Dealing with Fear

“If you don’t attempt to get over your doubts and fears, you’ll never discover how wonderful it is to live without them.”
– Colin McArty

“Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed.”
– William Shakespeare

Beyond the unknown, you may have other kinds of phobias you will need to deal with. All fears, great or small, prohibit you from reaching your potential because they create self-imposed limitations. Since fear is generally the product of a low self-esteem, the most effective way to deal with your fears is to improve your self-esteem.

I’m sure there are countless ways to improve your self-esteem; there is no “one” way of doing it. But the way I raised my own is by giving my life a purpose. By giving it a meaning rather than looking for one. More often than not, what enhances your self-esteem is purposefulness, for purpose grants you ammunition (i.e., strength, courage, determination, persistence, faith, etc.).

When I grew up in a small town of Aylmer, Quebec (Canada), I was abused by an alcoholic father and my childhood was mostly spent locked inside my bedroom. I did so willingly in order to isolate myself from the world and more so from my father. I was afraid of rejection. It was debilitating. I feared it so much that I became a recluse in order to avoid it.

I was labeled as an agoraphobic (i.e., a person who fears being with people or in public places) and always sought approval. Let me give you a brief history so that you can understand why and, most important, how I fought my fears.

When I was born, I was a mammoth of a baby weighing close to 12 pounds. Being cramped inside my mother’s tiny womb — my mother is a petite woman measuring only four feet tall — has caused me to be deformed at birth and my legs to have grown crookedly. After numerous visits to the hospital and until the age of three, I had to wear corrective braces to fix my misshapen legs and feet.

However, I’ve been told that my father, a perfectionist, was enormously troubled by my handicap. He resorted to drinking to deal with his emotions.

After my sister’s barely survived birth five years later, my father’s alcoholism and mental health deteriorated. He now suffers from a mental illness called “Korsakov’s Disease.”

Fortunately, today he is under professional care where a series of medications now manage his emotions that have been aggravated by decades of alcoholism. Incidentally, I have not seen my father since that time and was told not to do so, specifically because of his violent nature.

Nevertheless, regardless of the fact that I was a straight “A” student, I was always told how much of a failure or how stupid I was. Nothing I did was good enough for my father.

As a result, my grades slowly fell and I eventually dropped out of school. In spite of all that, I wanted to prove my father — and myself — wrong. I wanted to succeed and, in order to do so, I had to eliminate my fears.

To me, the fear of rejection was a greater handicap than that of my physical one because it reinforced my father’s beliefs. As I grew older and wiser, I decided that I didn’t want to end up like my father and later made a pledge to myself that I would indeed succeed. My father, therefore, gave me a reason. A purpose.

It was the greatest gift I could ever have.

Today, as an author and professional speaker, I speak to large audiences at least once a week and run a very successful business. That is to say that my fears have completely vanished. Now, I’m not trying to get your sympathy or boast about my success. I don’t even consider my childhood as “dysfunctional” — whose childhood is functional anyway?

The reason I’m telling you my story is to show you that the more consciously purposeful you become, the more ammunition you find. Purposefulness, therefore, increases your self-esteem, which in turn leads to fearlessness.

Incidentally, there’s another true story that’s similar to mine and you may have heard of it. It’s about two brothers whose father was an alcoholic. While one turned out to be an alcoholic, the other became a successful executive. When they were each asked why they became that way, they both gave the same answer: “My father’s an alcoholic. What other choice did I have?”

All that you need to fight your fears or at least reduce that which stops you from reaching your potential is right where you are. It’s your self-esteem. It doesn’t come from outside of you and it’s not the result of positive thinking.

People who hear my story say that I was a positive thinker, but a positive mental attitude is not something you can dictate or change on a whim. Positive thinking is merely a byproduct of purpose. If you live on purpose, you don’t need to think positively. It just becomes a part of your life.