Are your fears giving you terrible advice? | Matt Mochary

[00:00] To me, sort of the bar... [00:03] is fear. [00:04] And how strongly do people feel fear? [00:07] There are a few people that I coach. [00:09] that just don't feel fear at all. [00:11] And frankly, with them, [00:14] We have very... [00:15] Tactical Conversations. [00:17] but they're the minority. [00:19] the most feel fear to some degree. Some feel it a lot, some feel it less. [00:24] But when they feel it, [00:26] It grips their mind and it prevents them. [00:30] from seeing. [00:31] Brentstrom from doing the thing that is difficult but necessary. [00:36] And so that's a lot of what our coaching is, me pointing out to them. [00:39] "Hey, I think you're in fear." [00:41] And what happens is very early on in coaching, [00:44] They'll go, "Yeah." [00:45] Okay, I'm in fear. So what? [00:47] I go, great. I believe that fear is actually giving you bad advice. [00:50] And I think you're predicting that if you do this, [00:53] A will happen. [00:54] Well, I'm predicting that if you do that, [00:55] The exact opposite will happen. [00:57] So I'll tell you what. [00:58] Why don't we make a bet? [01:00] Why don't we pick something? This is very high stakes. Why don't we pick something that's lower stakes? [01:04] You make a prediction. We'll see if I make the opposite. And then let's bet on it. So we pick something. And then we make a bet on it. And whoever wins the bet in the future, [01:14] Get to determine what the actions are. [01:16] *sniff* [01:17] I've made this bet hundreds of times. [01:19] And so far I've never lost. [01:21] And it's not because I'm a magician or a genius. It's because... [01:26] When someone's in fear, [01:28] They're gripped. [01:29] They can't see reality.

[01:31] Their brain is making very exaggerated predictions. [01:35] Whereas when someone is not in fear, and I'm not because it's not my situation, [01:39] I am not gripped and therefore my brain isn't making exaggerated predictions and so I'm [01:45] We make this bet. Once I win, then all of a sudden the CEO realizes, oh, my God, there's something to this. [01:52] Fear gives bad advice. And then after that, all I need to do is remind the person. [01:57] that. [01:57] I perceive them to be in fear. That's all it takes. And I'm like, oh, okay. [02:01] And then they go ahead and do the thing that they feel fear about. And then of course, later they come back to me and said, Matt, that was magical. It, it works so well. And, [02:08] Yeah, I mean, I'll give you examples that the most extreme [02:12] is, [02:13] when a CEO [02:15] realizes that there's a problem in the business. [02:18] and, [02:20] They haven't told their board yet, and their board doesn't know. And remember, their board is their investors. [02:24] And they have another round coming up. They know they're going to have to raise money in another six to 12 months. And they need their current investors to participate in. [02:33] in the upcoming round. Otherwise, [02:35] Outside investors won't. [02:36] And then they say, well, what the hell do I do? I've got this problem. [02:40] Do I tell my investors? [02:42] And most often the knee-jerk reaction is no, I'm not going to tell them. And then I say, well, I think that's fear. I think if you actually tell them, tell your investors, [02:51] The exact opposite of what we think is going to happen is going to happen. You think you're going to. [02:55] Lose their trust. [02:56] I think you're going to gain their trust. [02:58] And so? [03:00] If we've done this fear exercise before,

[03:03] They do it. [03:04] They shared transparently with their board all the problems and say, and I'm excited to tackle these problems. [03:11] And every single time that's happened, [03:13] Thank you. [03:14] the, [03:15] Board members have said, this is fantastic. [03:17] I love this honesty. [03:20] Thank you so much. [03:21] You know, this is the one of the only companies that I'm on the board of that actually is transparent and honest and they gain trust. [03:28] I'm glad that you brought this topic up. I wanted to spend time on it. And so just to double click a little bit into it, just kind of to summarize your advice here. If you feel fear, which you may not recognize you feel, the advice is do the opposite of what your brain is telling you to do, right? Generally, I mean, check with someone. Don't just randomly like, I feel fear crossing the street, crossing a crowded highway, and then go, oh, that's fear of talking. I should cross the highway anyway, and then get hit by a car. No, that's not what I mean. I don't mean physical danger. [03:57] I mean, things that we perceive to be danger to our egos. [04:01] But the easiest thing is just to check with somebody else. [04:05] who's not in fear. [04:07] because they will be able to see clearly when you can't. I was working through your curriculum and you pointed out that you found a way to express to somebody that they are in fear. I think it was your wife that kind of like iterated on how to give you a feedback that you're in fear where you didn't get defensive. It got more fearful and angry. And can you talk a bit about that? [04:26] yeah so we we iterated um i at times [04:30] Feel anger. [04:32] And I act on that anger and I don't even realize I'm in anger. So I wanted her to let me know.

[04:38] And so she would say at first, she said, you're in anger and that [04:41] just made me feel accused and made me go into more anger. [04:45] And then she said, [04:46] Are you in anger? [04:47] And that [04:48] The felt. [04:49] passive-aggressive or indirect, and that also made me go into more anger. [04:52] and then finally she said [04:54] I perceive you to be in anger. So it's an I statement. [04:57] and it's simply what she's perceiving. There's no judgment. [05:01] And that was able to punch through [05:03] my anger and then i i woke up went oh [05:06] And then I stopped. [05:07] and just didn't act until I was able to shift out of anger. [05:10] Awesome. And anger and fear, I think there's different pieces of advice for if you feel angry versus fear. Is that right? Yes. Yes. I mean, anger, you're just destroying shit. [05:21] And what you're doing is you're destroying relationships. And so you just got to stop. [05:26] Because you're breaking glass. [05:29] And of course you're breaking it with the people who are. [05:32] closest to you they're the people who are nearest to you which are the people you love and care about the most [05:37] They're not only people you work with, but they're the people you live with. And you don't want to do that. [05:42] You don't want to hurt them. Yeah. Maybe one last question along these lines. Why do we do this? Is this just we're trying to protect our ego and ourselves and we just want to do the safe thing? That's it. I mean, I just learned very recently and this isn't written anywhere because I just learned it. Someone shared with me that anger is not a base emotion. Anger is actually a cover. [06:02] It's a cover for when we feel pain. [06:05] And so, [06:06] Our brain doesn't want to feel the pain, so instead it externalizes it.

[06:10] But the problem is it shoves that pain onto everybody else around us. [06:15] and, [06:15] So the real answer here. [06:18] is not to have people let us know that we're in anger and then stop. [06:22] The real answer is just to allow ourselves to feel the pain. [06:25] And it sucks, by the way. It actually hurts. [06:29] But then, we're not. [06:32] Sorry, I'm getting emotional. We're not pushing that out on other people. And I only learned this very recently, and I'm just starting to practice this. [06:39] And I'm still not good at it. [06:41] But, [06:42] I'm ... [06:43] I am now. [06:44] At least sometimes. [06:46] Not going to anger.