What's Really on the Other Side of Your Biggest Fear?

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Fear stands at the threshold of every meaningful breakthrough waiting to be conquered. In this raw and revelatory conversation, we peel back the layers of what it truly means to walk by faith through our most terrifying uncertainties.

Laura begins by sharing her impossible-seeming dilemma as a household breadwinner carrying significant debt while yearning to pursue her calling. "How am I supposed to make this kind of money doing the work you want me to do?" she questioned, until a divine nudge challenged her to simply trust. What followed was nothing short of miraculous provision that defied logical explanation.

My own journey takes a different path but resonates with the same truth. From losing my mother at ten, to facing repeated basketball team rejections, to pioneering as "The Black Tech Guy" in an industry where no one looked like me, each challenge required confronting fear on increasingly higher stakes. The ultimate test came when I received the call to leave behind 99% of my material possessions—abandoning unicorn startup ambitions for a three-year walk through darkness that many viewed as irresponsible or erratic.

The revelation? Everyone's mountain is their mountain. Your version of fear—that difficult conversation with your spouse, that career change, that relationship you need to repair—feels just as overwhelming to you as our challenges did to us. The weight is relative, but the principle is universal: whatever you're avoiding because it terrifies you is precisely what stands between you and your fulfillment.

What fear are you brushing under the rug today? Take courage from our stories and know that peace awaits on the other side of your bravest moment.

Checkout Laura King as a Peak Performance Coach + Speaker on her website:

https://www.lauraeking.com/

Subscribe to Laura's Peak of the Week:

https://www.lauraeking.com/peak-of-the-week

Checkout Mondo Davison as a Believer Speaker on his website:

https://www.aramondo.com/

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So first let me refresh your memory on the
statement that Laura said at theend of the last episode.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
What is coming up for me now is there are probably a
lot of people and their ego issaying must be nice to be you,
must be nice to be Mondo.
You know, you have it allfigured out.
Oh, please, let me tell youthat is not the case.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm like.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I have been the breadwinner in my household.
My husband left corporateAmerica and opened a music
school, so we have a lot of debt.
Um, and and this is what's heldme back for so long is because,
okay, yes, we can make certainlifestyle adjustments,

(00:48):
absolutely.
But there was still this numberhanging over my head.
This number hanging over myhead how God, am I supposed to
make this kind of money doingthe work you want me to do?
I don't know.
I don't know.
And the story I told myself isthere's not a way.

(01:09):
There's not a way.
And I sat in that for way toolong and that was part of my
unhappiness and my uneasiness isbecause the story I told myself
was it wasn't possible.
And then something lifted lastspring no, no fall.
It was last fall where I heardit's like Laura, would you just

(01:33):
trust me, would you just trustme?
And a series of events unfoldedthat just blew my mind and the
money came, came and Brian waslike Laura, I don't feel
comfortable you doing anythinguntil we have like six months of
income built up and you know,we got four kids and we, you
know we've got all these things,and and then God just provided.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yo, at the end of that, laura dropped some fire
right, like there is thisuncertainty, this level of
discomfort that she had to make.
That were scary and I want topiggyback it.
And the only way my perspective, my add-on perspective, works
is if you know a little bit moreabout my mindset.
I am the dude in the room whojust have always had unlimited
confidence, and I can say abunch of words about how
confident I am, but I like touse this analogy that's tied to

(02:50):
brushing your teeth, and so hereit goes.
So I really want you to thinkabout yourself and think about
your morning routine, and inyour morning routine, I imagine
you brush your teeth.
I don't know if you get rightup and go into the bathroom and
brush your teeth, if you makecoffee first and then you brush

(03:13):
your teeth, whatever that is.
You have a routine on how youbrush your teeth.
You did it yesterday the sameway and you are going to do it
tomorrow the same way.
Same way, and you are going todo it tomorrow the same way.
Imagine if you were having thisconversation with God and you
were like God.
I am extremely confident that Iam going to brush my teeth

(03:36):
tomorrow the same way that Ibrush my teeth today.
That level of certainty thatyou have on brushing your teeth,
nothing's going to disrupt that.
You are as close to 100% surethat you are going to brush your
teeth that way tomorrow.
That same level of confidencethat you have on brushing your

(04:00):
teeth the same way tomorrow I'mbrushing your teeth the same way
tomorrow.
That same level of confidence ishow confident I have always
been in myself, and thatconfidence in myself led me to

(04:22):
believe I was going to sell astartup for over $1 billion.
It's actually somewhere betweena billion and 11 ones left.
Of the decimal 11 billion, one,one, one, one one.
The reason I bring this up isbecause I had zero doubt, or as
close to as zero doubt aspossible.
If you compare it to the doubtyou have on brushing your teeth

(04:45):
tomorrow, it's equivalent to.
So this isn't about me sellinga company for a billion dollars,
but it is about the fear thatyou have in whatever you are
doing or whatever you must faceis equivalent relative to

(05:07):
Laura's fear, to my fear, toanybody else's biggest fear.
So I want you to get to know mea little bit better and this
might help you out.
So I was always the mostconfident dude in the room.
It didn't matter what room Iwas in.

(05:27):
I just have an epic imaginationand the way that I perceive
myself is being the good guy inthe story, being the brave,
being the courageous archetype,like the character in the story.
The hero is in the storydoesn't matter what movie I'm

(05:51):
watching.
I'm always like how do Icompare, how do I match up?
How was my character aligned orbetter or more balanced than
the hero in this story?
And it's just something that Ihave always nurtured, always
wanting to just be the bestversion of myself, and I had

(06:12):
some amazing role models.
So my first role model was mydad.
My mom passed in a tragicaccident when I was 10 years old
, moved in with my dad, me andmy younger brother who's three
years younger than me, and mydad was that amazing present
father who always filled my cup,who always said Mondo, I just

(06:37):
want you to be better than me.
And so my dad was that nine tofive worker, put in overtime,
always just ensuring that thestability was there.
Mondo, you don't have to work,just focus on the thing that you

(06:57):
feel like pulls at your heart.
Early in life it was sports.
Eventually it became business.
After that it became this blindjourney to build a relationship
with Christ.
But the reason why I highlightthat is because at every major

(07:18):
step of my journey I had to facethe fear that was relative to
me.
I had to face the fear thatallowed me to break through, to
hit whatever that next level was.
So here's an example.

(07:40):
I remember I went to theUniversity of Tennessee my
freshman year of college and Iplayed basketball and here in
the city I was, I had a giftright, led the conference in
scoring.
I felt like I could lock downanybody else on the court.

(08:00):
I had the thing, but I didn'thave a division one scholarship
to a school that I wasinterested in.
So I said I am going to goattempt to walk on to the
university of Tennessee and Igot there and tried to walk on
and I got cut.
It's the first time I have evergot cut from anything.
I was always the coolest dudein the room.
I now reflect back and I'm justlike, oh, that was a good,

(08:23):
humbling experience.
But I just kept working,continued to persist to develop
the character, to be a betterversion of myself, and I
transferred from the Universityof Tennessee to Florida A&M
University and this was thefirst time in my life I had a

(08:47):
fear of pursuing something thatI felt like was destined for me.
I literally packed up all mystuff from University of
Tennessee, drove to Florida A&Mand I had to go, walk into a
coach's office and say I'm asophomore student here, I was

(09:08):
recently cut from University ofTennessee, but I deserve to be
on this team.
I had nothing else except forthose words.
I was scared.
I was scared of the rejection.
I remember sitting outside thegym for about 30 minutes

(09:34):
listening to the same track overand over and over and over
again, trying to develop theconfidence Similar to Laura when

(09:55):
Laura highlighted how she wasgoing to have a conversation
with her employer and she waslistening to Christian music on
the highway to just find thestrength, find the courage to go
do the thing.
And I remember going in andhaving this conversation and
coming out feeling so refreshedlike you did it.
You did the courageous thingand at that time it was the
hardest, simplest thing that Ihad to do.
There was just some fear.

(10:19):
I ended up not making the teamand I tried to walk on again the
following year and not makingthe team again.
I went from being star playerin my hometown to being cut
three times in a row in threeconsecutive years.
Okay, but Mondo, you're stillthe coolest character in the

(10:44):
story.
Continue to be resilient, fastforward.
I played basketball at a smallerjunior college and eventually I
just stopped playing because Ihit 25 years old.
I said if I'm not playingoverseas or professionally by 25
, god give me a different plan.
So at 25, I hung up my shoes,stumbled into education as an

(11:08):
educator, into education as aneducator.
As an educator, I leaned intotechnology.
Around the same time and when Isay leaned into tech, the whole
startup culture in the TwinCities was absent of people that
looked like me.
There were very few startupfounders that were black in the

(11:35):
Twin Cities and I rememberstepping into this industry,
having this nine to five job asan educator and outside of that,
like, hey, I want to build thisamazing startup.
And every room that I walkedinto I seen nobody that looked
like me and I had asked myselfdo I belong here?
I had to walk in with my headup high, knowing that no one

(12:01):
else in that room is seeing theworld the way that I see it so I
could have shriveled up.
Instead, I doubled down.
I I adopted this brand theblack tech guy, and for almost a
decade, every room that Iwalked in, you know, I had this
big old brand on my chest sayingthe black tech guy.

(12:23):
I was unwilling to let thebarrier of nobody that looked
like me be the thing thatstopped me from doing a thing I
felt like I was called to do.
Again, there's some fear thereof stepping in and being the
first to do it.
I'm building upon this storybecause the college experience

(12:46):
and having to be resilient overand over and over and keep
getting these no's stepping intotech and building this brand
and building cool technology andthings that I felt like could
impact community, but stillnever fully breaking through,
still not finding an investor togive me seven figure investment

(13:08):
and to continue on that pathand say like I know.
And to continue on that pathand say like I know, I know I'm
not supposed to stop.
And then one day, a series ofevents happen and God's like no,
I need you to leave 99% of yourmaterial possessions and follow

(13:32):
me.
What Hold on?
I just worked super hard tobuild this wealth, to build
these relationships, to buildthis identity, to have this

(13:54):
confidence, to sell a company Atunicorn status For a billion
dollars or more.
I have unwavering belief that Ican do this.
But, god, you're saying, leaveit all.
I had to choose to be obedientand leave it all and have no

(14:20):
idea what was on the other sideof this blind faith walk.
Now I have a Patreon ofdocumenting this.
For years, the first 12 episodesof this podcast is me sharing a

(14:41):
capstone in sports, in business, and then in darkness, and at

(15:08):
every level, I had to face thisfear.
I had to break throughsomething to reach this balance,
peaceful version of myself.

(15:28):
And so Laura says at the end ofthis last episode that some
people are saying it must benice to be you, laura.
It must be nice to be you,laura.
It must be nice to be you,mondo.
It's not about it being nice tobe us.
We just chose to face yourversion of those fears.

(16:03):
Now let me do something elsethat's extremely challenging.
Let me have this courageousconversation with my spouse.
Whatever, that is Right.
It's that thing that reallyscares you.

(16:25):
It's that thing that can blowup your family, but you've been
avoiding it, you've been hidingfrom it, you've been brushing it
under the rug.
You've been hiding from it.
You've been brushing it underthe rug.
You've been doing everythingthat you possibly could do
instead of facing it, becauseyou're scared.
We all have that fear.

(16:49):
Laura's was having aconversation with her employer.
Along with many other things,mine was leaving 99% of my
material possessions and walkingthree years in darkness not

(17:13):
knowing where God was guiding me, having a whole bunch of people
thinking I was beingirresponsible, erratic.
How could you blow up your lifethat way, mondo?
Oh, it's all in God's plan.
So, whatever your thing is,whatever fear is standing tall

(17:43):
in front of you, face it andfulfillment is on the other side
.
Peace.