Embracing Your Fears In Your Business
I’ve said it before, and I will keep repeating: having a business is the most effective exercise in being confronted with fears in your business. Until you’ve found an authentic way of presenting yourself in your business and get the results you are proud of, there’s no other way than to work on this continuously.
Imagined fears in business
Besides my tarot reading business decades ago, I’ve always experience fears in business. But after doing my full akashic record reading, I saw that they were pretty unrealistic fears.
Coming from my akashic record, I’m pretty powerful, know precisely where I want to go, and expressing my freedom of choice excellently. My reality is different. In real I can keep my mouth shut until the pressure builds up until I explode. In the meantime, I feel miserable. Only saying: hey, I’m not okay with this would make a world of difference. But I don’t do that.
Another thing that I’ve done differently from my Divine Soul Blueprint because I have chosen to find visibility pretty scary. It’s the same thing as when I wanted to come out as being tarot card reader. I was afraid of what people might say about it. Again, I have to shove myself in front of people consciously. At least, that’s how it feels.
But then I decided to trust my Divine Soul Blueprint and to do what I do best: helping people create a successful business and show up authentically. That’s where I started. I put my fear to the test, and I must say that it’s not been as bad as the story I told myself.
I noticed all kinds of fears coming up, also when talking to people who can benefit from this service.
The Fraudster
One of the most frequent fears I heard about stems from having a story about people finding out that you are a fraud. They will find out how you don’t know what you’re doing, and they will be [fill in your fearful words].
Feeling like a fraud goes as far as diminishing your achievements and not celebrating your success.
I teach them to embrace their brilliant actions fully and to do them authentically. If you suffer from this, you may think you’ll be ridiculed in front of every classroom. The opposite is true. You’ll often choose to start low-key, and that’s okay.
Fear of success
Another fear that often comes up is fear of success. This issue is fascinating because it is such a confusing fear in business. While fear of success often shows up as a forward projected fear of what will happen when you do something, it is, in fact, a backward projected one that goes back to a negative experience. What happened? Why do you think that?
My experience with burnout (2001) can still haunt me, worrying forward. What if I become a huge success overnight and everybody wants to work with me right away? I would not be able to handle it and have another burnout again.
I had a conversation with a fellow coach about it last week and told her how I was procrastinating on writing a simple email. I felt pretty frustrated that I kept pushing the task forward on my to-do list. I mean: how hard is it really?
Guided by her genuine and open questions, I only needed to hear myself talk for a while to understand that my fear had nothing to do with opening my inbox and writing that email. It had to do with the illusion that my world would explode after they would read my email and follow up on it.
Hearing myself talk helped me to see how irrelevant the fear was, and I wrote the email. By the way, I’m still here, alive and kicking, and to my surprise (and maybe disappointment), I haven’t even had a reply yet after a week. This is pretty weird, having made such a huge story out of something so small.
Fear of not being liked
Practicing healthy boundaries is also something I see in the people I work with, especially women. It results in a lack of energy because their clients take up too much space or keep coming back with new questions.
The fear of what will happen when you say no is a starting point for perfect fairy tales. Will they become angry? Disappointed? Leave a bad review? Or will they be grateful that you put them on their own feet and empowering them? Learn to say no without labels. No is just a message, and your clients will understand it instantly. You don’t have to explain a lot.
Being nervous to say no when you haven’t practiced it a lot is quite okay.
Fear for presentations
The next fear I’ve found in business is giving presentations. Not everyone has the gift of good communication in their blueprint. But that’s not necessary. You can practice public speaking in very safe environments. Also, giving small presentations for people you get to know there is way more fun than you can imagine because they really support you. The only thing that you need is to create opportunities to practice. Not once but every week if you can. Visiting open coffees or network meetings is excellent. Going there, you’ll talk to other people who love hearing what you do if you are willing to listen to them. They all find it scary when they start out, and that’s okay. You’ll survive a one-minute presentation. I assure you.
Fear of making a telephone call
A fear that is related to a fear of being rejected is the fear of making phone calls. First, know that you’re not alone. Many people hate making phone calls; that is why we’re sending messages and emails so frequently these days. In a way, we’ve become scared of interhuman connection massively. If someone calls me to chat with me instead of sending me a WhatApp, I love that. People appreciate a heartfelt call from someone who chooses to talk to them personally for a chance, especially when you know if something is going on they struggle with.
Yes, of course, you can’t see if the timing of your call is convenient, but you can ask, can you? If it’s not convenient, ask when it’s a better moment and plan it in your calendar. If they don’t have any time, that’s okay.
What you think others will think
What many fears in business come down to has to do with what you think that other people think about you. There are so many aspects to talk about when it comes to this fear.
First, I’m really grateful for not knowing what they think. I’d probably find out that they aren’t thinking about me at all. As my grandfather used to say: “You’d be surprised how much people are busy with their own crap instead of having an opinion about you.” I’m not sure if he’d use the word crap, though… anyway.
Aren’t you busy enough with your own thoughts to add other people’s thoughts to them? My brain could explode doing that. Secondly, it’s none of my business to know what they’re thinking. Everyone is entitled to have their own thoughts; that’s why we can’t hear them. If they think you need to hear their thoughts, it is their responsibility to start a conversation. Thirdly, and this is a major one that I also had to learn: you don’t have to be friends with everybody. Let’s agree life becomes much easier if we don’t try that.
Overcharging
What I also come across a lot is that people are undercharging for their service. You can consciously undercharge because your favorite client can’t afford to pay the €250 an hour – especially when you are a get-out-of-debt coach.
But if you are undercharging because you think your clients would think you’re pretty arrogant to charge that much, then you’re misaligned with the value you are providing. Look at the results people or companies are creating while working with you.
Are they saving their marriage? Are they cutting costs by a third? That’s worth an investment because this will last them a long time. How they come up with the money is their responsibility. They will do what is necessary to find the money if they think you’re worth it. If not, that’s okay.
To overcome this issue in business, I intuitively read the energy of their business and the prices they charge. I will tell them to raise or lower it by a certain percentage if they are misaligned. I always have great conversations afterward because often, resistance comes up about pricing and value.
How to overcome one or more of these fears in business
It all starts with understanding the scary bits in your business. Your fears in business have nothing to do with the task, the person, or the out-of-control situation you imagine to happen. Your fears are about the over-the-top creative stories you tell yourself.
To solve them, tell your story on paper or record it. Start with telling how you sit at your desk, pick up the phone and dial a number. You hear how the other person picks up the phone and then tell what actually happens. What do they say, how do they react, and the consequence of the conversation in your worst fantasy. Reading or listening back will show you that you are spending energy on hardly real things, even when you’ve had a bad experience in the past.
I love the term worry forward, which tells you precisely that it is no use to worry about something that hasn’t even happened yet.
A more realistic way of handling your fears is stopping the storyteller in you. When the story turns into fantasy, you need to stop (watch the video; it is brilliant!).
All you need to say one sentence: I feel scared, and that’s okay.
Next, ask yourself: how can I make this easier for myself. This one question helped me so much in overcoming fears in my business. It allowed me to take an easier route which was often a more authentic route.
You big fat why
Besides that, don’t forget why you want to be in business in the first place. Why are you doing all this? Just for the life lesson that it brings to overcome some fears, or is there joy in it? Knowing your why big fat why can help to step over the threshold of exciting things in life. If it is new or returning clients, then you’ll have to step in front of them in some or another way and say hi. Find your way to do this. Some do this by pumping thousands of dollars in Facebook ads, and others do it by inviting people to a walk and talk. No matter which strategy you choose, it is all okay.
Lastly, looking at your fears and still take the next step is about accepting the whole of you. You don’t have to act as if you someone else, so please be yourself. I like you much better that way. Accept that there are things that challenge you. That’s why you started your own business as well. And that’s okay.
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