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Concrete Steps to Face Your Fears with Michelle Poler

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In this episode we share how to face down your fears and we uncover what happens when you do. We hear the incredible story of how our guest, Michelle Poler, spent 100 days facing down her biggest fears and show what you can learn from her journey. 

Michelle Poler is a social entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and branding strategist. She is the Founder of Hello Fears, a social movement that helps people step outside of the comfort zone and tap into their full potential. She has spoken at TEDx, Google, P&G, Netflix, and many more. Her work has been featured on CBS, CNN, Huffington Post, among many other publications. 

  • Living a normal life and going through the motions.. what happens if you wake up and realize that’s all BS?

  • What was it like facing your fears?

  • The seven major universal categories of fear.

  • How do you determine which of your biggest fears is the most pernicious?

  • It’s not about doing crazy stuff, it’s about facing the daily fears and little things every single day - the battle takes place in your day to day life, not in some theoretical future.

  • What is it like to really face your fears?

  • Your fears are never as bad as you think they will be when you face them head on. 

  • You’re holding yourself back from so many experiences because you’re creating a worst case scenario in your head.

  • You’re more likely to experience the best case scenario than the worst case scenario. 

  • Fear at the end of the day is in your head. 

  • The battle takes place beforehand.. not during the actual fear inducing experience. 

  • How do you actually face your fears?

  • What are the steps to facing your fears?

    • Identify your fears

    • Then you go into denial and ignoring your fear

    • Planning

    • The “WTF Am I Doing?” Stage

    • Action

    • Celebration

  • What is it that makes someone go from the WTF stage to the action stage?

  • Don’t ask what’s the WORST that can happen, ask yourself WHATS THE BEST that can happen. 

  • Risk is ALWAYS there.. that’s part of existence. 

  • The behavioral activation system is rigged by REWARDS, not risk. 

  • Your life can be so much better if you have the courage to face your fears. 

  • If you don’t take action you will NEVER achieve what you want the most. 

  • The enemy of success is comfort, not failure. 

  • The only time you fail, is the time you fail to try. The reason you don’t try is because you’re too comfortable.

  • What are the best tools for facing fear during the hardest part of the journey?

  • Don’t worry about being perfect 

  • As a parent how can you stop generational fear from being passed down to your kids?

  • It’s not about not facing your fears.. and it’s not about pretending you’re fearless. You have to face your fears, as a human, with self compassion, and realize that you aren’t perfect. Acknowledge your fears and face them together. 

  • Tell your children that you’re scared, and then show them how you face that fear. 

  • Homework: Find an accountability partner to help you face your fears. 

Thank you so much for listening!

Please SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE US A REVIEW on iTunes! (Click here for instructions on how to do that).

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:04.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success. Introducing your host, Matt Bodnar.

[0:00:11.8] MB: Welcome to the Science of Success; the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the Internet with more than five million downloads and listeners in over a hundred countries.

In this episode, we share how to face down your fears and we uncover what happens when you do. We hear the incredible story of how our guest, Michelle Poler, spent a 100 days facing down her biggest fears and we show you what you can learn from her journey.

Are you a fan of the show and have you been enjoying the content that we put together for you? If you have, I would love it if you signed up for our e-mail list. We have some amazing content on there, along with a really great free course that we put a ton of time into called How to Create Time for What Matters Most In Your Life. If that sounds exciting and interesting and you want a bunch of other free goodies and giveaways along with that, just go to successpodcast.com. You can sign up right on the homepage. That’s successpodcast.com. Or if you’re on your phone right now, all you have to do is text the word smarter, that’s S-M-A-R-T-E-R to the number 44-222.

In our previous episode, we shared how you can be more confident when you make the tough decisions in your life, discuss how to deal with FOMO and showed you the key to ultimately achieving greatness with our previous guest, Patrick McGinnis.

Now for our interview with Michele.

[0:01:34.6] MB: Michelle Poler is a social entrepreneur, keynote speaker and branding strategist. She's the founder of Hello Fears, a social movement that helps people step outside of their comfort zone and tap into their full potential. She's spoken at TEDx, Google, P&G, Netflix and many more places. Her work has been featured on CBS, CNN, The Huffington Post and many other publications.

Michelle, welcome to the Science of Success.

[0:02:00.5] MP: Hi. Thank you for having me.

[0:02:02.5] MB: Well, we're super excited to have you on the show today. Austin is joining us as well. Austin, what's up?

[0:02:07.8] AF: Yeah, what's up guys? It's good to be a part of the conversation. Michelle, we really, really appreciate the time, really looking forward to digging in with you.

[0:02:13.5] MP:  I'm excited too.

[0:02:15.9] MB: Michelle, we are huge fans of your experience, your work. It's such an important topic. I just have this personal affinity and I think Austin probably the same way, for any discomfort challenge. That is just my favorite thing. Before we get into some of the specifics, I'd love to just step back and hear your story of the journey of how we got here and what your 100-day challenge was like and how it originated.

[0:02:42.9] MP: Okay. That's a big question. I'm originally from Caracas, Venezuela. If you're sensing or hearing an accent, that's why. I was born and raised there. I moved to the US for my college. When I was actually 19, I moved here and I started living a very normal life, where I was checking the saddest boxes, the things that promised ultimate happiness.

Along the way, what I realized as I was checking those boxes and by boxes, I mean, going to college, then finding a job, getting married. I was doing all of those. In the process, what I realized is that I was achieving comfort, not necessarily happiness. Not that I was not happy. I was not sad or anything. It was just not giving me the fulfillment that I was looking for.

Early in my life, because I even got married early at 23, and so I started having a lot of comfort around me. I had a really nice job in advertising. I had a nice apartment, two-bedroom, two-bathroom, husband of my dreams, everything around me was working out pretty nicely. But still, I was like, something's missing because this cannot be all. I'm only 23 and what's next? To have kids, to buy a home and then have grandkids and die? Is that it?

I definitely want more out of my life. I'm way too young to be living with such comfort around me. That's when I realized that my biggest dream has always been to live in New York. I was not fulfilling that dream, because I chose to get married and to settle. At 23 I said, “You know what? I need to fulfill this dream. I need more goals in my life, more challenges, actually.” I decided to move to New York to do a master's in branding at the School of Visual Arts. That's when my story started to change.

I moved to New York to fulfill my dream and I was not really fulfilling my dream, because I was living inside of my comfort zone. Even in the best city in the world, even as I was living my best life, I was still trying to stay very comfortable, because I was too afraid in general. I was afraid to feel fear. I learned that term called phobophobia, where you try to avoid facing your fears. That's how I lived for the first 25 years of my life. Then when I was doing my masters in branding, I had the opportunity to do a 100-day project.

We were challenged. All of us at the school, we were challenged to start a 100-day project of our choice. We had to choose one thing to do repeatedly for 100 days in a row. At that moment, I knew it was the perfect opportunity for me to go after my fears, become a braver person and changed my life. I decided to start tackling one fear a day, record myself and put all of those videos on YouTube.

[0:05:58.0] MB: There's so many fascinating things that you went through. Some of them are at least and watching them, I'm sure it was difficult to go through it, but some of them are almost hilarious to watch and look at. I'd love to hear a couple of the highlights from the 100-day challenge and some of the lessons that you learned from it as well.

[0:06:13.0] MP: Yeah, sure. I started facing smaller fears. For me, they were huge. If I tell you now you're like, “Seriously? That's not even a fear for so many people.” For example, my fear number two was to try an oyster and a snail, not only an oyster. Something that I've never tried before in my life. I was very disgusted by it. I gave it a chance. I did that. I have to tell you something interesting is that this happened, the oyster challenge happened exactly five years ago today. The 7th of April. That was the second day of my project five years ago. Now I'm doing this challenge five years later, re-watching all of my videos and publishing those on my Instagram just for fun. That's the way to commemorate this project. Okay, that was just a side note.

Then I did getting a Brazilian wax, or holding a cat for the first time in my life. All these things can sound small for a lot of people, but for me those were things that I was avoiding throughout my life and they limit my life in different ways, like driving at night and things like that. Well, around fear number 40, my project went viral. It was all over the news all over the world. At that point, I decided to challenge myself to face bigger fears. That's when I started tackling things, like skydiving, holding a tarantula, posing nude in front of a drawing class, speaking in a TEDx, what else? Quitting my job in advertising.

I definitely started tackling bigger things at that point, because I wanted to prove myself that I could actually go bigger than I thought, which these were things that I never considered before starting the project. Then by the end, this whole project turned into a movement. I had thousands of people following. I went from zero followers to thousands of followers, millions of views on YouTube and just transforming what was an experience and what started as a school project into a lifestyle and a career.

[0:08:23.2] MB: One of my favorites was the challenge of walking around New York City in a bikini. I thought that was so funny. I loved personally doing ridiculous rejection challenges and stuff like that. Tell me a little bit about that experience.

[0:08:36.0] MP: Well, you know what? New York City is a great place to face your fears and find your authenticity, because nobody cares. You can be doing the silliest things and people just look around and they think that you're part of the whole experience. Tourists may take a picture of you like, huh. That time when I went to New York and this girl was walking in a bikini in the middle of spring, where people are still wearing jackets and sweaters, and locals don't even care. They don't even look.

I don't know if you saw this one, but I spent a full day asking for money in the street. People would not even look at me. I thought I would feel weird asking for money. They wouldn't even see me. Every crazy challenge, go to New York, nobody will care and then you'll be able to experience that. That was funny, because I was walking in my bikini and I was really surprised that nobody would even pay attention. It was a great way to do some shock therapy for sure.

[0:09:38.4] MB: It reminds me, Austin, of the time that we've had a couple rejection adventures of our own as well.

[0:09:44.4] AF: Yeah. It's funny. We should have filmed those. Michelle I mean, obviously, you took this to a whole another level. Matt and I, one time we're traveling for a speaking gig and we had a whole evening to kill at the Mall of America. We took it upon ourselves to just go out and try to get rejected as many times as possible. One of the greatest takeaways too, I mean, there's a lot of things, like you mentioned, you thought everyone would stop and stare at you, but they didn't. People go about their lives and I think the expectation for us was pretty similar. They're like, it's terrifying. We're like, “Oh, my God. You do it. You do it. No, come on, man. Come on. You do it. You do it.”

Then we went out and did it. It devolves very quickly, but at the same time it's very fun, it's very challenging and it forces you to step off. Matt, I don't want to take the story, but I know we got some free loot out of that whole endeavor.

[0:10:27.8] MP: That’s so funny.

[0:10:29.9] AF: Let's see. I'm trying to remember all of them. We went to a bakery that was closing down. Matt, it was you. You asked them if we could have a free slice of cookie cake and the lady was like, “No.” I remember it, because it was great. You’re like, “Well, what's going to happen to this cookie cake if you don't give it to me?” She was like, “I'm going to throw it in the trash.” “Well, why don't you just do us a little favor here and make our day, as opposed to throw in the trash?” She looked around and was checking her shoulder, half-serious, checking to see if anybody was around and slid over the cookie cake. It was like, “Score.”

The smallest little thing, but we ran out of there like kids. Like, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What else can we do?” It's like jumping into a cold pool of water. Once you're in there you're like, “All right, this is a little more comfortable. What else can we get?”

[0:11:11.8] MP: Right, right.

[0:11:13.3] AF: I have a quick question here. I listened to your story here and you talk about how you did all these things and then you still didn't feel you'd pushed yourself. One of the things you've talked about that I thought really hit on with me was looking back at the challenge, you realize you're not really afraid of speaking in public, or walking around in a bikini. There's bigger fears, right? Ultimately, you're really confront five or six fears, not a 100 different ones. How did you come to that realization? How far were you when you realized, “I'm not afraid of X, Y, Z. It's really the larger fears.” How did that change the way that you approached taking on these fears when they became these big things, not just small little acts?

[0:11:57.0] MP: Yeah. When I was facing these fears, I started to see patterns in the way that I felt in the different fears. For example, when I got Brazilian wax, it was a similar experience to when I got a piercing. The fear is not the Brazilian or the piercing, it’s pain. That's one fear, one umbrella that includes so many fears that are related to pain. I started to see these patterns later on.

What I did is I put all of my fears that I was facing on post-it notes and I started to put them together. I was like, this fear and this fear felt similar and this one and this one felt similar. I started creating this clouds of post-its and then I was able to identify seven clear ones that I was like, “This definitely fits here and this definitely fits here.” I ended up discovering that I didn't have 100 fears like I thought, or a 1,000 fears like I actually thought. I only had seven fears, which were pain, danger, embarrassment, rejection, loneliness, lack of control and disgust.

[0:13:06.9] AF: That's so interesting and I can only imagine when the light bulb went off, taking this thing that seems like a 100 and condensing it down to seven different things. How did that change the way that you approached each new task now that you knew what the root cause was of your fear?

[0:13:21.6] MP: Well, one interesting thing that came out of this is that I was able to understand which ones of the seven fears were easier for me and which ones were harder. Then I started to compare them with other people. I started asking people around, would you rather do this or this? Then for example, if I say would you rather crash a wedding or travel by yourself for a whole weekend? In my case, I would rather crash a wedding a thousand times before traveling by myself, because loneliness is one of my biggest fears.

Then some people would say, I would never in my life crash a wedding and I would love to be by myself. This is an interesting exercise that I included in my book that I asked people to rank the level of fear of these seven categories. For me loneliness like I was saying is at the top. Pain is at the top. I really try to avoid pain at all costs, and lack of control. I think those are the main ones.

For example, embarrassment and rejection, I tend to deal with those better, definitely. I did this challenge of dancing in the middle of Times Square, like no one's watching. It was not as bad. It was a little bit intimidating at the beginning, but I had so much fun. Then some people watched that video and they're like, “I could never do something like that,” but they don't care about getting piercings, or tattoos, or things that are is so hurtful that I would never consider them.

[0:14:48.4] AF: It's so interesting to me too, thinking about how you were 23, you moved to New York to take on this ambitious program and then you still felt you weren't pushing yourself into fear enough. Then to hear you say you were afraid of holding a cat, in my head I'm like, “Wow, at the age of 23, you moved to New York. I mean, that's huge, right?” People are so intimidated just into moving anywhere that's far away from home, or far away from school and away from friends. Then you decided, I really haven't even pushed myself to my potential right now, so you decided to take on this ambitious 100-day challenge.

Then the cat thing strikes me. Obviously, you've identified your fears and everything, but I think what it really sheds light on is something that can be just so mundane. I mean, there are people that pet cats every day first thing in the morning, right? Can also be a huge fear for someone else. I think by showing the vulnerability of what your true fears are and not saying, “Oh, it's all got to be good content for YouTube, or it's all got to be something absolutely crazy.” By really shedding light on those innate fears inside of you that aren't common to everybody, it really made the whole thing a lot more impactful. How was that journey diving into these small things, like trying an oyster, trying a snail, petting a cat that really were just unique to you, but ultimately really struck a chord with the large, obviously based on the traction you got?

[0:16:07.9] MP: Right. When I went viral, I was doing those kinds of fear. I was not doing the huge fears. I think that is exactly what resonated with so many people, because if I put the obvious fears in there, I'm facing my fears, but if everybody has those fears. Actually, you should have those fears. You should be afraid of holding a tarantula and doing skydiving and because, death, it's a possibility if you're not careful.

Those other fears were limiting my life. For example, actually in college I lived with two cats, because my roommate – I had four roommates and they had two cats and that was limiting my life a lot. I wouldn't go to the bathroom if the cats were there. Or if they would walk on top of my cereal, I would just stop eating and do something else, because I wouldn't touch them. I was afraid of them scratching me.

In my head, the fear was so big, they would hurt me. When I tried just petting the cat and during the project and holding it, God, it was so sweet. I was like, “Seriously? I've been missing out in this my entire life because of my fear? How irrational is that?” I was starting to build my confidence, but I had to start with the little things and that's what people resonate with, because we all have those fears and it's a taboo topic. Not a lot of people admit they have those fears, and so I didn't have a problem just putting myself out there and challenging myself in that way.

[0:17:32.8] AF: Yeah. I think that's really partially why it struck a big chord is it wasn't macho crazy things that was extremely relatable. People might see your channel and think, “Oh, she was afraid of petting cats.” Learn that and it just makes it so much more relatable than someone who's constantly skydiving and swimming with piranhas and everything that would be a lot of ways, expected of something focused on this, but not really what reality is, right?

[0:17:55.9] MP: Yeah.

[0:17:58.5] MB: Yeah, I think that's such an important point. It really comes back to the art of facing your fears and getting uncomfortable. It's this idea that it's not about doing crazy stuff. That's fun and it's cool and it's great for YouTube or whatever, but it's really about this daily battle, every single day in the mundane everyday stuff that you experience to you realize those fears that are coming up and face them. That's such an important piece of it.

[0:18:23.0] MP: That's a really great point. Actually, the whole project was very physical, because I had to capture all of these experiences to upload them to YouTube. After I was done with the 100-day project, I focused more on fears, or challenges that you can't necessarily capture on camera, but that are so life-changing.

For example, asking for a raise at work, a promotion. That is a huge fear. A lot of people have to face if they want to get somewhere in their careers; promoting yourself, exposing yourself on social media, asking for a divorce, launching a new project. Those things you can't put them on YouTube, but those are the big challenges that will take our life to the next level and will get us closer to our dreams. That's what I started focusing more after the 100-day project. That's how I was able to build a community of over 75,000 people on Instagram that they just want to be challenged on the day-to-day, to become who they're meant to be.

[0:19:31.2] MB: I'm so curious, there's a lot I want to unpack from what you've already shared, but just coming back to that experience of being afraid and then really stepping into facing your fears, what was that experience like to actually be in the moment, to face those fears and what were the fears like when you really encountered them up close?

[0:19:50.3] MP: Well, they were never as bad as the way I had them in my head before. That's one of the main takeaways that I got from this project, that before facing those fears, they were just so big. The worst case scenario was going to happen for sure. That's what we tell ourselves.

During my entire life, I just kept holding myself back from so many experiences, because I thought that the worst-case scenario was what's going to actually happen, but when I started to face my fears during the project, what I realize is that actually, you are more likely to experience the best case scenario than you are to experience the worst case scenario.

Day after day, I kept experiencing that things were not as bad as I had them in my head before. Whenever I went to the next fear, I had a little bit more confidence within me. I will challenge people to start facing those small fears and build up that confidence, because then when you encounter bigger fears, then you're not expecting the worst. That's so important, because the fear is at the end, what we tell ourselves. That is what it is. The actual challenge is never that. I was able to prove that to myself day after day.

When I was in it, when I was in the fear, the entire time I was like, it's going to be horrible, it's going to be horrible, it's going to be the worst. Then suddenly, it was not, day after day. I created an emoji meter for the project. That was a tool that helped me measure my fear before, during and after each challenge that I faced. That was really helpful for my audience to understand, because not every fear was terrifying. Some fears were more scary than others for me. That way I could communicate that. Always, the fear was definitely bigger before, during was not as bad and after, most of the times was way better.

[0:21:46.4] MB: Such a great piece of perspective. As someone who's faced down hundreds of fears literally, you just have such a good insight into this, that the battle with your fears really takes place beforehand and not during the actual fear-inducing experience itself.

[0:22:02.9] MP: Yeah. Exactly like that.

[0:22:05.6] MB: I'm curious, thinking about that process of facing a fear and going from the very beginning of okay, I'm afraid of this all the way through to the other side of having experienced it, how do you think about the life cycle of fear and really facing our fears?

[0:22:24.2] MP: That's a great question. The first step to facing a fear is the time when we acknowledge that we are afraid of something. For example, let's say that a friend of yours proposed an idea, something that you've never considered, right? Let’s say that someone tells you, “Hey, do you want to come this summer with me to Africa to volunteer?” You're like, “What?” Maybe you never even considered doing something like that. When the idea is proposed to you is how you react, what tells you if this is a fear or not.

If you're like, “Yeah, let's totally do that,” then you're not afraid of that. Let's not talk about that, because it's not in this topic. If your first reaction is like, “Let me think about it. I'm not sure.” You were not expecting that proposal, then maybe you're identifying something that is outside of your comfort zone. That is the first step when you identify that you're afraid of something.

Then the second step is to ignore the fear. That's where we automatically go as human beings, because when we face something that we are not comfortable with, our first reaction is to ignore it. Look another way and forget about that for a while. Most of the people just stay there and ignore their fears over and over again. They continue living a very comfortable life doing the things that they already know, hanging out with people that they're familiar with and life becomes very monotonous for a lot of people because of that.

The other kind of people that are other bit more adventurous would come back after that, after ignoring it for a while, maybe a few minutes, maybe hours or days and then come back to it and say, “But what if I actually do that?” They start thinking about the best-case scenario if they do it. Then at that point, you start to plan your fear. You're going to do this, you're going to take that risk, you're going to embark on the challenge. Maybe you have to set up a strategy, maybe you have to call someone, just plan the whole experience.

Or if it's just to say something out loud, like ask for a raise, you start to plan how you're going to say these things. That's the planning stage. Then from there before getting into the action stage, which you would assume is next, there's always this hidden stage in the middle, which I call the WTF am I doing stage. That's the stage where you freak out. It's the few moments before you take action. It is inevitable. As human beings, are immediately going to start thinking of the worst case scenarios, right? All these negative thoughts will start to pop into your head, telling you things, to try to convince you not to do that, because it's unnatural.

I mean, it's your fear talking, your comfort speaking. It will tell you things like, “Don't do it. You will regret it. Who do you think you are?” All these things that we’d tell ourselves. At that moment, it's really important that we overcome the WTF stage in order to get to the action stage. A lot of people and I would say most of the people, just drop the ball right there and they convince themselves that this was not a good idea in the first place and they come up with a thousand excuses why they shouldn't do that and that's it. They continue living their monotonous life, go back to their comfort zone.

Those who actually take action, I've been studying that and I've been trying to understand what is it that makes someone go from the WTF am I doing stage into the action stage. I came up with my own tool. The typical question that we tend to ask ourselves or other people when they're about to face a fear and we do it with the best intentions, which is hey, what's the worst that could happen, right? You ask yourself that sometimes?

[0:26:09.3] MB: Yeah, absolutely.

[0:26:10.1] MP: Yeah. That question, I got it a lot, because I was facing my fears over and over again. People tend to ask that and they're like, “But think about it? What's the worst that can happen if you hold a tarantula, or if you go camping, or if you whatever, dive with sharks?” Well, sharks could be really bad. Dance in the middle of Times Square like no one's watching.

The worst-case scenario, yeah, maybe it's not dying, but it could be things like hurting your ego, or crushing your confidence, or getting rejected, or being embarrassed. There are many other worse things that could happen, so that question is not really helpful. What I did is I changed the question around and flipped it around. I started asking myself what's the best that can happen. Because when you ask yourself what's the best that can happen, you start to focus on the real words, instead of in the risk. The risk will always be there. We're human. That's the first thoughts that we have in our mind. We have to train our brain to go the other way around and think about the rewards.

As I was trying to better understand this, I actually encounter a research from this psychologist called Jeffrey Gray. He says that in our brain, we have two systems; the behavioral inhibition system and the behavioral activation system. The behavioral inhibition system responds to risk and stop us from taking action, or we take action based on our fears. Then the behavioral activation system responds to reward. It's exactly what it encourages us to take action based on the rewards, instead of in the fear.

Asking yourself that question, what's the best that can happen is all about focusing on the rewards. Think about it, if you're about to let's say in my case, presents in front of 20,000 people, right? That's my job, but still scares the heck out of me every time I have to do one of those big presentations. If I'm backstage and I'm only focusing on the things that can go wrong and I'm like, “What if technology fails? What if I say a joke and nobody gets it, nobody laughs? What if nobody pays attention? What if people start to leave in the middle of my presentation?” I'm only thinking about the worst-case scenarios.

If I ask myself intentionally, what's the best that can happen? Immediately, my mind goes to the moment that this is all over and I have a huge smile in my face and I'm saying, “I can't believe this went amazing, that everybody laughed, that everything went according to plan, that technology worked, that I did one hell of a job and all of this positive outcomes that are most likely going to happen.” It just changes the way you walk into your fears and it encourages you to take action.

After we take action, which that is the action stage of course, then we go into the celebratory stage and that's when we feel very proud of ourselves for accomplishing something that was hard to do. I can tell you that during my entire life, I never actually felt really proud of myself, because I was only – like I was saying at the beginning, checking boxes. I graduated, because I had to graduate. It was not a big challenge for me. It was just something I had to do. Then I got married and I did all these things.

I never actually felt that feeling of being so proud of myself, because I did something hard, something despite my fears. That's what you experience when you intentionally decide to face a fear and you survive on the other side, which is what it's most likely going to happen.

[0:29:39.4] MB: That's such a great turnaround, instead of asking yourself what's the worst that can happen, focus on what's the best that could happen? I really like that.

[0:29:46.7] MP: It has helped me and now thousands of people.

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[0:31:36.0] MB: The other piece that I think is so important that often gets neglected or almost goes unseen is that WTF am I doing stage. It's so easy to gloss over that and think you're going to plan to face a fear and then next thing is you act on it, but really you have to go through a lot of mental anguish and in some cases and maybe in most instances, the hardest part of the battle is really that particular stage in fighting through all of the worst case scenarios and everything that's going on in your head.

[0:32:06.3] MP: That's exactly what I was saying. Yeah, it is the worst part. It's the turning point. You either surrender, I guess, to your fears at that point and you let them win the battle, which is what happens most of the times. There's so many examples. People that are in for example, marriages that they're not happy with, but they just go to that thought when they're about to maybe change their life and ask for a divorce, but they are like, “No, no, no, no. They start thinking what's the worst that can happen. I'm going to be alone. I'm not going to find anybody else. Then I have to hire lawyers and go through all that hassle. Let's just stay as I am.”

In that moment, it's the turning point where if you think all the positive things that can come out of this situation, if you decide to take action and how much better your life can be. If you decide to have the courage to do that, then everything changes and it’s that turning point.

[0:33:01.1] AF: I want to jump in here and I want to focus on what happens down the road a little bit, because I think it makes a lot of sense and it's very valuable for the audience to even have the take away of focus on the best, focus on the positive of what can happen. A lot of times in life, we’re faced with choices that will ultimately have good and bad outcomes. For example, if you decide you want to get divorced, keep the example going, but you're afraid of being lonely, well you may ask for that divorce and then you may wrestle with deep bouts of loneliness after that. It’s just a natural part of mourning and grieving and moving on.

I know even for you, they say that if you want to see the worst in humanity, take a look at YouTube comments, right? Even for you as you begin to gain traction and your name is getting spread around everywhere and things are picking up, I mean, you obviously also have that negative reaction from “haters” and people that really just spend their time focusing on the negative side of things. Obviously, we start out we want to focus on the best.

As you go down the road of some of these decisions that are largely good and there is a good to focus on, but there's a bad that creeps in, how do you keep from focusing on that negative that might be there? How do you ignore the bad comments and focus on the good feedback and the good ones? How do you ignore those bouts of loneliness after maybe being separated from a loved one, but ultimately know it's better for you?

[0:34:20.1] MP: That's a really great question, because everything in life will have positive and negative. You can't just escape that. No decision will just be just good or just bad. It's a matter of prioritizing what do you want the most. Maybe not what do you want now, but what do you want the most. If right now you just want company, then you're going to choose that, even if it's not the right company for you.

If you want the most is to find real love, for example, or the best job possible then maybe you do have to quit this job in order to find it. There's a journey that will happen between the time that you take action and the time that you actually achieve something. The problem is the people that don't take action, they will never achieve what they want the most. That's as simple as that. Are you willing to go through that journey and have the possibility of achieving the life of your dreams, or would you just rather stay in your comfort and never have that chance?

For example, talking about couples and that topic, I wrote a post in Valentine's last year, where normally what I do in those dates, special days and everybody is posting the exact same thing. Valentine's, everybody posts pictures of their loved ones and they tell the world how happy they are, even if they're not that's what they have to do. I'm like always, what can I post that it's a little bit more controversial? What is unexpected?

Last year, I decided to post this. I wanted to talk to single people that day and I'm like, right now you're on Instagram and you are watching so many happy couples as you're scrolling down your feed. You know what? I'm actually happier for you, because you have a greater chance at finding real love than all those “happy couples” that are not actually happy, but posting their pictures here on Instagram to make everybody believe they're happy, but they don't have now a chance to find real love, because they’re with someone else. I'm happy for you single people that you didn't settle for someone, just to not be by yourself.

It's all about that, having the courage to take a leap and trust that if we follow our hearts and we work hard, AF, we will eventually get what we want. It comes with a lot of sacrifices in the way, but all of those sacrifices will be worth it if you actually achieve what you want the most at the end.

[0:36:47.7] AF: That's a really great point. I love the content, by the way. That's so awesome. I think being able to go through the negatives of any decision and stick with that commitment, I think is a pretty good roadmap to show you that you're doing the right thing, right? If you start this movement that you did, but then there's a bunch of negative people are reaching out, you choose to focus on that and not on the positive and you give up after 75 days. Then really, you probably weren't all in in the first place, right?

Then the same thing, if you decided you want to make a huge life decision and maybe this partner is not right for you and you just feel it in your gut and you know it's not right and then you take action, but you ultimately come back, I think that that shows that either A, that wasn't the right decision, or B, you're not looking at things through the correct lens of reality. I really think that being able to put up with and to go through the pain of any decision that may have a negative consequence is really a sign that it's something you truly want to do.

[0:37:45.8] MP: Yeah, it is. You have to know that that will come with it and be willing to face all of it. It is also okay to make mistakes. Maybe you think you want something and you have the courage, you take action, you do it and then maybe that was not exactly what you wanted and it is okay to say, “Oh, maybe that was not exactly. Let me find what else was it,” but we need to try the things. If we constantly convinced ourselves that we should just stay in our comfort zone, we're not going to experience life much really. We're just going to stay in the same place.

[0:38:20.7] AF: Yeah, it's interesting. I kept going down with the relationship example, because we're on the road. On the second thought, if you jump into a tank of sharks because you want to overcome your fear and you realized very quickly, “I should not be in this tank of sharks,” you should probably get out of the tank. It's not a sign of wavering. It's probably just good common sense.

You've used a quote in the past, I really loved. It's the enemy of success is comfort, not failure. What does success mean to you?

[0:38:43.1] MP: Well, success is very personal. Everybody should have their own definition of success. I feel like that's something that they should be teaching us as we grow up, because when we're growing up, the whole world tells us what success looks like. It tells us that it's related to money and love and fame perhaps and stability. Then we grow up with certain ideals that might not be true for everybody.

For some people, yes, that is success to achieve fame and money and the recognition. For some people, success can be to have a balanced lifestyle, to be with your family and be present, not be at work all day long. For some people, success can be just being by yourself and loving the single life forever and that's it. It's so freaking personal that I think that's a question that we should all be asking ourselves and we should before we start any project, or any journey, we should first define what success means.

Because if not, it's like if we're driving somewhere in our car and we're not telling the GPS where to take us, then we would just be turning and turning and turning and then we would get very frustrated and think, “But where are we? Why am I not getting to where I want to be?” It's because you haven't told maybe your GPS where you want to go. Sometimes, we tell our GPS that we want to go to places only, because that is what people around us expect from us.

If your parents are always telling you that you should become a dentist and then you put in your GPS that you want to become a dentist and you achieve that and doesn't bring you happiness, it's because it was not your choice. It was your parents, or your communities, or your societies, like whoever is expecting this out of you. This is a very, very personal question and then very few people have the courage to actually take action and commit to their own definition of success. Because we're all the time looking around and comparing ourselves to other people, and if we don't have what other people have, mostly people that are close to us, then we feel we're not there, we don't have enough, or we are not good enough.

It is a matter of defining first and being very honest about it, what is success to you? Then owning that definition of success. Then what I say is that the enemy of success is not failure. A lot of people are afraid to try things that they're dying to do, they're dying to pursue a business, or be entrepreneur, or whatever it is that they want to do and they stop themselves from doing it because they're afraid to fail .

To me, the only time you fail is the time you fail to try. If you want to really do something and because of fear you decide not to do it, you're failing. You're failing yourself. You haven't even given yourself the chance to have success at that.

That's why I say that failure is not the enemy of success, it’s comfort. Because the reason that we don't try, it's because we're too comfortable with our salaries, with our partners, with our lifestyle, with being accepted by other people around us and by belonging the way we were taught to fit in to society.

[0:41:58.4] AF: That's definitely a journey that everybody has to figure out on their own and my definition of success might be completely different from Matt's, who might align a little bit with yours. It's really something I think that is extremely important for anybody, especially if they're going to reach their potential in life to understand what that means for them, even if it is being able to go to every kid's baseball game, or if it's working 18-hour days for the rest your life and buying a private jet. It's all just going to be different. Knowing what that is and having that Northstar really guides action and I think it's critically important.

[0:42:27.2] MP: That can also change throughout time, your definition.

[0:42:30.2] MB: You said something really, really important, Michelle, that to be is personally my biggest takeaway, maybe one of the biggest takeaways that I've gotten on this conversation is this idea, really simply that if you don't take action, you're never going to achieve what you want to achieve.

[0:42:45.8] MP: That's how it is. You don't even have a chance. I love this quote or this post that says something like, the chances of getting something if you try, pretty big. Chances of getting that same thing, if you don't even ask for it, zero. When you don't ask for the things you want, you are automatically telling yourself, no. You're not even giving yourself the chance to see what the answer to that question is.

[0:43:12.6] MB: I'm curious, coming back to the thing that stops people from acting as we've been talking about this whole conversation is fear. What are some of the tools that you found to be really successful for facing down your fears, especially at the hardest parts of the journey, if you're in that WTF am I doing stage, even before then, what are some of the resources and strategies that you've found to be really effective for facing down and overcoming fears?

[0:43:42.2] MP: Well, so one of the biggest fears that stop people a lot is the impostor syndrome, right? When you are about to do something that you feel that's what you should be doing and then you convince yourself that you're not the right person for that, that you're not good enough. Then you look around and you identify potential people that could be better for that. You're like, “Oh, yeah. I would like to do it, but I'm not as funny as that person.”

For example, let me never try stand-up comedy, because I know a lot of people that are way better than me. Or you look around and you’re like, “Oh, but I'm not a social, or as fit, or smart.” It's so easy to just look around, tell ourselves that we're not good enough and then continue whatever we were doing, instead of actually doing the thing we want the most, at least giving it a try. A few ways that I would suggest that we can confront the impostor syndrome mostly for example, we're about to launch something, an idea, we want to expose ourselves, the first thing we tell ourselves is that we are not experts, so we shouldn't be talking about a certain topic.

If you want to start a podcast about something that you're passionate about and then you convince yourself that you're not an expert on that, maybe you shouldn't do it, because there are other people already talking about it, what I want to tell those people is this, if you know more than a group of people, then you're definitely qualified to talk about it. Because we don't need to be the best ones, we don't need to be the most expert ones, we just need to know more than a group of people, or have a different approach to it.

That is something for example, my husband talks about personal finance. When he wanted to launch a brand about this to teach people about personal finance, he would always tell himself that, “No, no, no, but there are some people that are way better. I mean, look at Dave Ramsey, he's already doing that.” What I tell him is first, you know so much than so many people and they are your potential audience, right? That they want to learn from you.

Second, the other thing I want to tell people is yes, there might be so many people already doing what you want to do, but they are doing it their way and it's so important that we do it our way. The way to do this, because it's so easy to just say, do it your way, right? Maybe it's not as easy to implement it, but it's the difference between those who Google how to do things and those who try to look within themselves and find what is their way of doing things. I would say, don't be the Googler.

For example, if you're going to give a presentation and you google how to dress up for a presentation, or how to structure a presentation, I mean, you're just going to end up being one more if you do that. The only way to stand out and do the things in a more authentic way is by asking yourself those questions. How do I want to dress up if I would be presenting in front of others? How would I structure a presentation? Those are the questions that I ask myself and that is why my brand, Hello Fears, have been able to stand out. That's why so many people like it and want to be part of it, because it is not one more, because I'm not looking outside, identifying what other people are doing and try to imitate.

I'm always thinking how can I be more me. What is everybody else doing and how can I do it differently, not for the sake of being different, but for the sake of being me. For example, I have my own podcast and I decided to do it on the plane, because nobody's doing that and because I travel a lot. I travel with my husband, with Adam every single week, well, not now of course, because we’re in the middle of the coronavirus. Until three weeks ago, we were traveling every single week, maybe three, five times in a week. We spend so much time on airplanes that we decided to launch a podcast that we called it From the Plane.

We bought a small mic that we plug into our phone and we just record our conversations. People are loving our podcast, just because it's so different and because we're not trying to be perfect. We don't care about perfect audio, or people not talking. We have people talking all around us. We have babies crying. We have people sneezing and that is exactly what makes our podcast different and special and more authentic. It's a matter of looking inside and searching for those questions within yourself, instead of in Google.

[0:48:04.8] MB: The perspective of not worrying about being perfect and giving yourself permission to fail, having some self-compassion, to me that's such an important piece of dealing with your fears. It's interesting, because I've always found it to be a little bit of a paradox in the sense that the best way to conquer fear is just to start facing your fears, because as soon as you do that, you realize that your fears are ghosts. They're not real. It's not as bad. It's not even close to as bad as you think it might be. Until you're willing to just do that, with the first domino, with the first time, with the first experience, you're trapped at a prison of your own making.

[0:48:43.0] MP: I like the domino effect. It hits home. It's just like that. You face one, you're like, “It's not that bad. Let me try it again and then again. It's not that bad. Let me try it again.” You just go on and on.

[0:48:54.2] MB: Yeah. I mean, that's definitely been my experience in terms of you start with one little thing and then it comes back to what we're talking about earlier, facing these little battles every single day, whether it's being scared to hold a cat, or whatever else. You start with those little things. Then before you know it, you're pushing yourself so much further than you ever thought you possibly could.

[0:49:12.5] MP: Exactly.

[0:49:13.4] AF: Michelle, I'm going to ask for a little bit of personal help here. It’s written a roundabout way, but I know you've spoken about how fear can be generational. I'd love if you can dig into that a little bit more and Matt and I both have young children. I'm curious to know how as a parent can we overcome the urge to instill the same fears that we had, or that we might have in our kids?

[0:49:35.7] MP: Well, that's a great question and definitely, yes. I have to say first that I am not a parent, but I am a daughter and I experienced how my grandparents carried on their fears to my mom and then to me. Because my grandparents come from the Holocaust, so they are Holocaust survivors that moved to Venezuela in the 40s, late 40s after the war, early 50s, not sure the year. Then they had my mom. Then they raised her with so many fears from the war, because the worst that could happen is exactly what happened to them. Then that's how they raised my mom with those beliefs that the worst that can happen is going to happen.

She grew up being very negative in that way, always expecting the worst. Then she raised me just like that, because those were the tools that she had. That's why I grew up being very fearful myself, but at the same time there's something within me and I think it's my ambition perhaps that I think comes from my dad's side that wanted to win over those fears. Now I realize that my mom, the fact that she never faced a fear in front of me is exactly what made me choose again and again, not to face my fears for the first 25 years of my life, because I was too comfortable and I was like, “That's easy.” You just say, “I'm afraid of it,” and nobody bothers you again with that. Cool. I started using that too much in my life.

For example with my friends went backpacking through Europe. I was like, “No, I'm afraid of that.” They're like, “Okay.” They just went without me. I never went camping. I missed out on so many things growing up, because of that, because I was imitating my mom's behavior. Now what I been studying this a lot and trying to understand how that works because it is not about not facing your fears in front of your kids and it's also not about pretending to be fearless.

If you as a parent don't want to show your fears to your kid and you're always pretending that you're not afraid of anything, so they shouldn't be, then they won't be able to relate to you. Because fear is so natural and they will experience fear. I think the best thing you can do is to acknowledge their fears and to acknowledge your fears and then face them together. If you can tell your kids when you are afraid to do something and then you still do it and you ask them to join you and they know how afraid you are, for example, of donating blood and then you ask them to go with you and say, “Hey, I'm very afraid of doing this, but I think it's the right thing. Can you come with me, so you can encourage me to face my fear?”

Bring them into the experience. Show them your courage. There's nothing more empowering than that. That's what I did with my project. I was not really trying to inspire anybody as I was facing my fears on YouTube. I was not telling people, “You should go and face your fears.” I would never say that. I was just being terrified on camera every day facing my own fears. That is exactly what inspired people to go after their own fears. That is what I plan to do with my kids once I have kids in my home.

[0:52:57.5] AF: Yeah. I think that's so powerful. I mean, I love the idea of acknowledging the fear together and then bringing someone into the situation, in this case, obviously we're talking about a child. I think weirdly, I'm thinking back into my life and things that I did with my parents that I might have been afraid of at the time and things that we did together. Weirdly, there are a lot of the things that despite being really young, I actually remember. I think that's because I was part of that experience.

[0:53:23.2] MP: Yeah, totally. For example, my mom tells me things like, “Michelle, I always told you to go face your fear. I always told you to go pet the dog and sleep on your friend's house, all the things.” I’m like, “Yeah, you told me all of those things, but I never watched you face one of your fears, so what are you actually telling me with your actions?”

[0:53:43.1] AF: Yeah, that's huge.

[0:53:44.8] MB: For somebody who's been listening to this conversation that wants to take action, face their fears to begin this journey in some way, what would be one action step that you would give them to start down that path?

[0:53:58.0] MP: I would say, to find an accountability partner. Because it’s really hard to do this on your own. It doesn't have to be your spouse. My husband is Adam and we work together. We do everything together. They're like, “Do you need an Adam to face your fears and build an empire and do all these things that you're doing?” I'm like, “Yeah, you do.” It doesn't have to be your spouse. It can be a friend, it could be a business partner, it can be your parents, it could be your sister, it could be anybody that wants to be there for you, someone that wants the best for you and someone that wants to see you succeed more than they want to take care of you.

Because also, we have those people in our life that for example, when I told my mom that I was about to face all of my fears, she was like, “No way. No. I don't allow it.” I'm like, “I’m not asking for your permission. I'm letting you know I'm facing my fears and I have the support of my husband to do it, so I want to become a braver person myself. I'm doing this for myself. I'm doing this for my future kids. I'm doing it for my spouse and I'm doing it for you as well.” Because my ultimate goal was to also encourage my mom to be braver.

I'm so proud of her right now for all the fears that she's been overcoming, because of me and my inspiration. The advice that I would give people is find an accountability partner, someone that is there for you when you are way too afraid to take action. It is scary to share our big dreams with other people and our big plans, but if we don't do it, then we're more likely to not take action.

We're more likely to regret it before we do it, because nobody knows. It's just us. Yeah, I think we don't need to do that and that's it. That's what we tell ourselves. If more people know about it, people that want really to see you succeed, then they will be there to push you and make sure that you don't feel alone and that they encourage you when you need it the most. That is a good idea always to have an accountability partner.

Then the other one is to have a higher purpose, higher than yourself. Maybe you're doing this for someone that you care so much about. For example, I face my fear because I wanted to become a braver mom whenever I have kids. That is a greater purpose other than just myself. Those are my two advices that I would say that are very helpful.

[0:56:16.4] MB: Michelle, where can people find the book and your work online?

[0:56:21.6] MP: Well, you can find me on Instagram. I practically live there. My handle is @HelloFears. I post content daily. I challenge my audience daily and I challenge myself also and share those experiences with people, because there's like I was saying, nothing more encouraging to see someone else to face their own fears and lead by example. That and then if you want to find the book, go to hellofearsbook.com and you'll find all the information that you need there. It's on Amazon and everywhere where books are sold.

[0:56:54.4] MB: Well, Michelle. Thank you so much for coming on the show for sharing your journey and some great wisdom and really good insights into facing your fears. I don't know about you, Austin, but I really enjoyed this conversation.

[0:57:05.9] AF: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so applicable for the audience, Michelle. I mean, much continued success. Obviously, we recommend everybody go check out the book. This was a very interesting, entertaining and very actionable conversation. Keep up the good work. I think the world needs people like you out there.

[0:57:19.2] MP: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation too.

[0:57:22.7] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My e-mail is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener e-mail.

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