Overcoming Fear and Embracing Authenticity

Fear is a natural part of being human. In our journey through life, we face various fears that can either drive us or hold us back. It's important to understand the two key factors in our nature that can create fear: authenticity and attachment. Authenticity is about being true to ourselves and embracing our potential, while attachment is the deep need for acceptance and connection with others.

Authenticity is the core of who we are. It is the foundation of our potential as human beings. However, societal norms often pressure us to sacrifice our authenticity for acceptance. This conflict between staying true to ourselves and seeking approval can lead to fear. On the other hand, attachment is our innate need for social connection and acceptance. The fear of rejection triggers a deep sense of fear, as it threatens our sense of belonging and survival.

Finding a balance between authenticity and attachment is essential for overcoming fears. Embracing authenticity means honoring our values, unique qualities, and goals, even if it means stepping away from social expectations. It requires courage and may lead to temporary disapproval from others. However, in the long run, staying true to ourselves attracts the right people who resonate with our authenticity. Additionally, maintaining healthy attachments with others provides a sense of connection and support. By balancing authenticity and attachment, we can navigate our fears and create a fulfilling and meaningful life.

 This is a precursor to our group coaching session, which is on fear this week. We're going to be diving deep into fears we all have them. And it's a very natural part of who we are as human beings, and a lot of the fears that we have naturally they're actually not the biggest problem they can drive certain things.

[00:00:22] but what we're trying to figure out, what are the fears that we have learned that are not serving us anymore? And the fears that are with us, that's not allowing us to move forward or slowing us down in our life in our business and who we are in our identity in the quality of our life.

[00:00:41] And so now we, we all know that we have fears about all sorts of things about how we're perceived by others about the things that we do in our life, the risks that we take, especially as investors, entrepreneurs, we're consistently taking risks. Whenever because that's the nature of this world is that there there are no zero risk businesses.

[00:01:03] There are no zero risk investments. you go knowing that there is risk, but the other side of it is the output, the output and the promises much bigger. And same thing with, it's not just about business, but when you're creating a life by design, it's actually very difficult to try to figure out what really matters to you, what you're about, what aligns with your identity.

[00:01:24] . And as soon as we kind of make a decision like that or go towards that, it, it kind of goes in conflict with what other people might think, because most people are not going towards what we'll cover up into city today. Most people are going towards what. What is accepted by the majority and what is accepted by the majority is usually not the thing that you want to do when you're trying to create a life that feels aligned with you because you're unique, your life is unique, your approach will be unique, will be very different.

[00:01:57] And I'll share a couple of fears that I have [00:02:00] myself right now. So right now, we're actually in the process of planning a trip. It's not not actually a trip. I don't look at it as a vacation. It's a lifestyle that I look at it as we're going to be going a couple of months to Florida with my motor home.

[00:02:13] We're taking our car, our two kids, pretty much everything. So if, if something happened to our house and this side of the world, we're like, we're self sustaining, we'll be fine anywhere we go, . But let's say, so we've made a decision to go. We haven't done it for this long. And the idea is that if we like this, this is we're going to be traveling around the North America, maybe even South.

[00:02:36] And we're going to be staying in nature outdoors a lot with our kids. They're already homeschooled and I'm going to be doing my, my business running it. I can run it anywhere. And my wife is doing that too. And some of the concerns around that as well. What if it doesn't work out? Like that's a big one.

[00:02:52] What if we're like do this? So you completely regret the whole process. What if? This becomes a complete disaster. What if we're putting our kid's life at risk? What if we can't make it work the way we think we're gonna make it work? What if I need to come back because of there's emergency with family and friends back here?

[00:03:10] , there are a thousand reasons why we shouldn't do this, but then there's a part of us that be like this, this feels aligned with the path that we had picked a while back. So then how do I approach, what do I do? And, and how do I approach this?

[00:03:29] I have all these fears, but then I've done a lot of work around what really truly matters to me. And despite all those fears, I know what matters to me with this. What matters to me is the wellbeing of my family. Even though that we are taking risks by going risk by going all the way there but we're also keeping our kids outdoors away from tablets and other things we are giving them experiences that they wouldn't otherwise have.

[00:03:55] We're spending time close together. So we're building our family culture. [00:04:00] We are going to be in nature a lot of times. I'm going to learn how to run my business from a different place that gives us mobility. , and location freedom, we're going to learn how to work this out and then work out being with each other in an environment that we've never figured out before.

[00:04:17] So it's a huge learning curve. And if we can figure this out, then this becomes a huge part of our lifestyle. So this is a long term change for, for me, this is not just about this. So I don't know how other people look at it, more than likely when I share this stuff with other people, they're like, Oh, they're going for a vacation for two months.

[00:04:33] We're not. This is actually a lifestyle change that we're working towards. But all those, even though those fears are valid. Because I have a bigger vision for our life. It overrides a lot of it. And that vision is connected to who I am deep down and who I am is connected to the process of me getting to know myself in the process and this whole picture.

[00:04:54] And I want to go into that. Because we're going to cover those two driving factors. . The two driving factors that I actually learned from Dr. Gabor Mate and the way that he frames it and, and I've thought about this for the past few months quite a bit and he framed it in a good way but I've thought about this for a long time as, okay, what really drives us internally?

[00:05:14] And I've talked about fears in different ways before, but this will be a different. So right here we have the two factors.

[00:05:21] So the first one is authenticity and actually I will go to the second one after this now. So the authenticity was what I was trying to highlight with that story is that despite the fact that I have all those fears and also there are other fears of what if this whole thing kind of bombs and, and, and like, what if I, I look like an idiot.

[00:05:42] What if I like there, there are thoughts like that that are in my head, but so there are fears like that. But despite all that, I have a vision for an ideal version of myself, my future, my family and all that stuff. And I've had to do the work to get to that. Of course, that's not perfect. I have my own challenges.

[00:05:58] I have my own [00:06:00] challenges around getting to that. But because I have that ideal version that's connected to who I'm becoming in the process for me, authenticity trumps all those fears. Of risk involved for me, my family and all that stuff because we see a potential for a greater future, a greater self, a great, a better family, a better experience and bringing back all those experiences to the people that we have so we can share that bringing back the learning lessons.

[00:06:28] So we can share that. So I also look at it from a community perspective because this is, and at least in my circle, this is a very odd thing to do. Maybe in other places is normal, but I look like a doing all this stuff, but I get to bring back and inspire and help people see a different approach to life now where we're following a traditional norm, a traditional approach.

[00:06:51] What does that mean? How does that? And if you have any kind of influence in your life, you will affect the people around them around you. And that's important for me, too. So the key there is that authenticity.

[00:07:03] So, usually authenticity is connected to your potential as a human being. It's also connected to it's not just you personally, but it's the authenticity of your family culture. It's the authenticity of your group culture. It can go on and on like that. We can have authenticity as human beings, but starting from you, your authenticity is usually connected to your potential.

[00:07:26] We have anybody who has kids or who's been around kids, you will notice this very quickly, but kids one, if you have had more than one kid, they're very different. They're not like each other at all. They're a complete opposite. One of the more annoying things for me is 1 likes 1 thing. The other 1 likes the complete opposite of that.

[00:07:45] So, if 1 wants to have X a certain way, the other 1 will have the complete opposite of that. If one wants to go one place, the other one will go different. If one likes to play this way, the other one doesn't. It is just so interesting. Even I have, I have identical twins in my [00:08:00] family, two cousins and stuff, and I've watched them.

[00:08:02] Even though they look very similar, and for outsiders, by the way, funny thing about identical twins, once you get to know them, they have some specific markers that you can easily tell the difference between them. But, like, just on their face, but if you, if you haven't seen them before, they look identical.

[00:08:17] But even with identical twins, they're so different. It's like they have their own imprint. They have their own authenticity, which means that it's usually connected to their potential, their sense of freedom. I look at that as a God given right. 

[00:08:31] What parents would love is for their kids to listen to them. But that's in the moment because they get frustrated. But ideally what they want is kids who think for themselves. Kids who grow through life using their own mind, and that's a hard thing to do. But so what happens is even at a early child, like a child who is little, it's very hard to get the child to do something because they have an internal drive to be free to want to do their own things.

[00:08:57] They have an element of choice within them, and they don't like anybody hampering that. So the best you can do it, but they don't like it. And here's the thing that the school system is very good at. The only thing that they, I think that the school system has been very, very successful at is to beat the shit out of the authenticity out of people, which is basically we train people to become like copies of everybody else.

[00:09:27] And the way you do that is you, if they do anything that's unique to them, you beat it down. You say that, no, we don't do this. We do this. Look at that. Johnny, what, what does he do? Look at Matt, what does he do? Look at somebody else. What does she do? You should be like that too. When in reality, their imprint is very unique.

[00:09:51] It's very unique to who they are. So, how does it connect to fear? So, we actually have an internal system that stops us [00:10:00] from losing this authenticity. And that, that is an, I haven't yet run into anybody and I, I like to think of myself as an observer of human beings. I've never, I've not run into any human being who does not like their freedom.

[00:10:14] Now, the degree to which they want their freedom varies, and the younger you go in their life, the more freedom they want, even though they're not allowed to have it for their protection sometimes. But what ends up happening is that this authenticity gets sacrificed at the expense of the Second thing I'm going to talk about, but that we actually have a built in fear not to let that go.

[00:10:39] But, I mean, I'm calling it fear, but most, it's more of an awareness. It's too, it comes at too great of a cost. And the cost is that , you will just be in a machine as soon as you let her go, you will be a copy of the next person beside you. And why is this important for you guys? If you want to create a life that's unique to you, if you want to create a life that connects to your values, your approach, your happiness, your joy what brings you peace, it has to be aligned with that authenticity and nobody can tell you what your authenticity is.

[00:11:12] The Untethered Soul, it's a great book to teach you how human thoughts and emotions and awareness work. But it can never tell you how your mind and your soul and who you are work. You need to observe that yourself. And that process is actually very difficult to do.

[00:11:28] It takes time to become aware of that sometimes and, and I would say it's a lifelong process. But the better we get at understanding ourselves, the more we understand our values, our unique qualities, what truly matters to us, how we learn things, how we grow, the kind of people we want to be around, the kind of people we don't want to be around.

[00:11:47] It helps us create a framework for how we want to live and how we want to be around us. And what most people do is let me learn from this person how they have lived and that doesn't [00:12:00] mean you can't be inspired by others. You can be inspired, but you're going to have to create your own version as well.

[00:12:07] So as soon as you let, first of all, we have an inbuilt awareness of not let that go, but as soon as you let go of that, there's fear comes into the picture because you just lost your foundation with which you have your nature is built on. Now, there's another piece to this, which is the second piece.

[00:12:24] That one is 

[00:12:26] attachment. This is also a very important piece. So I'll try to draw this.

[00:12:33] So your authenticity as a human being is connected to you. Your potential is connected to your sense of freedom, who you are deep down your soul, your core, whatever you want to call it. But because you're a human being, you're not a tiger, you're a social species. What you need is other people. In fact, none of this would be possible without other people.

[00:12:56] So it's a very important need that we have the need for attachment. In fact, the way human beings actually operate is even in the realm of mammals. So, for example and also Dr. Bruce Hilton and Gabor Mate, they both give the examples that if you watch a horse who gives birth on the first day, they're there.

[00:13:15] The horse's baby can run around on the first day. Human babies are not like that. Human child is dependent on the parent for a long time, physically for a long, for at least six months or so. They can't even, they can't function. In fact, they're prematurely born. And this is not, we're not talking about normal birth rates, just normally human beings need to be prematurely born.

[00:13:39] Otherwise, they won't fit through the birth canal. That's just how our nature is. So the parents have to take care of, Okay. That child, which means that we depend for our survival fully on our parents and our community. So we have a deep need to be accepted by those around us. As soon as we don't, what comes up 

[00:13:58] is that attachment fear that comes [00:14:00] up that if I get reject and our mind takes that and if our mind subconsciously feels like we're rejected by those around us, we get this deeper sense of fear that we're going to die. Literally, this is why people will carry around like if you ever felt rejected by a family member or a parent or somebody will carry that for the rest of your life if you haven't resolved it because it's embedded into your survival mechanism.

[00:14:27] So, what does that mean? And this is where courage comes in. This is the tug of war between the two,

[00:14:34] there's authenticity, attachment, and you're somewhere in the middle. You do need to keep your authenticity, but you do need to also to keep your family and community. How do you balance that? And that's the process that we're learning. If you, if you sacrifice your authenticity too much, you will lose your sense of peace, you will lose your awareness, you will lose who you are deep down, you will lose your drive.

[00:15:02] towards what matters to you, you will lose your motivation. And if you lose your attachment, you will lose your sense of connection, community, love, all sorts of things that are connected to other people. Now, there are times when. You do need to get away from attachment to go towards authenticity because the balance has been tipped completely towards one or the other.

[00:15:24] And there are times when you go way too much towards authenticity, but forget the fact that you have a need as a human being for other people. And we know that there are. If like, if you study human beings, you will see both sides of it. You will even notice that in your own life pattern like that, that you have both sides of them.

[00:15:42] So, and the attachment piece is really important because usually, and this is the key part for investors, for entrepreneurs, for anybody who's trying to do something that's different than what is accepted as a norm. And especially if you're, if you're within a family or a [00:16:00] community or a group that doesn't see it as a common thing, or they don't see that you're going to excel in that, there's a part of you that is afraid that what if I fail?

[00:16:11] What if I look like an idiot? What if something goes wrong? Not because we're afraid of, like, making mistakes. Human beings were born, like, if you watch kids, they're constantly falling and getting up. We're not afraid of making mistakes. Human beings have like taken huge amounts of risks just to travel the the go, go across the oceans trying to explore everything when we didn't know how to protect ourselves.

[00:16:37] Going to space, like huge amount of risks. So it doesn't make sense to me for somebody to say that human beings are afraid of making mistakes. What we're afraid of more is what will other people around us think. Now, sometimes those other people are around you, sometimes they're in your head. More often than not, they're in our head, they show up in the form of voices that show up in our head that we can carry with us for the, for, for a big period of our life, they might be the voice of the parent who was critical of you, they might be the voice of a teacher or a friend or a mentor or a mix or watching other people being a certain way and you got afraid that if I did that, I would become like this too.

[00:17:24] For example, I didn't speak up a lot because I as a child, because I would watch older cousins and older people in my community. And when they would be, as soon as they would speak up, they would be shut down by the, the elders in the family. Because according to them, they didn't have enough experience to share, even if they were married.

[00:17:41] So I would look at them like, if they were shut down, what the hell is going to happen to me as a child? So I'd be like, screw that. I don't want to take that risk. So I didn't want, there's a part of me that didn't want to lose that sense of attachment. So then the, the thing that I , want you to be aware of [00:18:00] is as you're going, and this stuff doesn't show up consciously, this shows up in our behavior.

[00:18:04] It's very elusive. We will not do certain things and we'll, we will call it something else. We'll say that, oh, I'm just procrastinating. We'll say that, oh, I think I should wait this long. It doesn't make sense for me to start. Oh, I just jumped into this thing, but maybe it's the wrong time to start a business.

[00:18:21] Maybe it's the wrong time to take this investment. But there's a part of you inside that's very uncomfortable to do this thing. And that discomfort is usually associated with. Your need to be approved. Everybody has it, including me. So if you're not aware of it, it's very hard to leverage it over either.

[00:18:42] And the other, the bigger, I would say for those who are creating a life that's unique to them, of course, there's a balance here, but the bigger the authenticity gets, the easier it is for you to deal with fears associated with attachments. The more you understand your vision for what matters to you, the more you're able to show up authentically.

[00:19:06] Now, here's a cool thing that happens, and this is a key. If you're authentic to yourself, you might in the short term move away from people's approval, but in the long run, you will gain approval and you'll build a better group around you. So you, even though you might move towards authenticity in the beginning, you might create attachment by a new group of people.

[00:19:26] Or when the approval of those around you by doing this, but it takes a lot of courage to do that. And that courage, I think we have it built into us when we're aware of what this thing is that matters to us. This is why I do a lot of work around your vision. That's why I do a lot of work around. What is it that matters to you?

[00:19:46] What do you want from life? You have only a few years on this earth. What matters to you? What are your values? Who are you becoming? Who are the kind of people that you want to be around with? What is the kind of life that you want to live? And this is why, going back to my initial story, when [00:20:00] I'm, when I do things, I look at, I have this many years available, I get to live a good quality of life, I get to serve a few people around me, I get to serve a few people for a short period of time, and I get to do a few things that are meaningful to me, but I'll be gone, and what, within just a few short years, when I leave, One, am I at peace with who I am deep down, deep down in my soul?

[00:20:25] Do I have a lot of regrets? I don't want to live with the regrets. Second, what did I leave behind? And that's part of my faith and value and belief system is that if I'm going to leave here, I'm going to leave this place a little bit better than I came into it and whatever capacity that I have. I don't need to fix everything.

[00:20:46] I don't need to change the world, but I do need to leave this place a little bit better than I came. And that's my value system. And you get to decide that for yourself, which means that if I follow that value system, which if I go towards that value of creating a life that matters to me and understanding and growing and learning.

[00:21:04] Then I will naturally go towards this authenticity and I will create attachment with those that matter to me and I will resolve the ones that are difficult with those that are around me. And that's what I've tried to do over the past decade or so is how can I live my life in alignment with who I am while not completely breaking down my relationships that matter to me and building new relationships that take me towards those values.

[00:21:35] And if you're not aware of these 2 things, you are always thinking, well, I'm doing this for this reason or that reason. These 2 are built into our biology. It's very hard to get away from them. This is not a concept thing. We, as human beings, we, we were driven by these 2 forces and it's very simplistic in a way.

[00:21:52] And there are other things in there too, but just. Think about this, where do you stand when it comes to your authenticity and [00:22:00] attachment? Do you feel in alignment with who you are deep down? Do you have the right people around you? And are you building the right people around you? If you do more than likely, you're happy.

[00:22:09] You're connected. You're excited. You're a piece. You're able to deal with challenges much better than most people. You're able to build a network around. You're able to build your resources. A lot of things. If these 2 sides are missing, or if there's an imbalance there, you're Things are off in your life.

[00:22:24] That doesn't mean, by the way, that none of these scenarios mean you don't have challenges. You will always have challenges. That's the nature of life. But it means that you're well positioned when you're aligned on your path when you're aware of these 2. so I'll leave it at this.