Face Fear Forward

Download Your Stress to Success Blueprint

Fear shows up at work wearing many masks—delay, overthinking, quiet meetings, and the idea you never pitch. We turn that static into signal by reframing fear as information and walking through a five-step, science-backed method you can use in minutes to move from stuck to started. 

You’ll hear a candid story about my dreaded client call that ended with unexpected ease, and you’ll learn why our brains often inflate imagined outcomes while ignoring real evidence that would calm the room.

We explore a 5-step technique to help you break the paralysis. Along the way, you'll get to practice language shifts that downshift reactivity, simple prompts to surface hidden assumptions, and concrete ways to test risk before you take it. 

Whether you need to have a hard 1:1, present a bold strategy, or raise a red flag no one wants to name, this framework helps you act with clarity, not bravado.

Download Your Stress to Success Blueprint

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:08):
Welcome to Mindful in Five, where busy
professionals find your peacefuloasis to thrive in complex work
environments.
I am Spewa Jefferson, attorney,certified mindfulness
practitioner, and author of theMindful in Five book series,

(00:29):
here to guide you to a clearer,softer, and more supported life.
Join me and your fellow mindfulninjas as we explore
science-backed mindfulnessstrategies for successful
leaders that you can implementstarting with just five minutes

(00:49):
a day.
Elevate your work, empower yourlife, work higher, live
stronger, let's go.
What would you attempt at workif you knew that fear was just
information, not a stop sign?

(01:11):
What if you embraced the notionthat courage is not the absence
of fear, but the will to act inspite of it?
Welcome to the Mindful in FivePodcast, five-minute mindfulness
for high performers.
Today our topic is facing fearforward, and we'll be exploring

(01:34):
a technique to address it.

Here's the situation (01:37):
you are paralyzed.
There's a conversation you needto have, a project you need to
pitch, or a risk you need totake.
But fear has you frozen.
Maybe it's fear of failure,rejection, looking foolish, or

(02:00):
heaven forbid.
Maybe it's even fear of success.
So you procrastinate, makeexcuses, or play it safe while
opportunities pass you by.

(02:23):
So if this describes any daythat you have ever had, here is
a way that you could think aboutit.
Fear is not your enemy, it isyour compass pointing toward
your next level of growth.

(02:45):
I'm going to share with you atechnique that you can use to
have difficult conversations,launch new programs, or take
career risks that transform yourprofessional life.
This technique, I'm gonna giveyou the acronym, part of the

(03:07):
mindful in five approach is tocreate short acronyms, usually
four to five letters, that standfor a science-backed technique
that you can use as amindfulness or meditation tool
to address something specificthat is related to something

(03:32):
that's happening in your life.
Because a lot ofhigh-performing, hard-charging
professionals aren't satisfiedwith just becoming.
They want to know what they cando.
And what you can do is use thetechnique that is the acronym

(03:55):
FATSI.
F-A-C-E-E.
The F stands for FEAL.
Feel your fear and give yourselfthe space to acknowledge his
presence.
Mindfulness is being present inthe moment without being

(04:20):
overwhelmed and withoutjudgment.
One effective way to acknowledgeyour fear without being
overwhelmed by it is not toidentify your whole self as
being the emotion.
In other words, rather thansaying, I am afraid, try saying

(04:43):
fear is here.
Or I feel fear, or I amexperiencing fear.
Pick one, either one, anyone.
Separating who you are from howyou feel allows you to make more
objective decisions even whenyou are experiencing intense

(05:06):
emotions.
I remember once in my career, Ihad to call and tell a client
that her son would not be cominghome because his bail had been
denied as a criminal defenseattorney in my early years.
Well, back then I had notdiscovered mindfulness, so in my

(05:26):
head, I was my fear.
I was so stressed because I knewshe would be disappointed.
She might think I didn't doeverything possible to get him
out.
What if she got mad and refusedto pay our fees?
So all day I stressed.
After my first task, I thought,ugh, I have to call Mrs.

(05:49):
Jones.
Through every other task, thewhole day I worried.
Dang, I have to call Mrs.
Jones.
So this takes us to the A in theacronym FASI.
Acknowledge.
Acknowledge the thoughts andbeliefs fueling your fear.

(06:10):
Go deep beyond the first andsecond surface layers.
Really ask yourself what'sdriving the sensation of fear?
The answer might surprise you.
The C is for consider.
Consider the worst casescenario.

(06:31):
Is it truly likely to happen?
Say I broach the sensitivesubject with my employee.
What's the worst that willhappen?
He might get mad.
I'll talk him off the ledge.
We'll work through it.
Worst case scenario, I'll sendhim home to cool off.
In most cases, your colleagueswon't jump over the table and

(06:51):
attack you.
This takes us to the E in FASI,the first E.
It stands for explore.
Explore your options and stepsyou can take to address the
fear.
Sometimes facing the worst casescenario will make the source of

(07:12):
your fear smaller andmanageable.
The last E is engage.
Take small, manageable stepstowards facing it.
Maybe you just need to get thetask over with.

(07:44):
Remember my call to Mrs.
Jones.
Well, I finally called her atthe very end of the day.
I remember literally wincing andducking as I told her the bad
news.
Fortunately, she was on thephone, so she didn't see my
anguished conniptions.

(08:05):
So I told her.
Then there was this longsilence.
Finally, she said, Oh girl, Ididn't expect him to come home.
I was so taken aback.
And she said, I've been tellingthat hard-headed boy he'd get

(08:28):
into a jam like this if he keptrunning with those no good
friends of his.
Has this judge ever granted bailin a case like this?
That was her question.
And I had to admit, no, thejudge had never granted bail in
a case like this.
And she said, Well, there you gothen.
So she was clearly expectingthis outcome.

(08:53):
And I hastily agreed because shewas absolutely right.
And here I was, having spent thewhole day stressing over telling
her something that she had beentelling her son all along.
So, what does success look like?
You volunteer for thechallenging assignment, you

(09:15):
speak up in the meeting withyour bold idea, you have that
difficult conversation that'sbeen weighing on you for months.
Fear becomes the fuel thatfosters preparation instead of a
barrier.
What is at stake?

(09:37):
Let fear make your decisions,and you will spend your career
wondering, what if?
What if I had said yes?
What if I had spoken up and saidthat thing?
And this is really bad,especially if you thought it,
and then somebody else said it,and then they got all the
credit, and everybody was like,Bravo, brilliant, applause,

(09:58):
applause, and then you'resitting there like, my gosh, I
had that idea three months ago.
Face fear as data, and you willbecome the person who gets
things done when others arestill debating whether it's
possible.
Courage is not the absence offear, it's acting in the face of

(10:20):
it.
So your next step is to identifyone fear-based decision that you
have been avoiding this week.
Use FASI to take one small steptoward it today.
Then visit spiojefferson.com tolearn how I can help your team

(10:42):
transfer fear into fearlessaction.
Your breakthrough is on theother side of fear.
Until next time, this is Spiwesaying be mindful and be well.

SPEAKER_00 (10:57):
Thank you for listening to Mindful and Five.
If you enjoyed it, share it witha friend, follow, and rate it on
your favorite podcast platform.
Pick up your signed copy of thebook and journal from
speewayjefferson.com, orunsigned copies from Amazon,
Barnes Noble, or wherever youget your books.

(11:17):
Visit speedwayjefferson.com todownload sample chapters of the
book, watch videos, and become amindful ninja.
Join us on the LinkedIn Mindfuland Five group and share your
thoughts.
Until next time, be mindful andbe well.