October 21, 2025 • 34 mins
In this gripping episode of Ageless Warrior Lab, BJJ Black Belt and Dirty Dozen member Dave Meyer takes you on a journey through the heart of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, sharing powerful stories of animal rescue, courage, and the raw reality of fear.
Discover how martial arts wisdom and real-life crisis experiences reveal the difference between fear and danger, and learn practical strategies to manage fear—whether you’re facing a life-threatening storm, a bully, or your own inner anxieties.
Dave breaks down the four types of fear, shares adrenaline-fueled moments from the rescue frontlines and the BJJ mat, and offers actionable tips for transforming fear into a tool for growth, resilience, and peace.
If you’ve ever struggled with anxiety, self-doubt, or high-pressure situations, this episode will give you the mindset and tools to act with courage and clarity.
👍 Like, subscribe, and share to support the channel! 💬 Drop your thoughts and stories in the comments—how have you faced fear in your life? ⭐️ Leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help us spread the message
This episode was directed and presented by Dave Meyer, produced by Robbie Lockie, and music kindly provided by Robel Borja.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:03):
Welcome to the Ageless Warrior Lab.
I'm BJJ Black Belt at DirtyDozen member Dave Meyer, here to
draw wisdom from BrazilianJiu-Jitsu and the martial arts
and explore how it applies tosuccess in business,
relationships, your long-termhealth, and making the most out
of your life.
It was September 23rd, 2005,just weeks after Hurricane
(00:26):
Katrina had made landfall andflooded and destroyed much of
New Orleans, killing nearly1,400 people.
The city was empty of itsresidents and under control of
the military.
The levees had been patched andthe water had receded, and I had
arrived there weeks before toco-lead a team of volunteers who
were working round the clock torescue animals, mostly dogs and
(00:49):
cats who had been stranded intheir homes.
You see, what had happened waspeople had been told to evacuate
the city as Katrina approached,but many people didn't own a
car, or even if they did, somepeople couldn't fit their whole
family and all their animals onthe car.
So many people just left theirpets with food and water and
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thought they'd be back in a fewdays after the storm passed.
And then when the storm did hit,it became a category five
hurricane, and the levees werebreached by the storm surge and
the city started flooding.
Everyone who hadn't already leftwas then forced to evacuate, and
they weren't allowed to bringany of their animals onto buses
or trucks.
(01:30):
And the upshot of all this washundreds of thousands of people
who really loved their pets hadleft them behind for what they
thought would be just a day ortwo and then couldn't return to
a destroyed city.
But on this day, anotherhurricane, Hurricane Rita, was
about to make landfall and wasthreatening to flood the city
(01:50):
all over again.
And now we were told that weneeded to immediately evacuate
and head inland to safety.
And it was honestly a scarymoment.
So today, the lesson from thelab is about fear.
Fear is a huge topic.
You may be a person who dealswith it all the time, in various
ways, or you may feel like fearisn't anything on your radar at
(02:13):
all.
But it's maybe our most primaland important emotion.
It can help keep you alive.
People in our human history whodidn't experience appropriate
fear would have been less likelyto survive long enough to
reproduce.
So we've mostly descended frompeople who experienced at least
enough fear to stay safe.
(02:33):
I say that because it's okay toacknowledge that fear is a part
of us.
But while fear can help keep usalive, it can also be
debilitating and ironically keepus from living our fullest life.
So there we were, ordered by thestate of Louisiana to evacuate
our makeshift animal shelter,base of operations, which meant
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evacuating 3,000 rescuedanimals.
They said the only animals thatcould remain were those too sick
to transport, and we could onlykeep a skeleton staff of no more
than 30 people from the hundredsof veterinarians and vet techs
and rescuers who were workingthere.
Me and my partner, JaneGarrison, who were leading the
rescue, elected to stay backwith a handful of our volunteers
(03:19):
to ride out the hurricanebecause we wanted to stay close
to New Orleans.
So when the storm passed,whatever its effect, we could as
fast as possible resume our raceagainst time rescue efforts to
find starving animals that mightstill be alive in the city and
bring them out to safety.
So we took these motor homes andthe other trucks that had been
(03:39):
left behind and we made a circlewith them, like you see a
circling of the wagons in an oldWestern movie.
And then we moved all the sickanimals in their cages into the
center of that circle and wecovered them over with tarps.
The storm was supposed to makelandfall in the middle of the
night, and all we could do nowwas just go to sleep and hope
for the best.
(04:00):
But in the morning, I rememberbeing surprised that I hadn't
been shaken awake by the wind.
And it turned out that the stormhad slowed and wouldn't be
making landfall until later thatafternoon.
And I remember looking at Janeand her looking back at me, and
we were both saying the samething.
Well, if we have a few morehours, then let's get our asses
into our rental vans and getback into New Orleans and get as
(04:22):
many more animals out of thereas we can ahead of this new
storm.
The few rescuers who had stayedback with us were down with this
plan, but we were all scared,and none of us really wanted to
be the one to show it.
I have to pause here to say weweren't trained first responders
or anything like that.
We were just animal lovers whohad volunteered to show up to do
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this job, and the few people wehad there with us honestly were
just housewives who had the timeto come down and help for a few
days.
But we were all on this missionto save animals' lives, and we
were willing to risk ourselvesto do it.
So, against the governmentorders, we got in our two vans
and started speeding the 45minutes it took to get from our
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makeshift animal shelter intoNew Orleans.
I remember driving like 80 milesan hour towards this dark, dead,
black sky.
To say it was ominous is anunderstatement.
And as we approached NewOrleans, we saw that all of the
military checkpoints we wouldnormally have to pass through
were just gone.
And military convoys werepassing us in the other
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direction, speeding out of thecity to go inland and get to
safety themselves.
You've got to understand, I'm aCalifornia boy.
I'm fine with earthquakes, but Ihad never experienced a
hurricane.
And what I'd been seeing in thelast few weeks after Hurricane
Katrina was literally carshanging in treetops and other
shit that would just blow yourmind.
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Not to mention that an entirecity had been submerged when the
levees had given away and over athousand people had died.
Those levees had only barely nowbeen restored, and there was no
reason to think they couldwithstand another direct hit
from a similarly big hurricane.
We were also hearing thesewarnings on the radio of
twisters moving ahead of thestorm.
(06:07):
And someone told me that if yousee a twister, lay as low as
possible on the lowest spot onthe ground and grab any tree or
roots or grass that wouldpossibly hold you from being
picked up by the wind.
And I thought, great, thiswasn't comforting.
And honestly, I was scared.
It was pouring rain, and when wegot into the city, I drove us to
(06:30):
an area of the town that I knewwould remain above the floodline
should the city flood againbefore we could get out.
But if that happened, we'd bestranded.
Now there was this code among usrescuers: don't become the
person who needs to be rescued.
And this was the closest I hadlet myself get to that.
So I was determined to get myteam out of there before the
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storm fully kicked in.
The skies continued to darkenand the wind was really kicking
up.
And I gave us exactly one hourto work, getting into homes and
opening doors and looking fortrapped pets.
We were able to fill our vanwith dogs and some cats,
actually, more than we could fitin the cages that we'd brought.
So we literally had them sittingon our laps in the vans.
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It was like these littlestarving Hurricane Katrina
survivors knew that the ship wasgoing down again.
And as we found them, they wereliterally jumping into our arms.
It was crazy.
I gave the word that the timewas up and we had to move.
And we got out of there ahead ofthe storm and made it back with
about 15 animals who hadn'teaten or drunk anything or seen
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a human in weeks.
Hurricane Rita ended up veeringslightly away from New Orleans
up the coast, and the citydidn't take the direct hit, so
it didn't flood again.
Our rescue center was absolutelypummeled with wind and rain, but
the people and animals therewere safe and it was a happy
ending.
That was a scary morning for me.
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Now, I'd been scared before,like anybody, but that was
honestly a bit different.
In thinking about thatexperience, I'd divide fear into
four general categories, butthese lines aren't super clear.
Number one is there's somethingdangerous and threatening right
in front of you in the moment.
Someone is pointing a gun at youor they're about to hit you, and
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you just have to deal with it,and the fear is justifiable.
Number two is a fear ofsomething that is imminent but
not happening right at that verymoment.
This is like the fear that Ifelt speeding into New Orleans
when we should have beenspeeding the other way.
I was scared of what mighthappen, but it wasn't about to
happen yet.
(08:37):
Number three, I'd call a lowerlevel fear, anxiety.
And that for some people, thisis always present.
It might be, but it doesn't haveto be tied to a specific
situation that you're facing orthinking about.
And when you feel anxiety aboutsomething, if you were to dial
it up enough, you would discoverit is just fear.
(08:57):
And lastly, number four is fearto do things in your life, which
might absolutely involve anxietyor might not, but the fear is
keeping you from taking a neededaction to improve your life.
Like, for example, a fear of theconsequences to leave a bad job
or leave a bad relationship, soyou don't make the change that
you really should make.
(09:18):
These last types of fear,anxiety and fear to do what
needs to be done in your life,we'll talk about those in the
next few podcast episodes.
So today we'll stick to the moreimminent types of fear of
something physical.
If you've ever felt reallythreatened, you know what a bad
feeling that that is.
So here are some things to noteabout fear.
(09:39):
First, have you ever realizedthat fear in any form is always
a fear about something in thefuture?
You're experiencing fear in themoment, but the thing you fear
that the dog is going to biteyou, or this person's going to
hurt you, or the plane's goingto crash, all of those are
things in the future.
It could be the very nearfuture, like what if that guy
(10:02):
pulls the trigger on the gun?
But more often it's more of thedistant future, a fear of what
might happen if the storm hits,or if this plane were to crash,
or if I get fired or lose myhealth insurance, or something
like that.
The feeling of fear is happeningright in the moment, but the
actual thing you fear is alwaysin the future, and it's not
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happening at that instant.
And that's important toremember, and we'll come back to
it.
It's also important to rememberthat there's a difference
between fear and danger.
Danger is an objectivecondition.
It may be physical danger, likethe thing you're standing on
might be about to collapse, orit might be a danger that
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something bad will happen inyour life, like a loss of a job
or something like that.
But it's a condition thatobjectively exists.
You might be aware of the dangeror not be aware of the danger,
but that doesn't change thelevel of the actual danger.
But fear, fear is a feeling.
I'll say that again.
Danger is an objectivecondition, but fear is just a
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feeling.
It's possible to be in dangerand not be aware of it, so feel
no fear at all.
And it's also possible toexperience fear when you're not
actually in any danger at all.
So today we're talking aboutthat feeling of fear and how to
cope with it.
When powerful emotions like feararise, we sometimes become the
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feeling.
We don't just feel angry, we areangry.
Emotions like that can beall-encompassing, like rage or
grief, and of course fear.
So we need to learn how toappropriately modulate fear.
Fear in any moment should informyou, but not define you.
As Dan Milman says, fear is awonderful servant, but a
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terrible master.
Besides the terrible way thatfear makes you feel, if fear
becomes the master, it canactually cause a lot of harm,
both to individuals and to oursociety.
People who are scared makemistakes.
We see this overreaction on themat.
When someone fears somethingyou're attacking them with, and
so they overreact to it, and youcan capitalize on that.
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When governments are overcome byfear, they overreact to
perceived threats real orimagined, and regular people
usually end up paying the price.
So when it comes to that fear ofsomething right in your face now
or in the near term, you can'tlet the fear take over.
What matters is how you copewith it and if you can assess
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its validity and how you can actdespite it.
For what feels like a dangerousor life-threatening situation,
how much fear arises and how youdeal with it can have a lot to
do with if you've been trainedand if you have experience with
that situation or not.
So if you're a martial artistand you have experience with
aggression and fighting, you'lllikely handle a scary
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confrontation better thansomeone who's never felt
physically threatened at all.
Or if you're a cop who's been insimilar tense situations before,
you may have developed somesense of how to act or that
you'll be okay, which may helpyou keep your cool and take the
right actions.
Fear can cause adrenaline, andadrenaline, if managed well, can
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be useful.
There were a set of studiesconducted by Jameson and then
Crum, including one in 2012called Mind Over Matter, and
this was published in theJournal of Experimental
Psychology, that showed thatpeople who reframed being
stressed as something positiveand helpful had better outcomes.
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The stress became sort of aperformance boost rather than a
handicap.
I remember when I was 12 yearsold, during the summer, just
prior to seventh grade and a newschool, some friends and I were
playing basketball in the gym,and this bigger bully kid and
some of his friends grabbed ourbasketball.
We asked for it back, but theywouldn't give it back.
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And the bully guy, who we hadnever met, kept saying, Hey,
what are you gonna do about it?
And my friends knew that I wasthe kid who was training in
jujitsu, and so they all, ofcourse, looked at me.
So I gathered my little12-year-old courage and stepped
up to the guy and just asked forthe ball back.
And he said that I should try totake it from him.
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And I said, Listen, I don't wantto fight.
And I remember he said, What areyou, a chicken?
And I had this sense that afight was inevitable now.
And I felt the pressure of allthese kids looking at me.
So I said to him, Well, wouldyou fight a chicken?
And he said, Yes.
And the best way I can describeit was rather than succumb to
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the fear I was feeling, I usedthat fear to perform a bit of
mood alchemy, transforming mefrom being scared to being
outraged that someone wouldfight someone else who's weaker
and scared.
And this allowed me to focusthat adrenaline outward, and I
hauled off and punched him rightin the face, whipped my head to
the side, flinging my glassesoff in case he was gonna hit me
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back so I wouldn't get glass inmy eyes.
And then with my other hand,just punched him so hard right
in the stomach that he doubledover, and then I put him in a
standing guillotine choke.
Now, nothing of that, other thanthe choke itself, was anything I
had particularly practiced forreal on the mat.
But in that situation, and evenas a kid, my training kicked in.
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I then let him go and I calmlytook the ball and tossed it to
my friends, and I decided itwould probably be best for me to
then head home before this bullyguy regained his strength and
might try for a round two whereI wouldn't have the element of
surprise and get in that firstpunch.
A side benefit of that day wasit gave me a reputation in
school and no one ever messedwith me again, including that
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guy.
My jujitsu at that time was, youknow, kid-level training, but in
adult life, some professionalsface these fear triggers daily.
Over the years, I've taught manypeople in law enforcement, and
as a part of that, I've had theopportunity to do what are
called ride-alongs, which iswhen you accompany police in the
field, like in their car, to goout on calls and see the actual
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environment and situations thatthey have to deal with every
day.
And I've noted how when a callcomes in, maybe there's an
active shooter somewhere, theyspin the car around and they put
on the siren and they go as fastas possible, careening towards
the danger.
And in those moments, I alwaysthink like, slow down, guys,
like you can let another cop getthere first.
But cops are trained to actunder this kind of pressure, and
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many police officers becamepolice officers because they
actually like that feeling ofexcitement and adrenaline.
So if you have the opportunityto get trained, not just in
physical skills, but in dealingwith pressure or stress, I think
you should definitely do it.
Martial arts training can bepart of that, but if you're in
an art that practices only witha compliant opponent, or only
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like striking pads, butbasically where you're never at
risk for being hit or injured, Idon't think you're getting from
that the full buildup ofphysical toughness to
approximate a real fight.
It's the arts like boxing andkickboxing and wrestling and
judo and jujitsu, where you'rein a sport with a non-compliant
opponent, that you can get morerelevant skills for real
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physical confrontation.
But even then, unless you'recompeting regularly, you're
likely practicing in a safe andfriendly environment and never
dealing with actual adrenaline,certainly not fear.
That's important because the wayyou react on the mat with your
friends in a one-on-onesituation with the rules of your
sport can be very different fromhow you'd react when suddenly
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confronted with a scarysituation on the street that
catches you completely bysurprise.
Fear and adrenaline changeeverything.
It can cause you to freeze or itcan cause you to go berserk and
get tunnel vision, and neitheris good.
That's why I advocate competing.
If you can, we'll be talkinglots about this in future
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episodes.
But most people I understandaren't able or willing to
compete in grappling, andcertainly not in boxing or
kickboxing or MMA, where you'regoing to possibly get hit, and
definitely get hit.
So they're not being trained todeal with adrenaline fear.
Fortunately, there are somegreat adrenal stress training
systems like impact and modelmugging that I think are a must
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for anyone who wants to know howthey can perform under pressure.
Basically, training to fight isalways about training around the
edges of a real fight.
So we put in rules in thesesports to make things safer so
we can come back again and againand train.
If we're striking, we maybedon't allow certain strikes and
certainly don't allow eyegouging or a weapon or something
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like that.
If we're grappling, we don'tallow strikes at all, but then
we can go full force on jointlocks.
The key to think of fighttraining is as this circle.
And in the middle of the circle,that's the real fight that you
might be in one day, wherethere's absolutely no rules.
Maybe it's happening on concreteor on the street or who knows
where.
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And with possibly multipleattackers, maybe there are
weapons involved, who knows?
And around the edges of thiscircle are the various points
where you can isolate skillsthat may be relevant when you
step into the circle for thereal fight.
So those are the points that canbe kickboxing and grappling and
weapons training and strengthincrease and increasing speed
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and flexibility and all thethings that you can isolate and
safely train.
But the one point that almosteveryone misses is dealing with
adrenaline.
So systems like impact, modelmugging, try to fill that gap.
They use a heavily padded guy, Ithink it's almost always a big
guy, who is screamingobscenities in your face and
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shoving you, and who isn'treally going to hurt you.
But I promise you, even if Iwere to give you a nice hug
right now and say in a softvoice, don't worry, my friend,
you're safe.
It's Dave.
I'm not going to hurt you.
And then I put on this giantpadded suit and everybody's
looking at you, and I startshoving you hard and screaming
at the top of my voiceobscenities right nose to nose
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into your face, your heart isgoing to race and you are going
to get adrenaline.
It happens to everybody.
And that's what these systemsdo.
And then you get used toexperiencing that kind of
pressure and that bit ofadrenaline, and then you get
used to moving through it andunloading strikes on the
attacker in various ways thathis padding will absorb.
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His head and his body and hisgroin is fully padded.
For us grapplers, you can't goputting the guy in an armbar or
leg bar or something like that.
But you can tee off on his bodyand his head, which actually
could be kind of fun.
I'll post a video of me doingthis in the show notes, but it's
an important and an overlookedpoint to train on that perimeter
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of the circle that will help youget used to adrenaline and help
you if you're ever suddenlythrust into a real fight.
And I'd add it's particularlyimportant for women to
occasionally train in this way.
Many men, because of their livedexperience in contact sports,
can be more accustomed toadrenaline and roughhousing.
But some men and many women willhave never experienced this type
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of verbal abuse.
It's called woofing.
So it's good for them to learnthat they can take it and kind
of get used to it.
Of course, far too many womenhave had personal experience
from abusive relationships.
And that's why courses likeimpact and model mugging have
all kinds of warnings to letpeople know the exact emotions
that they're going to beintentionally trying to trigger
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in case that's not somethingthat someone wants to relive.
Now, back to fear specifically.
Fear isn't just about somethingexternal beyond your control,
like an attacker trying to hurtyou.
Sometimes you might also have alegitimate fear about something
dangerous that you actually wantto do for fun, like skydiving or
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making a jump from a high rockinto the water or something like
that.
So here's something to consider.
Most people have too thick of aborder between what feels
dangerous and what is dangerous.
They think something isdangerous well before it really
is, and so they overly limitthemselves.
They might stay farther backfrom the edge of a rooftop than
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they need to, or not be willingto try rock climbing even with a
rope.
If your border for what feelsdangerous is too thick, you miss
out on fun experiences like rockclimbing or flying a plane or
whatever.
Of course, if it's too thin, youtake risky chances that will
likely punish you or maybe evenworse, get you killed.
So it's always better, ofcourse, to err on the side of
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caution, but you can narrow thegap between what feels dangerous
and what actually is dangerous.
And if you can do that, you'llhave a bit more fun in your
life.
We see this in BJJ.
Beginners during a grapplingmatch sometimes feel like
they're running out of air andthey may stop training because
they feel so scared, they'repanicked, and they just think
they have to take a rest andbreathe.
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But I've never seen anyoneactually pass out simply from
exertion on the mat.
That's just them thinkingthey're in some sort of danger
when in fact they're not.
A dog can run full-tilt lapsaround the dog park again and
again, just panting and panting,but there's just no drama,
right?
They're just getting out ofbreath.
So I tell people, it's okay,you're not dying, you're just
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out of breath.
Count to 10.
And usually by the time they getto five or seven, they're calmed
down enough to realize they'reactually okay.
So here's a quick checklist tosee how warranted your fear of
doing something you might wantto do is.
Number one, what percentage ofpeople ever get hurt or killed
doing this thing?
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Is it one in a hundred?
Is it one in a thousand?
Is it one in a million?
Number two, is somebody guidingyou who has a track record of
guiding others safely?
And do they really know whatthey're doing?
Number three, do you have theright equipment if equipment is
needed?
And do you know how to use it?
Can someone double check yoursetup?
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Number four, are the peoplearound you doing this thing
again and again and showing youthat it's safe?
Like, are you literally watchingpeople jump off the rock again
and again and have a good time?
And number five, are youactually concerned that if you
do this thing you might have abad outcome?
Or is it more that you're justscared to take the first step,
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like to make that jump?
If all of this leads you tobelieve that the objective
danger is acceptable, and thereal problem, if you're having
one, is just your feeling offear itself, then it pays to
learn how to manage that fearand not deprive yourself of what
could be potentially funexperiences.
I've struggled with this myself.
On one of my trips to Brazil,some of the fighters took me and
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my then wife on an all-day hikeup a steep mountain called Pedra
de Gavia.
Look it up.
It's a challenging hike thatends in this insane 360-degree
view of Rio de Janeiro.
There's a steep path that startsin a densely forested area and
then opens up to this sheer rockface before you can make it up
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to the very top.
We'd been running the path insections and everything was
great, but then we got to thisexposed rock face just prior to
the summit.
To cross that means you'rescrambling across a barren rock
face with no trees or anythingto hold on to, and it's at a
steep grade, and it has thishigh degree of what climbers
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call exposure, which means afeeling of nothing between you
and a sense you could fall agreat distance.
It didn't seem objectively allthat dangerous to me, you know,
just be careful and don't fall.
But the penalty for fallingseemed really crazily bad, and
my gut was telling me, you knowwhat, don't try to cross this.
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Of course, the Brazilian guys Iwas with had been doing it since
they were kids, and they weretelling me not to be scared and
to just keep going, and the viewfrom the top is totally worth
it.
And my wife felt like she coulddo it, but it just seemed a bit
too dangerous for me, and I feltscared, so I told them to go up
ahead, and I elected to stayback.
Now I'm generally pretty brave,and I've rock climbed before,
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and I don't have a particularfear of heights, so it was a
tough decision for me to say Idon't want to continue on
because I didn't want to appearlike a wimp to those guys, but I
just needed to be true to what Iwas feeling.
A funny side note to this iswe'd been running and hiking
hard all day to get up to thatpoint, and it was a hot Rio
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summer day, and I was wearingshorts and a thin t-shirt.
And when we got to that heightwhere it was really windy and it
was much cooler, when I stayedback and stopped hiking, and I
began just to hang out for anhour or so to wait for them to
go up to the top and come back,I was getting really cold from
the wind sitting there in my wett-shirt.
And I saw these patches of longgrass.
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So I squatted down on my heels,hugging my thighs against my
chest, and I pulled my t-shirtover my knees and around my
legs, and then I startedstuffing this grass up in the
shirt between my knees to makeinsulation.
I thought it was really cleverand it totally kept me warm and
it shielded my chest from thestrong wind.
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But when the group came back andsaw me squatting on the ground,
my shirt pulled over with grasssticking out from the top of my
shirt and from the sleeves, itlooked like the scarecrow and
the wizard of oz, and they justfell over laughing.
And Brazilians like to givepeople nicknames.
So from that moment on, mynickname in Brazil has been
Capim, which means grass.
(27:37):
And I tell people it's becauseI'm tall and thin like grass,
but given enough time likegrass, I can break through
concrete.
But now you know the secrettruth of where I got that
nickname.
I should also say I learned whenwe got back that lots of people
stop where I stop because theyget that same feeling and they
get scared.
And in fact, people have diedthere.
(27:58):
All the guidebooks say you needropes to cross that point.
So my fear was justified, eventhough my friends had done it
many times, and to them it wasno big deal.
So it's easy for me to say tonarrow the border between what
you think is dangerous and whatactually is dangerous.
But sometimes we just feel whatwe feel.
Our perception is ourperception, and it doesn't
(28:19):
always line up with objectivereality, but sometimes that's
hard to know in the moment.
We all have our filter throughwhich we perceive the world, and
what's scary or intimidating forone person can seem easy for
another.
Fear is just a feeling, yes, butin the moment, feelings are as
real as anything else.
So don't beat yourself up if youdon't do something because you
(28:40):
find it scary, even if otherpeople are doing it.
They obviously aren't dealingwith what you're dealing with.
But do take the opportunity tolearn about yourself.
Now, what can we do to help inthose moments when we're facing
fear?
How can we act despite it?
I have a thing I call makingfriends with fear.
When fear arises, accept it andsmile and say, hello.
(29:05):
It's a valuable system to keepyou safe, but it's very bad at
assessing reality.
Remember that there's adifference between fear and
actual danger.
Fear is a feeling, and feelingsare not facts.
I'm gonna say that again.
Feelings are not facts.
Fear is about the future.
So remember that.
(29:26):
It's about the future.
So if you can focus on thepresent moment, that brings
yourself back into a space whereyou're not gonna feel as much
fear.
You can say to your fear, I seeyou, but I will not become you.
And you can help me, but youcannot become me.
Fear can be managed with courageif you are feeling it in the
(29:48):
moment, and even with faith.
But the opposite of fear ispeace.
When you feel inner peace,there's just no feeling of fear.
Now, for some people, it helpsto have a spirit.
Spiritual belief or faith.
If you have a strong belief inGod or some higher power, that
can taper your fear.
There's that saying, today is agood day to die.
(30:11):
If you are really at peace withyour own mortality, perhaps
because you're completely surethat something better is waiting
for you, that can definitelyhelp you mitigate fear in a
dangerous situation.
But for most people, the mostaccessible way to mitigate fear,
at least a little bit in themoment, is your breath.
A few slow, deep breaths canhelp calm you and clear your
(30:36):
thinking, even in a scarysituation.
And this isn't just pop wisdom.
There are tons of studies likeZiccaro et al.
2018 called How Breath ControlCan Change Your Life.
It's a review of about 90studies that all show that slow
breathing, around six breathsper minute, calms the mind and
(30:58):
body and improves emotionalcontrol and reduces stress.
This means that breathing slowlyisn't just relaxing, but it
measurably shifts yourphysiology towards balance and
resilience.
When people get scared, theyhold their breath.
It's a bit chicken and egg.
You hold your breath becauseyou're scared, but holding your
(31:19):
breath makes you tense and canmake you more scared.
So consciously breathing deeplyto release that tension actually
causes you to be a little lessscared.
Hopefully, enough so that youcan use your adrenaline to take
the right actions in the moment.
There's obviously so much morewe could say about fear, and
we'll look more at it in acouple of the coming episodes.
(31:41):
But let me leave you with this.
We talk about fear leading to afight or flight reflex.
But between fight and flight isacceptance, doing nothing.
Now, for some animals, thatacceptance between fighting or
running away is playing dead,which is exactly what some
animals do, and it's literallydoing nothing.
(32:02):
But what I mean is going back towhat I said about courage is the
ability to act in spite of fear.
But the opposite of fear isinner peace, acceptance.
So being at peace with what isin the moment is sometimes
what's needed to let fear go.
Remember, fear is just a feelingyou're having, and it's a
(32:23):
feeling about the future.
And if you can accept, I'mfeeling fear, it's just a
feeling, and bring yourself backto your breath, be in the now.
Fear needs you to be thinkingabout the future.
Your deep breathing brings youback to the present moment.
It's what's happening in yourbody in this moment, and you're
focusing on it.
(32:44):
And if you can just accept whatis in this moment, that will
remove the fuel that fuels thefear.
And with the fear taken downeven just a little bit, you can
then act more calmly and ensureyou get the best outcome.
When we decided to go for it andrace a hurricane into New
Orleans to try to save a fewdogs and cats, we acted in spite
(33:06):
of our fear.
But the thing we feared didn'tactually happen.
And our ability to push throughit at that moment and not give
in to the fear is what saved thelives of 15 scared and hungry
dogs and cats.
Fear can keep you alive, yes,but fear can rob you of living
the life that you're here tolive.
(33:27):
Remember, the opposite of fearis inner peace.
So do what you can to fosterinner peace whenever you can,
and it starts with your breath.
More to come about that nextweek.
If you enjoyed this podcast,please remember to subscribe,
like, and share, and pleaseleave me comments and let me
(33:47):
know your thoughts.
If you're listening on Apple orSpotify, a review would really
help us spread the message.
I'll be back next week with morelessons from the lab.
And in the meantime, as always,keep developing your strengths
and your wisdom and go out anddo good in the world.
Welcome to the Ageless Warrior Lab.
I'm BJJ Black Belt at DirtyDozen member Dave Meyer, here to
draw wisdom from BrazilianJiu-Jitsu and the martial arts
and explore how it applies tosuccess in business,
relationships, your long-termhealth, and making the most out
of your life.
It was September 23rd, 2005,just weeks after Hurricane
(00:26):
Katrina had made landfall andflooded and destroyed much of
New Orleans, killing nearly1,400 people.
The city was empty of itsresidents and under control of
the military.
The levees had been patched andthe water had receded, and I had
arrived there weeks before toco-lead a team of volunteers who
were working round the clock torescue animals, mostly dogs and
(00:49):
cats who had been stranded intheir homes.
You see, what had happened waspeople had been told to evacuate
the city as Katrina approached,but many people didn't own a
car, or even if they did, somepeople couldn't fit their whole
family and all their animals onthe car.
So many people just left theirpets with food and water and
(01:09):
thought they'd be back in a fewdays after the storm passed.
And then when the storm did hit,it became a category five
hurricane, and the levees werebreached by the storm surge and
the city started flooding.
Everyone who hadn't already leftwas then forced to evacuate, and
they weren't allowed to bringany of their animals onto buses
or trucks.
(01:30):
And the upshot of all this washundreds of thousands of people
who really loved their pets hadleft them behind for what they
thought would be just a day ortwo and then couldn't return to
a destroyed city.
But on this day, anotherhurricane, Hurricane Rita, was
about to make landfall and wasthreatening to flood the city
(01:50):
all over again.
And now we were told that weneeded to immediately evacuate
and head inland to safety.
And it was honestly a scarymoment.
So today, the lesson from thelab is about fear.
Fear is a huge topic.
You may be a person who dealswith it all the time, in various
ways, or you may feel like fearisn't anything on your radar at
(02:13):
all.
But it's maybe our most primaland important emotion.
It can help keep you alive.
People in our human history whodidn't experience appropriate
fear would have been less likelyto survive long enough to
reproduce.
So we've mostly descended frompeople who experienced at least
enough fear to stay safe.
(02:33):
I say that because it's okay toacknowledge that fear is a part
of us.
But while fear can help keep usalive, it can also be
debilitating and ironically keepus from living our fullest life.
So there we were, ordered by thestate of Louisiana to evacuate
our makeshift animal shelter,base of operations, which meant
(02:56):
evacuating 3,000 rescuedanimals.
They said the only animals thatcould remain were those too sick
to transport, and we could onlykeep a skeleton staff of no more
than 30 people from the hundredsof veterinarians and vet techs
and rescuers who were workingthere.
Me and my partner, JaneGarrison, who were leading the
rescue, elected to stay backwith a handful of our volunteers
(03:19):
to ride out the hurricanebecause we wanted to stay close
to New Orleans.
So when the storm passed,whatever its effect, we could as
fast as possible resume our raceagainst time rescue efforts to
find starving animals that mightstill be alive in the city and
bring them out to safety.
So we took these motor homes andthe other trucks that had been
(03:39):
left behind and we made a circlewith them, like you see a
circling of the wagons in an oldWestern movie.
And then we moved all the sickanimals in their cages into the
center of that circle and wecovered them over with tarps.
The storm was supposed to makelandfall in the middle of the
night, and all we could do nowwas just go to sleep and hope
for the best.
(04:00):
But in the morning, I rememberbeing surprised that I hadn't
been shaken awake by the wind.
And it turned out that the stormhad slowed and wouldn't be
making landfall until later thatafternoon.
And I remember looking at Janeand her looking back at me, and
we were both saying the samething.
Well, if we have a few morehours, then let's get our asses
into our rental vans and getback into New Orleans and get as
(04:22):
many more animals out of thereas we can ahead of this new
storm.
The few rescuers who had stayedback with us were down with this
plan, but we were all scared,and none of us really wanted to
be the one to show it.
I have to pause here to say weweren't trained first responders
or anything like that.
We were just animal lovers whohad volunteered to show up to do
(04:42):
this job, and the few people wehad there with us honestly were
just housewives who had the timeto come down and help for a few
days.
But we were all on this missionto save animals' lives, and we
were willing to risk ourselvesto do it.
So, against the governmentorders, we got in our two vans
and started speeding the 45minutes it took to get from our
(05:03):
makeshift animal shelter intoNew Orleans.
I remember driving like 80 milesan hour towards this dark, dead,
black sky.
To say it was ominous is anunderstatement.
And as we approached NewOrleans, we saw that all of the
military checkpoints we wouldnormally have to pass through
were just gone.
And military convoys werepassing us in the other
(05:26):
direction, speeding out of thecity to go inland and get to
safety themselves.
You've got to understand, I'm aCalifornia boy.
I'm fine with earthquakes, but Ihad never experienced a
hurricane.
And what I'd been seeing in thelast few weeks after Hurricane
Katrina was literally carshanging in treetops and other
shit that would just blow yourmind.
(05:47):
Not to mention that an entirecity had been submerged when the
levees had given away and over athousand people had died.
Those levees had only barely nowbeen restored, and there was no
reason to think they couldwithstand another direct hit
from a similarly big hurricane.
We were also hearing thesewarnings on the radio of
twisters moving ahead of thestorm.
(06:07):
And someone told me that if yousee a twister, lay as low as
possible on the lowest spot onthe ground and grab any tree or
roots or grass that wouldpossibly hold you from being
picked up by the wind.
And I thought, great, thiswasn't comforting.
And honestly, I was scared.
It was pouring rain, and when wegot into the city, I drove us to
(06:30):
an area of the town that I knewwould remain above the floodline
should the city flood againbefore we could get out.
But if that happened, we'd bestranded.
Now there was this code among usrescuers: don't become the
person who needs to be rescued.
And this was the closest I hadlet myself get to that.
So I was determined to get myteam out of there before the
(06:50):
storm fully kicked in.
The skies continued to darkenand the wind was really kicking
up.
And I gave us exactly one hourto work, getting into homes and
opening doors and looking fortrapped pets.
We were able to fill our vanwith dogs and some cats,
actually, more than we could fitin the cages that we'd brought.
So we literally had them sittingon our laps in the vans.
(07:13):
It was like these littlestarving Hurricane Katrina
survivors knew that the ship wasgoing down again.
And as we found them, they wereliterally jumping into our arms.
It was crazy.
I gave the word that the timewas up and we had to move.
And we got out of there ahead ofthe storm and made it back with
about 15 animals who hadn'teaten or drunk anything or seen
(07:34):
a human in weeks.
Hurricane Rita ended up veeringslightly away from New Orleans
up the coast, and the citydidn't take the direct hit, so
it didn't flood again.
Our rescue center was absolutelypummeled with wind and rain, but
the people and animals therewere safe and it was a happy
ending.
That was a scary morning for me.
(07:54):
Now, I'd been scared before,like anybody, but that was
honestly a bit different.
In thinking about thatexperience, I'd divide fear into
four general categories, butthese lines aren't super clear.
Number one is there's somethingdangerous and threatening right
in front of you in the moment.
Someone is pointing a gun at youor they're about to hit you, and
(08:16):
you just have to deal with it,and the fear is justifiable.
Number two is a fear ofsomething that is imminent but
not happening right at that verymoment.
This is like the fear that Ifelt speeding into New Orleans
when we should have beenspeeding the other way.
I was scared of what mighthappen, but it wasn't about to
happen yet.
(08:37):
Number three, I'd call a lowerlevel fear, anxiety.
And that for some people, thisis always present.
It might be, but it doesn't haveto be tied to a specific
situation that you're facing orthinking about.
And when you feel anxiety aboutsomething, if you were to dial
it up enough, you would discoverit is just fear.
(08:57):
And lastly, number four is fearto do things in your life, which
might absolutely involve anxietyor might not, but the fear is
keeping you from taking a neededaction to improve your life.
Like, for example, a fear of theconsequences to leave a bad job
or leave a bad relationship, soyou don't make the change that
you really should make.
(09:18):
These last types of fear,anxiety and fear to do what
needs to be done in your life,we'll talk about those in the
next few podcast episodes.
So today we'll stick to the moreimminent types of fear of
something physical.
If you've ever felt reallythreatened, you know what a bad
feeling that that is.
So here are some things to noteabout fear.
(09:39):
First, have you ever realizedthat fear in any form is always
a fear about something in thefuture?
You're experiencing fear in themoment, but the thing you fear
that the dog is going to biteyou, or this person's going to
hurt you, or the plane's goingto crash, all of those are
things in the future.
It could be the very nearfuture, like what if that guy
(10:02):
pulls the trigger on the gun?
But more often it's more of thedistant future, a fear of what
might happen if the storm hits,or if this plane were to crash,
or if I get fired or lose myhealth insurance, or something
like that.
The feeling of fear is happeningright in the moment, but the
actual thing you fear is alwaysin the future, and it's not
(10:22):
happening at that instant.
And that's important toremember, and we'll come back to
it.
It's also important to rememberthat there's a difference
between fear and danger.
Danger is an objectivecondition.
It may be physical danger, likethe thing you're standing on
might be about to collapse, orit might be a danger that
(10:43):
something bad will happen inyour life, like a loss of a job
or something like that.
But it's a condition thatobjectively exists.
You might be aware of the dangeror not be aware of the danger,
but that doesn't change thelevel of the actual danger.
But fear, fear is a feeling.
I'll say that again.
Danger is an objectivecondition, but fear is just a
(11:07):
feeling.
It's possible to be in dangerand not be aware of it, so feel
no fear at all.
And it's also possible toexperience fear when you're not
actually in any danger at all.
So today we're talking aboutthat feeling of fear and how to
cope with it.
When powerful emotions like feararise, we sometimes become the
(11:29):
feeling.
We don't just feel angry, we areangry.
Emotions like that can beall-encompassing, like rage or
grief, and of course fear.
So we need to learn how toappropriately modulate fear.
Fear in any moment should informyou, but not define you.
As Dan Milman says, fear is awonderful servant, but a
(11:52):
terrible master.
Besides the terrible way thatfear makes you feel, if fear
becomes the master, it canactually cause a lot of harm,
both to individuals and to oursociety.
People who are scared makemistakes.
We see this overreaction on themat.
When someone fears somethingyou're attacking them with, and
so they overreact to it, and youcan capitalize on that.
(12:15):
When governments are overcome byfear, they overreact to
perceived threats real orimagined, and regular people
usually end up paying the price.
So when it comes to that fear ofsomething right in your face now
or in the near term, you can'tlet the fear take over.
What matters is how you copewith it and if you can assess
(12:35):
its validity and how you can actdespite it.
For what feels like a dangerousor life-threatening situation,
how much fear arises and how youdeal with it can have a lot to
do with if you've been trainedand if you have experience with
that situation or not.
So if you're a martial artistand you have experience with
aggression and fighting, you'lllikely handle a scary
(12:58):
confrontation better thansomeone who's never felt
physically threatened at all.
Or if you're a cop who's been insimilar tense situations before,
you may have developed somesense of how to act or that
you'll be okay, which may helpyou keep your cool and take the
right actions.
Fear can cause adrenaline, andadrenaline, if managed well, can
(13:19):
be useful.
There were a set of studiesconducted by Jameson and then
Crum, including one in 2012called Mind Over Matter, and
this was published in theJournal of Experimental
Psychology, that showed thatpeople who reframed being
stressed as something positiveand helpful had better outcomes.
(13:42):
The stress became sort of aperformance boost rather than a
handicap.
I remember when I was 12 yearsold, during the summer, just
prior to seventh grade and a newschool, some friends and I were
playing basketball in the gym,and this bigger bully kid and
some of his friends grabbed ourbasketball.
We asked for it back, but theywouldn't give it back.
(14:03):
And the bully guy, who we hadnever met, kept saying, Hey,
what are you gonna do about it?
And my friends knew that I wasthe kid who was training in
jujitsu, and so they all, ofcourse, looked at me.
So I gathered my little12-year-old courage and stepped
up to the guy and just asked forthe ball back.
And he said that I should try totake it from him.
(14:24):
And I said, Listen, I don't wantto fight.
And I remember he said, What areyou, a chicken?
And I had this sense that afight was inevitable now.
And I felt the pressure of allthese kids looking at me.
So I said to him, Well, wouldyou fight a chicken?
And he said, Yes.
And the best way I can describeit was rather than succumb to
(14:45):
the fear I was feeling, I usedthat fear to perform a bit of
mood alchemy, transforming mefrom being scared to being
outraged that someone wouldfight someone else who's weaker
and scared.
And this allowed me to focusthat adrenaline outward, and I
hauled off and punched him rightin the face, whipped my head to
the side, flinging my glassesoff in case he was gonna hit me
(15:07):
back so I wouldn't get glass inmy eyes.
And then with my other hand,just punched him so hard right
in the stomach that he doubledover, and then I put him in a
standing guillotine choke.
Now, nothing of that, other thanthe choke itself, was anything I
had particularly practiced forreal on the mat.
But in that situation, and evenas a kid, my training kicked in.
(15:27):
I then let him go and I calmlytook the ball and tossed it to
my friends, and I decided itwould probably be best for me to
then head home before this bullyguy regained his strength and
might try for a round two whereI wouldn't have the element of
surprise and get in that firstpunch.
A side benefit of that day wasit gave me a reputation in
school and no one ever messedwith me again, including that
(15:50):
guy.
My jujitsu at that time was, youknow, kid-level training, but in
adult life, some professionalsface these fear triggers daily.
Over the years, I've taught manypeople in law enforcement, and
as a part of that, I've had theopportunity to do what are
called ride-alongs, which iswhen you accompany police in the
field, like in their car, to goout on calls and see the actual
(16:12):
environment and situations thatthey have to deal with every
day.
And I've noted how when a callcomes in, maybe there's an
active shooter somewhere, theyspin the car around and they put
on the siren and they go as fastas possible, careening towards
the danger.
And in those moments, I alwaysthink like, slow down, guys,
like you can let another cop getthere first.
But cops are trained to actunder this kind of pressure, and
(16:35):
many police officers becamepolice officers because they
actually like that feeling ofexcitement and adrenaline.
So if you have the opportunityto get trained, not just in
physical skills, but in dealingwith pressure or stress, I think
you should definitely do it.
Martial arts training can bepart of that, but if you're in
an art that practices only witha compliant opponent, or only
(16:58):
like striking pads, butbasically where you're never at
risk for being hit or injured, Idon't think you're getting from
that the full buildup ofphysical toughness to
approximate a real fight.
It's the arts like boxing andkickboxing and wrestling and
judo and jujitsu, where you'rein a sport with a non-compliant
opponent, that you can get morerelevant skills for real
(17:20):
physical confrontation.
But even then, unless you'recompeting regularly, you're
likely practicing in a safe andfriendly environment and never
dealing with actual adrenaline,certainly not fear.
That's important because the wayyou react on the mat with your
friends in a one-on-onesituation with the rules of your
sport can be very different fromhow you'd react when suddenly
(17:42):
confronted with a scarysituation on the street that
catches you completely bysurprise.
Fear and adrenaline changeeverything.
It can cause you to freeze or itcan cause you to go berserk and
get tunnel vision, and neitheris good.
That's why I advocate competing.
If you can, we'll be talkinglots about this in future
(18:02):
episodes.
But most people I understandaren't able or willing to
compete in grappling, andcertainly not in boxing or
kickboxing or MMA, where you'regoing to possibly get hit, and
definitely get hit.
So they're not being trained todeal with adrenaline fear.
Fortunately, there are somegreat adrenal stress training
systems like impact and modelmugging that I think are a must
(18:23):
for anyone who wants to know howthey can perform under pressure.
Basically, training to fight isalways about training around the
edges of a real fight.
So we put in rules in thesesports to make things safer so
we can come back again and againand train.
If we're striking, we maybedon't allow certain strikes and
certainly don't allow eyegouging or a weapon or something
(18:45):
like that.
If we're grappling, we don'tallow strikes at all, but then
we can go full force on jointlocks.
The key to think of fighttraining is as this circle.
And in the middle of the circle,that's the real fight that you
might be in one day, wherethere's absolutely no rules.
Maybe it's happening on concreteor on the street or who knows
where.
(19:05):
And with possibly multipleattackers, maybe there are
weapons involved, who knows?
And around the edges of thiscircle are the various points
where you can isolate skillsthat may be relevant when you
step into the circle for thereal fight.
So those are the points that canbe kickboxing and grappling and
weapons training and strengthincrease and increasing speed
(19:27):
and flexibility and all thethings that you can isolate and
safely train.
But the one point that almosteveryone misses is dealing with
adrenaline.
So systems like impact, modelmugging, try to fill that gap.
They use a heavily padded guy, Ithink it's almost always a big
guy, who is screamingobscenities in your face and
(19:49):
shoving you, and who isn'treally going to hurt you.
But I promise you, even if Iwere to give you a nice hug
right now and say in a softvoice, don't worry, my friend,
you're safe.
It's Dave.
I'm not going to hurt you.
And then I put on this giantpadded suit and everybody's
looking at you, and I startshoving you hard and screaming
at the top of my voiceobscenities right nose to nose
(20:12):
into your face, your heart isgoing to race and you are going
to get adrenaline.
It happens to everybody.
And that's what these systemsdo.
And then you get used toexperiencing that kind of
pressure and that bit ofadrenaline, and then you get
used to moving through it andunloading strikes on the
attacker in various ways thathis padding will absorb.
(20:33):
His head and his body and hisgroin is fully padded.
For us grapplers, you can't goputting the guy in an armbar or
leg bar or something like that.
But you can tee off on his bodyand his head, which actually
could be kind of fun.
I'll post a video of me doingthis in the show notes, but it's
an important and an overlookedpoint to train on that perimeter
(20:54):
of the circle that will help youget used to adrenaline and help
you if you're ever suddenlythrust into a real fight.
And I'd add it's particularlyimportant for women to
occasionally train in this way.
Many men, because of their livedexperience in contact sports,
can be more accustomed toadrenaline and roughhousing.
But some men and many women willhave never experienced this type
(21:16):
of verbal abuse.
It's called woofing.
So it's good for them to learnthat they can take it and kind
of get used to it.
Of course, far too many womenhave had personal experience
from abusive relationships.
And that's why courses likeimpact and model mugging have
all kinds of warnings to letpeople know the exact emotions
that they're going to beintentionally trying to trigger
(21:37):
in case that's not somethingthat someone wants to relive.
Now, back to fear specifically.
Fear isn't just about somethingexternal beyond your control,
like an attacker trying to hurtyou.
Sometimes you might also have alegitimate fear about something
dangerous that you actually wantto do for fun, like skydiving or
(21:58):
making a jump from a high rockinto the water or something like
that.
So here's something to consider.
Most people have too thick of aborder between what feels
dangerous and what is dangerous.
They think something isdangerous well before it really
is, and so they overly limitthemselves.
They might stay farther backfrom the edge of a rooftop than
(22:20):
they need to, or not be willingto try rock climbing even with a
rope.
If your border for what feelsdangerous is too thick, you miss
out on fun experiences like rockclimbing or flying a plane or
whatever.
Of course, if it's too thin, youtake risky chances that will
likely punish you or maybe evenworse, get you killed.
So it's always better, ofcourse, to err on the side of
(22:42):
caution, but you can narrow thegap between what feels dangerous
and what actually is dangerous.
And if you can do that, you'llhave a bit more fun in your
life.
We see this in BJJ.
Beginners during a grapplingmatch sometimes feel like
they're running out of air andthey may stop training because
they feel so scared, they'repanicked, and they just think
they have to take a rest andbreathe.
(23:03):
But I've never seen anyoneactually pass out simply from
exertion on the mat.
That's just them thinkingthey're in some sort of danger
when in fact they're not.
A dog can run full-tilt lapsaround the dog park again and
again, just panting and panting,but there's just no drama,
right?
They're just getting out ofbreath.
So I tell people, it's okay,you're not dying, you're just
(23:25):
out of breath.
Count to 10.
And usually by the time they getto five or seven, they're calmed
down enough to realize they'reactually okay.
So here's a quick checklist tosee how warranted your fear of
doing something you might wantto do is.
Number one, what percentage ofpeople ever get hurt or killed
doing this thing?
(23:46):
Is it one in a hundred?
Is it one in a thousand?
Is it one in a million?
Number two, is somebody guidingyou who has a track record of
guiding others safely?
And do they really know whatthey're doing?
Number three, do you have theright equipment if equipment is
needed?
And do you know how to use it?
Can someone double check yoursetup?
(24:07):
Number four, are the peoplearound you doing this thing
again and again and showing youthat it's safe?
Like, are you literally watchingpeople jump off the rock again
and again and have a good time?
And number five, are youactually concerned that if you
do this thing you might have abad outcome?
Or is it more that you're justscared to take the first step,
(24:29):
like to make that jump?
If all of this leads you tobelieve that the objective
danger is acceptable, and thereal problem, if you're having
one, is just your feeling offear itself, then it pays to
learn how to manage that fearand not deprive yourself of what
could be potentially funexperiences.
I've struggled with this myself.
On one of my trips to Brazil,some of the fighters took me and
(24:50):
my then wife on an all-day hikeup a steep mountain called Pedra
de Gavia.
Look it up.
It's a challenging hike thatends in this insane 360-degree
view of Rio de Janeiro.
There's a steep path that startsin a densely forested area and
then opens up to this sheer rockface before you can make it up
(25:11):
to the very top.
We'd been running the path insections and everything was
great, but then we got to thisexposed rock face just prior to
the summit.
To cross that means you'rescrambling across a barren rock
face with no trees or anythingto hold on to, and it's at a
steep grade, and it has thishigh degree of what climbers
(25:31):
call exposure, which means afeeling of nothing between you
and a sense you could fall agreat distance.
It didn't seem objectively allthat dangerous to me, you know,
just be careful and don't fall.
But the penalty for fallingseemed really crazily bad, and
my gut was telling me, you knowwhat, don't try to cross this.
(25:52):
Of course, the Brazilian guys Iwas with had been doing it since
they were kids, and they weretelling me not to be scared and
to just keep going, and the viewfrom the top is totally worth
it.
And my wife felt like she coulddo it, but it just seemed a bit
too dangerous for me, and I feltscared, so I told them to go up
ahead, and I elected to stayback.
Now I'm generally pretty brave,and I've rock climbed before,
(26:14):
and I don't have a particularfear of heights, so it was a
tough decision for me to say Idon't want to continue on
because I didn't want to appearlike a wimp to those guys, but I
just needed to be true to what Iwas feeling.
A funny side note to this iswe'd been running and hiking
hard all day to get up to thatpoint, and it was a hot Rio
(26:34):
summer day, and I was wearingshorts and a thin t-shirt.
And when we got to that heightwhere it was really windy and it
was much cooler, when I stayedback and stopped hiking, and I
began just to hang out for anhour or so to wait for them to
go up to the top and come back,I was getting really cold from
the wind sitting there in my wett-shirt.
And I saw these patches of longgrass.
(26:56):
So I squatted down on my heels,hugging my thighs against my
chest, and I pulled my t-shirtover my knees and around my
legs, and then I startedstuffing this grass up in the
shirt between my knees to makeinsulation.
I thought it was really cleverand it totally kept me warm and
it shielded my chest from thestrong wind.
(27:16):
But when the group came back andsaw me squatting on the ground,
my shirt pulled over with grasssticking out from the top of my
shirt and from the sleeves, itlooked like the scarecrow and
the wizard of oz, and they justfell over laughing.
And Brazilians like to givepeople nicknames.
So from that moment on, mynickname in Brazil has been
Capim, which means grass.
(27:37):
And I tell people it's becauseI'm tall and thin like grass,
but given enough time likegrass, I can break through
concrete.
But now you know the secrettruth of where I got that
nickname.
I should also say I learned whenwe got back that lots of people
stop where I stop because theyget that same feeling and they
get scared.
And in fact, people have diedthere.
(27:58):
All the guidebooks say you needropes to cross that point.
So my fear was justified, eventhough my friends had done it
many times, and to them it wasno big deal.
So it's easy for me to say tonarrow the border between what
you think is dangerous and whatactually is dangerous.
But sometimes we just feel whatwe feel.
Our perception is ourperception, and it doesn't
(28:19):
always line up with objectivereality, but sometimes that's
hard to know in the moment.
We all have our filter throughwhich we perceive the world, and
what's scary or intimidating forone person can seem easy for
another.
Fear is just a feeling, yes, butin the moment, feelings are as
real as anything else.
So don't beat yourself up if youdon't do something because you
(28:40):
find it scary, even if otherpeople are doing it.
They obviously aren't dealingwith what you're dealing with.
But do take the opportunity tolearn about yourself.
Now, what can we do to help inthose moments when we're facing
fear?
How can we act despite it?
I have a thing I call makingfriends with fear.
When fear arises, accept it andsmile and say, hello.
(29:05):
It's a valuable system to keepyou safe, but it's very bad at
assessing reality.
Remember that there's adifference between fear and
actual danger.
Fear is a feeling, and feelingsare not facts.
I'm gonna say that again.
Feelings are not facts.
Fear is about the future.
So remember that.
(29:26):
It's about the future.
So if you can focus on thepresent moment, that brings
yourself back into a space whereyou're not gonna feel as much
fear.
You can say to your fear, I seeyou, but I will not become you.
And you can help me, but youcannot become me.
Fear can be managed with courageif you are feeling it in the
(29:48):
moment, and even with faith.
But the opposite of fear ispeace.
When you feel inner peace,there's just no feeling of fear.
Now, for some people, it helpsto have a spirit.
Spiritual belief or faith.
If you have a strong belief inGod or some higher power, that
can taper your fear.
There's that saying, today is agood day to die.
(30:11):
If you are really at peace withyour own mortality, perhaps
because you're completely surethat something better is waiting
for you, that can definitelyhelp you mitigate fear in a
dangerous situation.
But for most people, the mostaccessible way to mitigate fear,
at least a little bit in themoment, is your breath.
A few slow, deep breaths canhelp calm you and clear your
(30:36):
thinking, even in a scarysituation.
And this isn't just pop wisdom.
There are tons of studies likeZiccaro et al.
2018 called How Breath ControlCan Change Your Life.
It's a review of about 90studies that all show that slow
breathing, around six breathsper minute, calms the mind and
(30:58):
body and improves emotionalcontrol and reduces stress.
This means that breathing slowlyisn't just relaxing, but it
measurably shifts yourphysiology towards balance and
resilience.
When people get scared, theyhold their breath.
It's a bit chicken and egg.
You hold your breath becauseyou're scared, but holding your
(31:19):
breath makes you tense and canmake you more scared.
So consciously breathing deeplyto release that tension actually
causes you to be a little lessscared.
Hopefully, enough so that youcan use your adrenaline to take
the right actions in the moment.
There's obviously so much morewe could say about fear, and
we'll look more at it in acouple of the coming episodes.
(31:41):
But let me leave you with this.
We talk about fear leading to afight or flight reflex.
But between fight and flight isacceptance, doing nothing.
Now, for some animals, thatacceptance between fighting or
running away is playing dead,which is exactly what some
animals do, and it's literallydoing nothing.
(32:02):
But what I mean is going back towhat I said about courage is the
ability to act in spite of fear.
But the opposite of fear isinner peace, acceptance.
So being at peace with what isin the moment is sometimes
what's needed to let fear go.
Remember, fear is just a feelingyou're having, and it's a
(32:23):
feeling about the future.
And if you can accept, I'mfeeling fear, it's just a
feeling, and bring yourself backto your breath, be in the now.
Fear needs you to be thinkingabout the future.
Your deep breathing brings youback to the present moment.
It's what's happening in yourbody in this moment, and you're
focusing on it.
(32:44):
And if you can just accept whatis in this moment, that will
remove the fuel that fuels thefear.
And with the fear taken downeven just a little bit, you can
then act more calmly and ensureyou get the best outcome.
When we decided to go for it andrace a hurricane into New
Orleans to try to save a fewdogs and cats, we acted in spite
(33:06):
of our fear.
But the thing we feared didn'tactually happen.
And our ability to push throughit at that moment and not give
in to the fear is what saved thelives of 15 scared and hungry
dogs and cats.
Fear can keep you alive, yes,but fear can rob you of living
the life that you're here tolive.
(33:27):
Remember, the opposite of fearis inner peace.
So do what you can to fosterinner peace whenever you can,
and it starts with your breath.
More to come about that nextweek.
If you enjoyed this podcast,please remember to subscribe,
like, and share, and pleaseleave me comments and let me
(33:47):
know your thoughts.
If you're listening on Apple orSpotify, a review would really
help us spread the message.
I'll be back next week with morelessons from the lab.
And in the meantime, as always,keep developing your strengths
and your wisdom and go out anddo good in the world.
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