Fear affects many us throughout the course of our day. Fear can come to us and affect us as a postive motivator and also and more often than not, it is a negative motivator. Do you use fear as a tactic to get things done at the office, pardon the pun here “Do you put the fear of god into people” or rule with an iron fist so that people are afraid of you. The “fear of god” expression was a common expression that I would hear from others in the industry that I once followed (I am much smarter now I would like to think, however still learning every day). This was their way to motivate employees and others to get things done their way. Threatening their jobs, their lives, their compensation packages and general their very own person. Just so things can get done around the office or at the client’s site.
This is definitely not the way to get things done.
Let’s look that the word FEAR. In the book I am currently reading entitled “Lead Like Jesus” they discuss fear at length. I know I heard this before however it is always good for a reminder. FEAR is broken down to False Evidence Appearing Real.
When you live in fear of others or you play the fear card to others, you are very misguided and maybe even alone in the world. This is way people do things that normally they wouldn’t do including, staying in a relationship for a long time out of the fear of being alone, taking on bad and abusive clients out of the fear of going broke, and even becoming a workaholic out of the fear of trusting others to get the job done around the office.
Fear is a disruptive and toxic silent killer in our lives when used as a tool to influence the wrong type of behaviours, however it is good to have a healthy fear as well. Fear kicks many of us into overdrive, I know for me that I am fearful of being a failure in life so I use this fear so that stay motivated to help others, to learn on my own and to always stretch my comfort zone. However, this same fear that helps me can hurt me if I take it the wrong way and start comparing my business to others, comparing myself to others or pushing to work longer and harder that it affects my marriage and my relations with my kids.
Fear is a tough cookie to talk about in public. I will be discussing this more as I dig deeper into the “Lead Like Jesus” book.
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