LIVING A GREAT LIFE PART I


CHANGE YOUR THINKING CHANGE YOUR LIFE

By Brian Tracy

CHAPTER 12: Living a Great Life

  Part I

DO THE THING YOU FEAR

A fundamental part of becoming personally powerful requires that you live consistently with the highest values you know, in every area of your life. These virtues and values not only are self-reinforcing, they also are self-rewarding. You get an immediate payoff of inner satisfaction each time you force yourself to do what you know you should do, even when you don’t feel like it. The fear of failure is the greatest single obstacle to success in adult life. The antidote to the fear of failure is the courage to take action. Courage is so important as a quality that, like physical fitness, it requires a series of exercises to build it and maintain it.

Your best way to develop courage is by facing your fears. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.” When you do the thing that you are afraid of, you take control over both your emotions and your life. You shift your attitude from neutral or negative to positive and optimistic. “Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.”

PRACTICE SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION

Many people fear public speaking. But Toastmasters International has developed a powerful method of teaching public speaking even to people who are absolutely terrified of the idea of standing up and speaking in front of others. It is the process of “systematic desensitization.” You can use it in every area of your life to reduce fear and build courage. Systematic desensitization is a psychological term that refers to your doing something over and over again until it no longer holds any fear for you. 

In Toastmasters International, each member is required to stand up and speak, even if just for a few seconds, at every meeting. After several months of weekly meetings, people who were so terrified of speaking in front of others that they could not lead silent prayer in a phone booth become so confident about their ability to stand up and speak in front of peers that they compete for longer opportunities to talk.

SPEAK ON YOUR FEET

I have worked with countless executives who have taken my advice and joined Toastmasters International or taken a course from the Dale Carnegie organization. Within six months, they tell me that they are completely different people. From being shy and self-effacing at meetings and in presentations, they become calm, confident, bold, and even eloquent in expressing their points on their feet with other people. And their careers take off as well.

When you can speak on your feet, you appear to be smarter and more competent than a person who cannot. Many executives, both men and women, have seen their careers take off, their incomes increase, and their responsibilities expand as they faced their fears by speaking over and over again and until they became very good on their feet.

TURN TOWARD DANGER

On the Serengeti Plain of Africa, zoologists have developed a simple technique to determine which one of the animals in the herd is the leader. When a predator lion or cheetah—approaches a herd of grazing

animals, the members of the herd pick up the scent in the wind and begin drifting away in the opposite direction. At this time, the leader of the herd will emerge. The leader will be the animal that places himself between the predator and the herd while the herd begins to flee. The leader, risking his life facing the lion or cheetah that is moving in on the herd, will nonetheless stand his ground to buy time for the others to escape.

The leader always “turns toward danger.” This is as true for human beings as it is for animals. You become a leader to the degree to which you force yourself to turn toward danger as well. You identify the areas in your life that cause you fear and stress, and instead of avoiding them and hoping that they will go away, you confront them directly.

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