lived in fear most of my life and for
weeks I have actually been afraid to get
on this stage so I’m not speaking to you
as an expert on fear just someone who
has live with it for a very long time
but fear isn’t just a problem for you
and I some of the most amazing people we
admire suffer from the paralyzing
effects of fear every day Richard
Branson in 1980 before he was going to
launch virgin told his mentor that he
was afraid of public speaking
jennifer aniston has shared multiple
times that she has a fear of flying and
general Lawrence that Rae Mockingjay she
has a fear of social interaction but
that really isn’t a surprise
the problem with fear is that it
sabotages our potential and it causes us
to shrink back it prevents us from doing
what we know is right because we’re
afraid of rejection we’re afraid that
we’re going to offend someone what if we
tell someone the truth and they hate us
we’re afraid to fail and fear is that
intangible thing that has a very real
effect in our everyday lives ever wonder
how many opportunities you’ve missed out
on because you’ve knowingly or
unknowingly let fear in for some of us
it’s to get our MBA or to get our PhD
for others it’s applying to that dream
job but after you read the
qualifications you thought to yourself
you know I’m just not good enough or
maybe it’s that knowing feeling to
travel the world to move to another city
and live there or it’s to launch that
great business idea you had the US
National Institute of Mental Health
release some statistics recently about
fears and phobias
they said that 60% of the things we fear
will never happen 30% of the things we
fear are things of the past that we
can’t even change 90% of the things we
fear
are considered insignificant and 88% of
the things we fear are associated with
health issues we’ll never even have the
reality is fear is powerful but it’s not
all bad so how does our brain process
fear let’s say I’m swimming in a pool
and from afar I see this long black
squiggly thing looks like a branch but
as I get closer I realize it’s a live
black snake my heart races my breath
shortens and my muscles tighten that is
healthy fear fear was actually designed
to protect us
it is both emotional and biochemical
it’s a primitive human emotion we’re
born with and it signals when we’re in
danger or when there’s a threat and it
triggers appropriate adaptive responses
in the 1920s dr. Walter cannon a
psychologist and a professor from
Harvard Medical School coined this
reaction the fight-or-flight response
and it’s the theory that humans and
animals alike react to threat through a
general discharge of the sympathetic
nervous system when you experience fear
a reaction occurs in that part of your
brain called the amygdala and it
triggers a neural response in the
hypothalamus that controls your nervous
system it activates the pituitary gland
secretes a hormone called ACTH
simultaneously your adrenal gland is
activated and releases a hormone called
cortisol those two hormones increase
your blood sugar your blood pressure add
suppresses your immune system some of
the physical logical changes that occur
during the fight-or-flight response are
increased blood flow to your muscles as
blood is diverted from other parts of
your body your blood sugar your heart
races and energy increases the blood
clotting function also increases to
prevent excessive bleeding and your
muscles tends to give you extra speed
and strength all of these physical
responses
help you to stay alive in dangerous
situations and it prepares your body to
either fight for your life or to run so
as you can see fear isn’t bad it helps
us stay alive but there does reach a
point where fear becomes debilitating
and it’s when we experience fear when we
do nothing we don’t fight we don’t run
we simply do nothing and unhealthy fear
controls and consumes us instead of
protecting our lives it undermines not
only ourselves but those around us we
can be so fearful of what other people
think about us that we’re afraid of
social interaction we can be afraid that
we won’t be comfortable in life so we
spend all our energy acquiring
possessions we don’t even need we can be
so fearful that we won’t be loved and we
try to control people and make them make
us feel loved we can be afraid of
emotional pain and numb ourselves with
alcohol with drugs so we feel nothing at
all we can be so afraid of differences
that they become prejudiced and even
hatred so we can make ourselves feel
superior than other people one of my
personal struggles is the fear of
failure failure presented such a
significant psychological threat the my
motivation to avoid failure far exceeded
my motivation to succeed unconsciously
that sabotage my chances at success so
here’s how that played out I wanted to
be a fighter pilot I wanted to fall in
the footsteps of my dad and so in high
school I applied to the US Air Force
Academy during those teenage years I was
so insecure
I had no self-confidence I was shy soft
bouken and I valued my self-worth at
zero it really affected how I approach
life I believed a lie that I was stupid
I wasn’t good enough and so consumed
with fear I submitted a subpar
application and I justified it by saying
oh you know if you don’t get in its
clutter right you didn’t try that hard
anyway forget I didn’t get in what makes
you think if you don’t give an
opportunity your best efforts that
you’ll get 100% results I was afraid of
failure and it became a self-fulfilling
prophecy looking back in hindsight I can
probably give you a hundred examples of
how that played itself over and over
again so how did I break the cycle I got
tired of the same reality and I started
doing things afraid and it was the first
step to unraveling fears grip over my
life when I was 27 many many moons ago I
was approached to enter a beauty contest
beauty pageant in California called Miss
Asian America I never considered myself
beauty queen material I was more of a
disrupter and a rebel by nature but as a
director started relentlessly recruiting
me I had to face my fears I had to ask
myself why do I want to tell her no well
imagine entering a competition where
people judge you based on your looks and
your presentation for just that day I
told myself man if I lose I’m gonna have
a low self-esteem forever and if I win
I’m gonna have like this big ego the
reality was I was afraid to fail I was
afraid to put myself in public onstage
and have other people telling me I’m not
good enough somehow I developed a habit
of tying the results of a situation to
my identity and self-worth entering the
pageant for me wasn’t just about beauty
destiny had brought another opportunity
for me to face my fear of failure and
this time I did it afraid I’ll never
forget the phone conversation I had with
a mom
I asked her if I should she was like
well Amy if you’re going to do it you
have to do it all the way and don’t
embarrass me yeah mom I know you’re loud
you don’t wanna be embarrassed by so I
gave it my all I gave it 110 percent
I trained and I practice and I worked
out like a maniac and the results had a
really good return contrary to its
definition living a fearless life
doesn’t mean living completely without
fear for me living a fearless life meant
living a life that is empowered to be
the best version of you so how do we get
there the journey to fearlessness will
you start by confronting oh that’s a bit
delayed it’s okay Lee to see that you
start by confronting face your fears
it’s okay to admit and say I am afraid
of fill in the blank coz the first start
to resolving any issue is confront
confrontation ask ask yourself where
does this fear come from
do I have identity issues do I have
self-worth issues what is something that
happened to me in the past had triggered
all of this get to the root of your fear
calculate calculate all the possible
outcomes if you gave this opportunity
100% what is the worst-case scenario
what is the best-case scenario and can
you live with the worst-case if you can
find peace believe you have to believe
that you are powerful beyond measure you
have to believe in yourself because if
you don’t no one will especially when it
gets tough and lastly fail and fail
often and never give up
because each time you fail you’re going
to learn something if you keep trying
those lessons produce results and you’ll
learn that it’s a process it’s a journey
it’s not a sprint it’s a marathon
studies show that if you expose yourself
constantly to fears that your tolerance
for them actually grows fearlessness is
not about winning it’s
about living a life that is courageous
that is bold and unafraid of the
outcomes it is freedom from fear
Arianna of the Huffington Post in her
book what it means to be fearless wrote
I’ll paraphrase that fearlessness is not
about living without fear but it’s not
allowing fear to get in the way of your
dreams fearlessness is getting up one
more time than you fall we can’t be free
from something we don’t recognize but
once we recognize we have to confront it
it takes a very brave soul to stop
pretending and to be honest with
ourselves the next time you have an idea
that deep longing resurfaces before fear
can come knocking on your door to rob
you of your potential remember that
fearlessness is a choice it’s in every
day every second of the day choice and I
hope you don’t wait because inside each
of you are dreams waiting to be birth
and though fear is powerful fearlessness
enables us to do unbelievable things
thank you [Applause]