- Hey there, I'm Dan Martell.
Serial entrepreneur, investor, and creator of SaaS Academy.
In this episode I'm gonna share with you,
how to overcome your fear.
How to overcome it, because it's holding you back
from making the big moves
that are gonna change your life.
Be sure to stay to the end,
we're gonna tell you how to get access
to my Dream 100 training.
It is how you think of your peers,
your advisors, and your mentors.
Let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
I can still remember when I first started off in business.
Hiring my first employee.
Really was like a contractor.
I wasn't even brave enough to hire the first person
'cause I literally thought,
they're probably gonna steal from me.
They're probably not gonna do the work properly.
They're probably gonna embarrass me.
There's a good chance that they're not gonna stick around.
And there was like all these fears
from making the decision that was holding me back
from even making the decision.
And at the end of the day,
from 17 to 24, I built two companies
that unfortunately failed.
And it was because I was always crippled by fears.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of making the wrong decision, etc.
And it was through reading books
and understanding that the level of success I wanted
had to come from being comfortable with the unknown.
And now I've made $25 million deals without losing sleep.
So I'm gonna share with you
three unique or four unique perspectives
on how to think about fear
that hopefully will shift your mindset,
give you some clear actions to take
so that you can get the outcomes
and success that you're after.
Number one, risk reversal.
So the way you wanna think about this
is when you're making decisions.
Tim Ferriss writes about this.
And has talked about it on his podcast,
where you wanna make a list of the pros and cons.
Because I think what happens
is when you think of fear, right?
So recently I had a friend was thinking
of doubling his business next year.
He's like, "Hey, this year has been really challenging.
"But next year I really wanna hit the ground running.
"I wanna hit full steam ahead.
"And pour fuel on the fire."
He put some capital aside.
But there was this fear of like,
"What if I don't train people properly?
"What if I don't get ahead of it?"
And I said, "Just make the list.
"Make the list of all the things that could go wrong.
"And then write down all the things
"that you have the ability and power
"to take action on to overcome those risks."
And I think once you put it out on paper,
and you see it with your eyes,
it's way less scary.
Back in the day, so that's on the writing it out.
The other thing that I wanna share with you,
I read a book a long time ago,
I think it was called "Thinking Fast and Slow."
And in it he talked about Jeff Bezos,
the founder of Amazon.
And Jeff talks about type one and type two decisions, okay?
And the easiest way to think about it is
a door going one way or two ways.
So one way is a type one decision
and two ways is a type two decision.
He says, "If you don't differentiate
"the types of decisions."
And this is where risk comes into play.
"In regards to the ones you're making
"you sometime apply the same vigour
"and fear to a type one decision."
which is a one way, I can't reverse.
I can't come back from it.
"To a type two decision."
Right?
Or vice versa.
You should give something a little bit more analysis
and instead you just make a decision flippantly.
Or your team does, even worse.
So what Jeff says is like
things like buying a company, that's a type one decision.
It's really hard to unwind.
But hiring an employee that doesn't work out,
that's a type two decision.
Yes, it's gonna be unfortunate
that you didn't get the outcome
that you were hoping to achieve
'cause a person didn't work out.
And you have a hole you got an outfit.
And you gotta explain it to your team
and all those things,
but they're not type one decisions.
They're not things that you can't easily reverse.
And I think just understanding that.
And that's why I call it risk reversal,
is gonna allow you to separate
where you spend your energy
and where you can really question yourself like,
"This is only a type two decision.
"Let's just make it and move on."
The delaying of making a decision is costing you more.
How many times have you ended up being forced
to move forward timelines, resource constraints, whatever.
And at the end of day you made the same decision
you would have made in the beginning,
but you just dragged your feet making it.
Clearly delineate type one, type two,
make that list.
Get it out of your mind, in front of you.
So you can see it and make sure
you make a decision to reverse in that risk.
Number two, remove the ridicule.
So most people are not gonna make a decision
because of fear of being judged by other people
that they care about.
But one of the quotes,
and I share this often with my friends,
is the people that care don't matter.
And the people that matter don't care.
If I think about just the folks
that are mentors of mine advisors.
Think about comments on social media.
Comments below a video or a podcast episode.
If those people's name or not Richard Branson,
Mark Cuban, or a list of my other mentors,
I'm not internalising that feedback.
I'm not even really listening to it.
I'm looking for themes and patterns
'cause I'm always open to getting advice
on how I can make things better.
But I'm not putting a lot of weight to that feedback.
And I think that fear of being judged
is just so overly index in regards
to the weight people give it just doesn't matter.
To me fear is an acronym.
I heard this long time ago,
is false evidence appearing real, okay?
It's not true.
Your fear of being judged,
if you decide to move away,
or start that business,
or go to a school that might not be,
as a popular decision
or pursue your passion,
then but, "What are people gonna think?"
Look, is it true some people
might criticise that decision?
100%, guess what?
I'm not saying you don't love them.
I'm just saying that people that care don't matter.
At the end of the day you gotta follow your heart,
you gotta follow your soul.
You gotta pursue your passion.
And a lot of times that fear is just unfounded.
I ran through this myself
when I decided I wanna start coaching clients
because I came from being an entrepreneur,
serial entrepreneur investing in companies,
building companies to all of a sudden now say,
"Hey, I wanna coach.
"I wanna support."
And I just felt like there was this negative stigma
attached to that word.
And I was fear that...
I had a lot of fear around my investors
and my friends judging me for making that decision.
And guess what?
Turned out the complete opposite.
When I finally wrote a blog post called "What's next?"
It explained to them my plan.
To serve as many people.
And have an impact.
And create this YouTube channel.
All these things, many of them said,
"Dan, What took you so long?
"I've seen this in you.
"I'm so proud of you.
"I'm so excited for you."
Some of them said,
"Hey, I've always had that same desire myself
"but I haven't been able to pull the trigger."
So I just want you to know that
a lot of time that fear is just
false evidence appearing real.
And the people that you think will care,
they just don't matter.
Number three, upsize your problems.
So here's the reality is,
if you wanna grow.
If you want success.
You gotta think in units of zero.
Like $10 problems is maybe your level
of uncomfortableness that you're able to deal with today.
You need to be able to learn to move
to $100 problems, and $1000 problems,
and $10,000 problems, and $100,000 problems.
And now that might sound crazy,
but that's kind of what's required.
I remember a great story of Oprah
being sued by the Mad Cow people
for some comment she made on her show.
She was being sued for a billion dollars, okay?
Billion dollars!
And her response to the news
and the media say, "Hey, Oprah,
"what's it like being sued for a billion dollars?"
She said, "Hey, I'm just grateful
"that I have a billion dollars to be sued for."
It just part of that evolution for her.
If you wanna grow that fear is stopping you
from learning how to be uncomfortable
with the uncomfortable.
Tony Robbins has a great quote that says,
"Your life quality is directly proportionate
"to the amount of uncertainty
"that you can comfortably live with."
Okay?
I remind myself this all the time.
Whenever I feel a little anxiety around decision,
I'm just like, "Whoa, whoa, hey, whoa.
"Why is that scary?
"Let me put this down on paper.
"Let me talk to my advisors.
"Let me get some perspective.
"Is this type one or type two?"
And at the end of the day
I go, "Look, this is just another opportunity
"for me to push forward,
"overcome that little feeling of anxiety, make a decision"
And honestly invite, upsize your problems
because knowing that when you go from
a $10 problem to $100 problem,
and you can be okay with that.
Then you're like, "Okay, I got this."
Right?
I mean, I literally give my team permission
to make five, $10,000 problems
because at the end of the day
I want them to be able to make decisions,
take risks, innovate, learn.
And if I'm fearful of those things
that I'm creating too much micromanagement,
it's not gonna allow people to develop.
And that's the only way we go.
We gotta be comfortable with it.
Not invite it.
Not wish that it happens to us.
But just know, you know what?
True freedom, true freedom is knowing
that I have the skill and the process
and the mental strength to deal with
whatever the world throws at me.
That my friend, is true freedom.
Number four, massive imperfect action.
My buddy Gibbs says this all the time.
Michael Gibbons, on his YouTube channel he made t-shirts.
Now, I know it's not him
that created the saying, I've heard it many other times.
But I just think of him because that was his model.
That was his mantra.
That was his call to arms for all these people
because as soon as you've said,
"Hey, yes I have fear around this.
"I've assessed it.
"I'm making a decision."
As soon as you know
and it speaks to your soul, you gotta move.
You gotta JFDI it.
You gotta take action, even if it isn't perfect.
Because what will happen is that
as soon as it (slaps fingers).
It just snaps where you're like,
"Oh, I gotta do that."
If you sleep on it, you drag your feet?
Your left brain's gonna analyse
the can't out of it.
You're literally gonna wake up the next day
and have 14 reasons why you can't do it.
So my rule just 'cause I know that of myself.
I know that a big idea left on my plate to think about,
often my brain will just try
to figure out why I can't do it
or why it's not the right time, etc, etc.
And I wanna take massive and perfect action.
I wanna do something, anything that I can do today
in the next 20 minutes to move that forward.
It could be emailing a friend.
It could be making a phone call.
It could be pulling out a piece of paper
and drawing something out.
Making a commitment.
Adding something to my calendar.
But take MIA.
So four strategies to remove fear
from holding you back to achieve your level of success.
Number one, risk reversal.
Number two, remove the ridicule.
Number three, upzide your problems.
And number four, MIA.
So as I mentioned the beginning of this episode,
I wanna share with you
an exclusive training called the Dream 100.
It's my thinking around
listing out the hundred people
you need in your life to be successful.
From the peers, the mentors, and the advisors
for whatever you're out to achieve.
You can click the link below
to download that specific training.
It's going to give you the strategies to reach out.
Who to reach out to.
How to think about it.
It's got a 60,30,10 split.
It's a spreadsheet.
It's awesome.
It's one of my most powerful trains
when it comes to building your network.
And I really believe your network is your net worth.
So click the link below to download your copy.
And if you liked this video,
be sure to smash that like button,
subscribe to the channel and leave me a comment below.
I'm gonna respond to the first time 10 comments
with any questions, ideas, feedback you have around fear.
I'd love to support you.
And as per usual,
I wanna challenge you to live a bigger life
and a bigger business, and I'll see you next Monday.
(claps hands) Bam!