Facing Fear

Fear is something all of us must face. Felix Dennis in his book How to Get Rich said that fear is the biggest obstacle preventing people from becoming rich. Fear of: failure, what people might say, what people might think, what people might do. The book The Millionaire Next Door says that millionaires feel fear like everybody else, but they act in spite of it. Fear is all in the mind, and its important to learn what fear is and how to deal with it, so it does not hold you back from making money.

Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway, by Susan Jeffers is the bible on fear. This book details how everyone suffers fear, and that fear never goes away. When faced with difficult or challenging situations, once you have made your risk assessment, all you can do is "feel the fear, and do it anyway". You will just have to somehow handle whatever comes next.

Watch my back, is a great book by Geoff Thompson which involves facing fear. This is the true story of an English doorman who had many street fights and had to face his fear every night when guarding the doors of pubs and clubs. It's a big book, but one of the chapters "The Adrenal Map", is an incredible analysis of what fear is and the effect it has on your mind and body. He talks about how the body may start to tremble uncontrollably, and how the mind starts to question itself and start to distort the actual situation. Fear is not a reason to back away, or to do nothing. No matter how scared you are, you have to move forwards. He says the only way to deal with fear, is to face it. Watch My Back is the story of one man’s search for courage. Depressed, bullied, intimidated by life and indoctrinated to believe that this was his lot, Geoff Thompson, on the verge of a breakdown, decided to fight back. In a bid to confront his fears, he took a job as a bouncer in one of Britain’s roughest nightclubs….

Geoff Thompson was a factory cleaner and a doorman before he tried to fulfill his big dreams in life. When he tried to fulfill his dreams, he had to put up with his friends laughing at him, and multiple disappointments and rejections. He faced his fears and is now a successful writer and BAFTA award winning playwright. He is an avid follower of self-help books and has written many excellent self-help books himself. Geoff Thompson is one of my big heroes and I always follow his progress and try to buy at least one of his books every year. I'm currently looking at reading 2 books of his: Hunting the Shadow: How to Turn Fear into Massive Success and Everything That Happens to Me is Fantastic Geoff Thompson is a real person, who has faced his fear and produced real success, using real techniques.

I'm currently looking at property investments and many times, the fundamentals of some of the deals I come across, scare me. I'll be borrowing "massive" amounts of money from the bank, and there are many risks involved. I'm planning to structure these investments as safely as I can, via research and not over investing, but in spite of my risk assessments, an element of risk and fear will always remain. All of the people who became great financially were scared, but they faced their fears and eventually came out on top. I must follow that same path, and run towards my fears, rather than backing away.