"We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!"

Franklin Delano Roosevelt couldn't have been more correct when he uttered that famous phrase.

Time and time again I see people who don't do what they should. I myself am part of that group.

Recently I noticed I wasn't doing what I needed to do and took some time to analyze why. It didn't take me long to realize I didn't do what I needed to do because I was afraid.

I'm not talking about the rational fear that keeps me from jumping into the alligator pit at the zoo or jumping out of a plane without a parachute. I'm talking about the fear that keeps you from picking up the telephone and calling your mother at 3:00am because you might wake her up.

This fear is the single most destructive thing to achieving a goal, no matter how small.

While the rational fear makes you turn from the attacking lion and run, this fear keeps you rooted to the spot, unable to pick up a telephone and call someone.

Why???

As it turns out, over 99% of the time, this fear is a fear of what other people think about you and how that perception may change if you act.

You start to act and your mind, the unbelievably complex and incredible thing it is, narrows in on one single subject. You start thinking to yourself "Right now we're best friends, but what will she think when ..." and you stop acting. You never had a problem talking to her before, but now, you're paralyzed.

This is the same problem that keeps people from working in sales or recruiting. The concept of the cold call where you're offering a person what could be the best thing in the world that could ever happen to them is a virtual impossibility to most people in the world due to an irrational fear.

Let's go a bit deeper...

Assume, for the moment that you have an opportunity to make some money. Not a lot of money, say $50US. But the catch is that you need to work with 4 other people for an hour and split the money. Most of us would jump at the chance, call our 4 closest friends, earn the money and go party after.

What if it was $100,000 and to earn it, you needed to get your 4 friends to leave their jobs and go to work for a new company. Although most of us would want to do it, we wouldn't. What would your friends think of you for trying to get them to switch jobs? It doesn't matter that they all make $50,000US/yr and the new job would pay them $100,000US/yr. It doesn't matter that this would keep 3 of them from filing for bankruptcy. It doesn't matter that the new income would reduce the stress in their family enough to keep them from filing for divorce. The only thing your mind concentrates on is "What will they think of me?" And the only answers you come up with are typically wrong.

So what should you do...

Take a chance!!! Make the call!!! Ask your friends!!!! Keep taking chances!!!!

And above all...

DON'T LET FEAR OF WHAT OTHERS THINK HOLD YOU BACK!!!!!!!!!