I wouldn't be afraid of anything." And you're right. It's not that easy. Sometimes we can't think rationally when we are afraid. Fear is an emotional response and emotions tend to cloud judgement.
However, the more you think about what causes the fear of something, the more likely you are to realize that it's not a big deal.
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For cold calling, what is driving the fear?
- Loss of reputation
- Fear of failure
- Fear of rejection
- (Any others you can think of?)
Now that we've analyzed what is exactly driving the fear, let's brainstorm some solutions. Some of them have been alluded already and others will be completely new.
- Think about if the fear is rational or irrational (Hint: go through the steps)
- Think about what is driving the fear
- Think about if others have this fear (you can ask them/research how they conquered the fear)
- Come in fully prepared (more preparation = lower chance of failure, rejection, loss of reputation)
- JUST DO IT
Fear is really just a construct of our imagination. For the most part, it's our brain playing out the worst outcomes. The real way to get over your fear is by doing what you are afraid of. Then you realize that the worst outcomes almost never happen. Each time you do something it becomes more normalized in your brain. So by cold call #20, it won't seem as intimidating anymore. By #200, fear won't even be associated with the task anymore. This is truly how you master your fears.
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It's important to realize that, although this article was crafted around the fear of cold calling, you can use the principles to master your fears of anything. Although it's equally important to realize that you do want to fear some things. It's to fear bears, lions, snakes, etc,. It's important to fear climbing in dangerous situations.
Alex Honnold was one of my main inspirations for this blog post. For those of you that don't know him, he's the guy that climbed El Capitan in Yosemite without a harness. In the documentary, one of the most fascinating parts to me was how his fear tolerance was much higher than a normal person.
I highly recommend the documentary if you haven't seen it yet. Just remember, if those heights give you anxiety then you are normal. And that type of fear (climbing in high places without a rope) is completely rational. So don't take the advice in this article and go do something like that.
Hopefully this blog post is the first baby step to help you you master your fears.
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Here are some other blog posts to help you in sales:
And of course we have some training videos on our Youtube and Teachable.
The online sales training videos will help you learn some sales skills as well as give you a preview of what our bootcamp training is like.
And if you're asking yourself: "How can I find a boot camp near me?" You can learn sales skills online because our sales bootcamp is virtual.
