Happy Monday! 

I’ve got interesting thoughts on fear to share with you today to level up your life!

This email is partly inspired by the incredible book *Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave* by Ryan Holiday. The book surpassed my expectations with its captivating message and smooth, easy-to-read flow.

Fear is one of the most fascinating and complex subjects. We often define fear as something our brain generates when we face something we don’t understand and find frightening.

Of course, fear can also be something we feel toward a clear threat. However, I wouldn’t define this as fear; I’d call it panic.

Fear typically arises during times of anticipation, not in the immediate moment of facing what we fear.

Panic is what we experience at the moment, while courage is what we either use or don’t use to seize the moment or act despite anticipating everything that could go wrong.

You may feel like fear is holding you back from reaching your potential in life, from taking that risk, from trying that new thing for the first time, from shooting that shot, from leading your team. The list goes on. 

If we do not learn to be courageous. It is arguable that we will never really be anything. To be something remarkable, it tends to require courage. The courage to do something noteworthy enough to stand out from a crowd. To risk judgment, to hurt feelings. 

All of these things stand in the way of us being a fully free and liberated human being during the time we are alive. 

Often many of us let fear rule us instead of guide us. Living a life of cowardice and comfort. Conforming to the will of the fearless. Buried and forgotten as if swallowed up by the tidal waves of time without ever even having a chance to breathe. 

But you, my wonderful subscriber, you are not unremarkable, you are not a mere conformist, you are either courageous or desire to be courageous. You will not only breathe, you will speak clearly and confidently, letting the world know you are alive and hungry. 

So let’s get into a few ways I’ve learned to be more courageous and brave from my own life and from this awesome book.

3 Tips To Crush Fear & Conquer Your Life 

#1 Understand That We Humans Have A Remarkable Ability To Make Threats Appear Far Bigger And More Daunting Than They Actually Are.

I know you’ve probably heard this one before. The classic “ False Evidence Appearing Real “ Definition of fear fits well here. But I don’t think it’s fully understood until you begin to express courage, face some fears that are meaningful enough, and see it for yourself. 

Speaking from my recent experiences traveling abroad for example. I had my plane ticket for 5 months leading up to leaving, so you can imagine I had all the time in the world to feel fear in anticipation of the actual event happening. 

“ What if people don’t like me “. 

“ What if I don’t have a clue what i’m doing and make some huge mistake “ 

What if I get super sick and I have to fly home in some crazy emergency? “ 

These are just a few of the many fearful thoughts that were percolating in my brain. 

After wrestling with them for months, I finally got on the plane and it took off. In that moment, as the wheels of the plane folded in and I was in the air, I knew I was committed, there was no turning back.

I suddenly felt a loosening in my chest. A loosening of the tightness that had built up like a slowly closing vice grip around my heart.

Somehow now that I knew I could no longer think about what I was going to do and I was now just doing it. I not only felt less fear, but I immediately felt more confident and determined. 

When I arrived in Bangkok, Thailand, I made many mistakes, I got a bunch of things wrong and many things happened I didn’t expect.

But you know what? None of them were really that big of a deal.

And you know what else? I didn’t really have time to think about IF they were a big deal or not because I was too busy DOING.

I was busy figuring shit out, I was busy FACING fear.

When you face fear, you don’t think, when you see your enemy, you don’t hesitate, you draw your sword and strike because the only other option is death. 

Seneca once said -

"Perhaps the worst will not happen." You yourself must say. "Well, what if it does happen? Let us see who wins! Perhaps it happens for my best interests; it may be that such a death will shed credit upon my life."

I think it’s wise to view what you fear as simply a challenge you must take to evolve, like a video game. Whether you succeed or not, you are always better than if you do not try. 

You gain “ experience points “ and level up. 

When you are too busy living life you often don’t have the time to sit there and think about it, sinking into cowardice and anxiety. 

So get out there and live. 

Face your fears and realize they are most likely going to be something to laugh about soon after.

Most of what we fear we forget why we feared it soon after puny enemies with big shadows are conquered.

Stop thinking, be brave, and cultivate courage through action. 

# 2 Answering The Call: The Greatest Growth In Your Life Lies Behind Your Deepest Fears

Suddenly, as if struck by lightning, I was overwhelmed by emotions that felt like something bigger than me grabbed hold of my soul and sent a message I could not deny. 

It was the weekend before my flight, I was cleaning out my apartment, collecting my kitchenware and the few remaining small items to either toss or donate. 

This feeling had been burning inside me under the surface for quite a bit as the flight had got closer and closer.

But now it had erupted to the surface, it grabbed hold of me vigorously and it wouldn’t let go.

I fell into tears, I sobbed, and I couldn’t help but keep looking up with a smile on my face as tears flowed down my cheeks. 

I was terrified and thrilled at the same time, it didn’t make any sense. 

I was breathing rapidly, with so many thoughts racing through my mind that I couldn’t articulate a single word if you had tried to get me to.

To this day I can’t fully describe the feeling using any other words but

Sublime

This feeling felt unlike anything I had ever felt.

It felt of a different world. 

At that moment I fully accepted the reality of what was soon to come.

The reality was that I was stepping into an entirely different world with unlimited potential and unfathomable possibilities.

This was my chance to really be me for the first time in my life after everything I’d been through up to that point. All the pain and suffering, all the wins and losses.

Burst forth from the cocoon of culture and familiarity, I had the chance to transform into a butterfly, floating and wandering into the world, with the results being entirely my responsibility.

This sort of divine opportunity, I feel happens rarely in life.

Something with the potential to be so deeply transformative that it shakes the very foundations of our consciousness just thinking about it, let alone doing it.

I believe each of you reading this will have these same opportunities, each of which being individual and relative to your own lives and experiences. 

But what is true for everyone universally, is that courage will call. 

Your chance to be bold and brave will arrive. 

How you respond could change the course of your life forever. 

Will you take the risk? 

Will you put everything on the line? 

Will you act despite stepping foot into completely uncharted territory with nothing but faith in yourself that you can figure it out? 

# 3 Blind Optimism Is A Fools Version Of Fearlessness 

“ This might end badly. “ 

“ I might go home broke and have to start over again.

 “ This might not work “. 

These were among the realities I accepted on that flight to Bangkok. 

Life isn’t fair, I might not get what I want, even if I think I deserve it.

But I’ll be fine anyway. 

Blind optimism is not always helpful. 

Sometimes it can give us too much false hope to where reality becomes obscure and something to be distracted from with foolish and delusional thoughts. 

I fight every day not to be hopeful, but to accept worst-case scenarios and detach myself from expectations.

It is only then I can do my best because my actions are not in expectation of something in return. I am not plagued by what hasn’t happened yet. 

Otherwise, I will wither away quickly in disappointment and anxiety anticipating further unmet expectations. 

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

Leading up to this leap into foreign territory and uncharted possibility, I had been playing it safe.

Little risk and little reward, slowly building up a wall around me of safety and security protecting me from the world after the chaos of my childhood and young adult years only to shatter it completely with steadfast ambition and faith. 

To strip everything from underneath me and rebuild it entirely from the bloody and rugged hands of discipline and responsibility. 

This was my call, I answered it, but it’s foolish to assume that was the only time I needed to answer. Now, since everything is on me, I answer it first thing in the morning, every day. 

You also must answer your own call each and every day.

You will constantly have opportunities to do hard things, to step out of your comfort zone, to slay the dragon, and to prove to yourself you are who you say you are. 

Every time you take a big risk or accept a massive opportunity, I suggest not to approach it with foolish optimism, but instead face it while assessing your worst-case scenarios.

Accepting that everything could go wrong and you might have even made an idiotic decision. 

Only then can you properly define what’s against you and realize it’s probably not even that bad. If you lose you’re probably not going to die, and if you’re not dead you will live to fight again another day, with the lessons you’ve learned. 

Only then can you do your best because you are doing it to do it, not because you think the world owes you something for doing it. 

We hardly ever grow from doing anything easy.

The human being is an adapting organism, give it nothing to adapt to and it will wither away and die. Like a flower without water. 

So even if everything goes wrong that you thought would go wrong. That is still useful.

Chances are if you try and fail you’re going to be okay. 

The pain of failing is immediate and obvious. But the pain of cowardice and comfort is slow and gradual. Like the rotting of an apple from the inside out. 

Steve Jobs once said -

" Failure doesn't mean anything, it just means you've learned something. The only way to avoid failure is to never try anything, and that's not a way to live."

I think you and I both can agree on that. 

So get out there and do hard shit, go fail and try again. 

Why? Because there’s nothing better to do. 

Conclusion:

One of my favorite quotes is

“ some of us live our whole lives in our heads “

What’s funny is that my ADD ass cannot remember who said it. 

But I really think this is true from my own experience.

Most of my life has been in my head, imagining and manufacturing entire worlds of worry, assumption, and arrogant comprehension. 

I have spent WAY too much time thinking myself into a puddle of inaction, for the world to simply march through without even noticing. 

Overall I spend more time thinking than doing. 

My biggest goal recently for me personally is to change that. 

That’s a big part of why I embarked on this solo traveling adventure. So I can spend more time doing than thinking. 

It’s been a little under a month and I’ve grown more confident in my abilities than I have in maybe the last 3 years of being back home where everything is predictable and comfortable. 

Now does this mean I’m telling you have to go travel to be more fearless? 

No. 

But I am suggesting that you stop thinking and start doing. 

If you build the habit of acting on what scares you as soon as you feel it, you'll conquer more fears. Delaying action gives fear more time to grow, which can paralyze you.

Paralysis by analysis is the breeding ground for cowardice. 

I suggest to act and then figure it out after instead of the opposite. Because you are arrogant to think you have something figured out before you’ve done it, especially if it’s your first time doing it. 

Your deepest potential is hidden behind what you’re most terrified might not be true. 

There’s only one way to find out.

Do it before you die. Answer the call. 

I hope this newsletter gave you some courage today. :) 

Weekly Wisdom - "Make life as a whole agreeable to yourself by banishing all worry about it. No good thing renders its possessor happy unless his mind is reconciled to the possibility of loss; nothing, however, is lost with less discomfort than that which, when lost, cannot be missed." (Lucius Annaeus Seneca and A to Z Classics, Seneca's Letters From a Stoic)

Physical Fun Fact -Your Heart Could Power a Truck: The energy your heart produces each day is enough to drive a truck for 20 miles. Over a lifetime, that’s like driving to the moon and back!

Be exceptional, 

Leon