I was recently reading a post by a woman named Farnoosh Brock titled A Conversation With Fear. In that post, she talked about how fear can consume one's life, how fear has never benefited her at all, and how she's pushing through it to move forward in her life.

I have talked about dealing with this concept of fear myself in the past. I once addressed the topic of fear by asking people why they allow it to keep them from taking chances with things that could end up giving them great things, even when they're in a position where even if they failed at whatever they tried couldn't hurt them. In my mind, when you get a free shot at something you need to take it; nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The second time I specifically talked about fear, I mentioned that there are times when having a little bit of fear is wise, but often addressing an issue you have will help to eliminate that fear because what you discover is things really aren't as bad as you thought they would be. For instance, having to make a call about something distressing you and finding out once it's over that things went well and you were sitting there paralyzed with fear for no reason.

As an independent consultant, something I'm faced with many times is this concept of fear. Sometimes I'm asked to do something that I know I can do, but I don't have the full experience in doing. Sometimes I find myself being the person who has to make that critical phone call to ask for something that I should have just been given, or that should have already been taken care of. Sometimes I have to make that phone call to dole out bad news. Sometimes I worry about when or whether I'm getting paid.

Yet, when you have responsibilities, fear is something you cant let stop you forever. When you're in a position of leadership, you can't avoid taking charge and being the leader people expect you to be. You don't get to be shy. You don't get to always be the "nice guy", while at the same time you can't always be the "bad guy" either, which is often a crutch of fear.

Fear is the great equalizer, but it's also the great destroyer. Fear is something one person can use against another to gain leverage or to catch up. But too much fear immobilizes people and thus destroys anything positive they might have been able to contribute.

How do you conquer your fear? Do you conquer your fear?