Are you afraid of something? The dark, snakes, commitment, spiders, competition? I guarantee you are afraid of something. If you thought to yourself, “nope, I don’t know what fear is”, you might be the most fearful person in your circle. How does the saying go? “Every group has a jerk in it. If you don’t know who it is you better check the mirror?” Same thing here. If you think you live without fear, you’re probably the most afraid.
As I’ve started talking to more men about the Brother’s LIFE Council and the mission to build stronger relationships between them in order to live with more love, integrity, fellowship, and excellence I’ve seen more fear than I expected. Men are afraid of all sorts of things but perhaps the most pertinent to us is the fear of growth.
This fear shows up in different ways. The refusal to start reading more reflects a fear of admitting we don’t have all the answers. Shrugging off the idea of real conversation with other men is a fear of vulnerability and being called out. A fear of taking the leap to compete is the outward expression of being afraid to not be the best – if you never compete, you can always be the best. Many of these fears are rooted in inadequacy. As men, we’ve been told that we better be enough – buff enough, rich enough, smart enough, stoic enough, loving enough – for society to value us. In ways, I don’t mind this push and I am not on board with society’s drive to drop all expectations of men as some people have done in the last decade or so. In addition, I believe that these expectations have resulted in deep fear of inadequacy. We are downright scared that someone might figure out that we aren’t enough in one or more areas of life and we hide behind all sorts of masks to make sure they don’t.
I’ll lead the way here. I’m afraid of inadequacy in more than one way. Financial inadequacy is my biggest issue. I have always been blessed with good opportunities and enough money to live comfortably but I spend too much time thinking of scenarios that someday I’ll lose everything and my wife will want to walk out the door when my bank account isn’t enough. My wife is amazing and when she promised: “for richer or for poorer” she meant it. My fear, like almost all fear, is an irrational and lazy way of thinking. I’m also afraid of competition at times. In high school, I was an average athlete and felt the pain of not being good enough to have a future in the game I loved. As a result, I avoided real competition for a decade. It took until I was 29 to finally decide I had to face the fear so I signed up for a Spartan Beast (13 miles) which I knew I couldn’t come close to winning. I was tempted to look at the pace of the leaders and beat myself up for how far behind them I was but it didn’t even make sense; they were on a whole other level. I knew that anyone who heard about the race would ask, “how’d you do?” and I’d have to honestly tell them that I didn’t do very well. My pride hurt but that was just fear talking. I could go on but let it suffice to say that fear has driven many of my decisions and all of my regrets in the last two decades.
So how are the fears of inadequacy and growth, related? They’re the same thing. When you are afraid to be inadequate, you avoid situations and conversations that lead to growth. My fear of competitive inadequacy kept me from all sorts of challenges to grow as an athlete. For you, maybe your fear of being an inadequate father has kept you telling your wife that you aren’t ready to start a family – an ultimate growth opportunity. Or it could be as simple as your fear of not being good enough keeping you from reaching out to friends and building a team around you.
Most people fear growth. If you can overcome this one fear, it starts a domino effect that will change your entire life. Tim Ferris and Gary Keller spoke in a recent podcast about the one decision phenomenon. Keller coined the idea to always ask, “what’s the one thing I can do, such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” Facing your fear of growth is the one thing!
Here’s the kicker to the LIFE Council. Your fear of growth is keeping you lonely. You don’t want to pick up the phone and call another guy because you wonder what you would possibly have to offer them or because you think you’d be bothering them. You don’t think you need such a group of men around you because you are afraid that it might mean you can’t be the most badass person on the planet all by yourself (PSA: you can’t). You don’t want to train with a friend of yours who keeps inviting you because they might be stronger than you and you’ll look weak. Most of your excuses come back to this fear…mine do too.
Weekend Challenge
Face your fear. Be the man in the arena who takes life on with his head high. Get in there. Get your hands dirty. Get beat up and knocked down to realize what an opportunity it is to fail. I don’t know what that will mean for you this weekend but here are some ideas:
- No matter what, start with some thinking. Think about some excuses you’ve given in the past week or two. Identify how they may have actually been rooted in fear of inadequacy and growth. Write them down. If you’re stuck, ask others close to you where they’ve seen you be fearful and how they know (I’ll talk more about our “fear tells” when I review Patrick Sweeney’s new book, “Fear as Fuel” in a couple of weeks).
- Face your fear this weekend by doing something uncomfortable:
- Go workout with a friend who is stronger or faster than you are. Even if you do less than they do, I bet you do more than you usually do.
- Grab a book that will challenge you to see your own weaknesses and read it. Don’t quit after the first chapter. I’ll put some recommendations at the end for you to check out.
- Sign up for something that you’ve been hesitating on. Maybe it is a retreat, a race, a competition, or a counseling session. Stop waiting.
- Call a friend and ask better questions about their life, marriage, kids, career, etc. Not just, “what’s up, man?”
- Get a friend on the phone or out to lunch and let them know you’re trying to grow as a man, husband, leader, employee, or whatever you’re working on. Ask them to tell you how they’ve seen you in that area and where they think you could grow. Fair warning: if they truly care about you, this could hurt at first.
This week’s truth: the best things in life are on the opposite side of your fear. Consider Joe De Sena, the founder of Spartan Race, who met his wife on the other side of a swim across waters he was potentially sharing with sharks. It was the last piece of a race he was competing in and his future wife was there at the finish line. A literal blessing on the other side of fear. It might not be so literal for you but the principle stands firm. Your fear is holding you back from growing. It is keeping you away from some things and holding you too close to others. It is not a coincidence that in the Bible, God uses no phrase more than, “do not be afraid.”
Book ideas for you to start this weekend:
- Ego is the Enemy – Ryan Holliday (this will make you face the dangers of your ego that you thought was protecting you for so long)
- Fear as Fuel – Patrick Sweeney (a good look at fear and how to turn it into fuel for your life)
- Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman (if you think that you’re in control of your thinking, you’re not and this book will teach just how easy your brain fools you every day)
- Can’t Hurt Me – David Goggins (you aren’t as badass as you think, Goggins will humble you)
- Play the Man – Mark Batterson (you will be challenged on your role as a father and husband in all the right ways)