July 13, 2025 • 13 mins
Far too many of us live in fear when it comes to our business lives. For some of us, it’s financial fear. For others, it’s emotional. No matter the source or type of fear, fear has a debilitating effect on personal and professional growth over extended periods of time. Fear can be a catalyst for action, but accelerated progress can never be made beneath the shadow of a fearful mindset.
The best way to fight fear is to identify what causes it. If you can determine the cause of fear, you can redirect it and make it less frightening for you and your team. Working with executives as a coach I have discovered eight types of fear that are most common to executives:
More on Mindsets
The Chimp Paradox - a better understanding of your mind.
https://betterwellnessguide.com/the-chimp-paradox/
Dream Dare Dazzle
The best way to fight fear is to identify what causes it. If you can determine the cause of fear, you can redirect it and make it less frightening for you and your team. Working with executives as a coach I have discovered eight types of fear that are most common to executives:
- Fear of holding people accountable.
- Fear of making mistakes.
- Fear of leaving a job that sucks the energy out of you.
- Fear of not being seen as smart and successful.
- Fear of upsetting your boss or senior leaders.
- Fear of turning away from current successes in order to have even greater success.
- Fear of investing in one’s self.
- Fear of making decisions.
More on Mindsets
The Chimp Paradox - a better understanding of your mind.
https://betterwellnessguide.com/the-chimp-paradox/
Dream Dare Dazzle
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Everyone, let's continue our journey and transformational leadership. This week.
I'd like to look at the praising principle. In the
last few weeks, we've been talking about the persuasion principle
(00:28):
based on your core values, beliefs, and empowering people. We
continue with that thought in mind. There's a negative mindset
that prevents praising. Leaders who instill in their workers a
(00:48):
supreme conference in their abilities have a tremendous competitive business advantage.
Doing so requires leaders to recognize that workers fears and
uncertainties they're normal, and that they're The leader's primary job
is to help convert workers' fears into what I'd like
(01:12):
to call courageous and excepts with praise purification. Getting rid
of fears eliminating a leader's and negative mindset is in
essential for stat in the praising principle because that proceeds
effectively addressing the reasons why workers don't live up to
(01:36):
their full potential. Its inhibitor have found to effective praising
and in turn higher performance is not the skilled set
of the people involved, but rather their mind set. In
this fast paced world of work today, the fastest way
(01:57):
to trans transformational results as you've got it is to
cultivate the correct mindset by planting and thinking that allows
you to flourish whilst eliminating the thinking that holds you back.
(02:17):
There are three primary mindset inhibitors to keep leaders from
praising others as well as themselves. Addressing these three negative
mindsets fasters more praising and purifies the unwanted and limiting
(02:37):
aspects of your leadership to The three points are holding
on to the past, being your own worst critique, and
living in fear it's now. I'd like to discuss with
you the first two. Holding on to the past. It's
(03:01):
a powerful force capable of propelling us towards our goals
or holding us back from our potential. Unfortunately, most of
us letter let it hold us back. I remember speaking
with a vice president of a project in abid Abi
(03:23):
that he was the project leader of the VP, and
we talked about it during a coaching session, about the
delay and eventually how it was unsuccessful. Now as as
you may think, or correctly or otherwise, or incorrectly or otherwise.
(03:48):
It led to accusations and finger pointing, but everyone involved
the VP was solely responsible for failure. VP fel attacked,
thrown under the bus. Was he responsible, yes, for a
few contributing factors, but so were the senior leaders who
(04:12):
failed to read the executive breetings and later claimed a
cut off guard when the information made it onto their
radio screens. The VP looked around the executive table and
saw leaders who only these earlier agreed with him regarding
their responsibility for the failure, but there remained silent as
(04:38):
senior leaders read him their riot act. The resentment the
VP held after this meeting just didn't go away. It
didn't go away. Instead, it lingered, had a long term
adverse effect on the mindset of the VP as well
as his department, and as you could well imagine, it
(05:01):
also infected the rest of his team and strained the
working relationship between his team and other leaders. Although the
VP needs to be acutely aware of the political and
cultural nuances of leading within an organization, what's equally important
(05:24):
is not carrying the past around like an anviough. What
this VP needed was to reframe the past and reclaim
the best bits and most desirable failure and context of
the cultural implication. I remember a conversation I had with
(05:45):
a plant manager a site. Well, it was actually the
operations plant manager was running a workshop and process safety
and integrity management and he worked for Shell actually, and
he said to me he had a conversation what a
vice president for him that was one above. The project
(06:08):
was quite a failure. It was during a workaround or
a turnaround, that's where you do the annual maintenance in
the plant, and there was a number of catastrophic failures
and the planning and the way it was organized that
resulted in the plant being shut down for a number
of weeks. Get hauled in to see the vice president
(06:32):
thought this is it when we sat going to lose
my job and he said to him, so what did
you learn from this event? And he explained the various
things that went wrong and with hindsight, what would be
better to do? And he said, okay, don't let it
(06:54):
happen again. And he looked at them really taking off guard.
They said, I thought I was coming in here to
get sacked. And the response was, why do you think
I would sack someone that just had a two million
pound learning experience. Happens again, you'll be sacked. Make sure
(07:18):
that these lessons learned are deeply ensconced within you and
your team, and make sure that you tell people what
happened and the lessons learned, so this never never happens again.
The second one is being our own worst critique. During
(07:41):
I know reviews, leaders and workers might hear ten well
done to ten accolades about the performance throughout the previous
year and maybe one area for improvement. I would say,
at least an excess of eighty percent of my clients
tell me that, well we're all said and done, the
(08:04):
focus on the one area for improvement, and this miss
what they've done well. This is really like driving one
with one foot and accelerator and the other on the breaks.
This for me, and I'm sure you would agree, it's
not a strategy for accelerated performance. In fact, it guarantees
(08:27):
reduced performance and increases a personal level of satisfaction and effectiveness.
The dilemma that we all have is most people, I
would say yes, listen to two mental radio radio stations
(08:49):
on a daily basis. The first first station broadcast positive
the filming messages such as you're really talented, you're acceptionally
good at making complex ideas and making them practicable and applicable.
The other station isn't nearly nearly as pleasant to listen
(09:11):
to who do you think you are? You can't do that.
You're not half as good as you think. Whichever station
you listen to influences very powerfully the message you broadcast
to others, and then that that's a rum. Unfortunately, the
(09:33):
second radio station gets far more airtime than the first,
also broadcasts a higher volume. And I would suggest we're
so accustomed to listening to negative broadcast in our minds
that thinking positively of ourselves is considered boastful and arrogant.
(09:57):
If we feel that way about ourselves, think about the
implication for message es to workers and customer. There's a
beautiful book that summarizes some of these thoughts called the
Chimp Paradox, The Monkey Mind, or the Chimp Mind by
Steve Peters. It speaks to this mind model of creating
(10:23):
this mind management program for confidence, success and happiness. But
of course, what we've said there about all these boastful
and arrogant thoughts that we have couldn't be further from
the truth. Beating yourself up doesn't do anyone any good.
(10:47):
You you alone have the capacity to be your biggest
advocate or your biggest critic. Every day you wake up,
make the choice. Which radio station are you tuning into.
If you're tuning into the negative radio station playing in
your head, the chimp brain is time to change the station.
(11:11):
By taking stock of what you pay attention to on
a daily basis, you can determine whether the negative or
positive messages gets more of your time. If you're listening
to your biggest critic more than your biggest advocate, then
it's clear this is time for us to make a change.
(11:33):
Good news is I would suggest you that once you
commit to shifting your focus from negative perspective to positive ones,
you'll begin to create a different experience for yourself.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
As well as for everyone around you. You'll provide greater
praise and recognition by turning your mindset to what's working.
As an executive, as an influence, as a leader, it's
your responsibility to make sure your mindset is tuned into
the correct radio station and that you broadcast this marvelous
(12:13):
mindset to others. And of course you've got the opportunity
when you broadcast positivity of transforming fear into fortunes.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Next week, we'll explore in a weey bit more depth,
why there's fear in people, Why there's fear in organizations,
and let's see if we can get a wee bit
more understanding of why people are not living, in doing,
and being their very best, all the best, live life
(12:52):
with passion. Say you again next week
Everyone, let's continue our journey and transformational leadership. This week.
I'd like to look at the praising principle. In the
last few weeks, we've been talking about the persuasion principle
(00:28):
based on your core values, beliefs, and empowering people. We
continue with that thought in mind. There's a negative mindset
that prevents praising. Leaders who instill in their workers a
(00:48):
supreme conference in their abilities have a tremendous competitive business advantage.
Doing so requires leaders to recognize that workers fears and
uncertainties they're normal, and that they're The leader's primary job
is to help convert workers' fears into what I'd like
(01:12):
to call courageous and excepts with praise purification. Getting rid
of fears eliminating a leader's and negative mindset is in
essential for stat in the praising principle because that proceeds
effectively addressing the reasons why workers don't live up to
(01:36):
their full potential. Its inhibitor have found to effective praising
and in turn higher performance is not the skilled set
of the people involved, but rather their mind set. In
this fast paced world of work today, the fastest way
(01:57):
to trans transformational results as you've got it is to
cultivate the correct mindset by planting and thinking that allows
you to flourish whilst eliminating the thinking that holds you back.
(02:17):
There are three primary mindset inhibitors to keep leaders from
praising others as well as themselves. Addressing these three negative
mindsets fasters more praising and purifies the unwanted and limiting
(02:37):
aspects of your leadership to The three points are holding
on to the past, being your own worst critique, and
living in fear it's now. I'd like to discuss with
you the first two. Holding on to the past. It's
(03:01):
a powerful force capable of propelling us towards our goals
or holding us back from our potential. Unfortunately, most of
us letter let it hold us back. I remember speaking
with a vice president of a project in abid Abi
(03:23):
that he was the project leader of the VP, and
we talked about it during a coaching session, about the
delay and eventually how it was unsuccessful. Now as as
you may think, or correctly or otherwise, or incorrectly or otherwise.
(03:48):
It led to accusations and finger pointing, but everyone involved
the VP was solely responsible for failure. VP fel attacked,
thrown under the bus. Was he responsible, yes, for a
few contributing factors, but so were the senior leaders who
(04:12):
failed to read the executive breetings and later claimed a
cut off guard when the information made it onto their
radio screens. The VP looked around the executive table and
saw leaders who only these earlier agreed with him regarding
their responsibility for the failure, but there remained silent as
(04:38):
senior leaders read him their riot act. The resentment the
VP held after this meeting just didn't go away. It
didn't go away. Instead, it lingered, had a long term
adverse effect on the mindset of the VP as well
as his department, and as you could well imagine, it
(05:01):
also infected the rest of his team and strained the
working relationship between his team and other leaders. Although the
VP needs to be acutely aware of the political and
cultural nuances of leading within an organization, what's equally important
(05:24):
is not carrying the past around like an anviough. What
this VP needed was to reframe the past and reclaim
the best bits and most desirable failure and context of
the cultural implication. I remember a conversation I had with
(05:45):
a plant manager a site. Well, it was actually the
operations plant manager was running a workshop and process safety
and integrity management and he worked for Shell actually, and
he said to me he had a conversation what a
vice president for him that was one above. The project
(06:08):
was quite a failure. It was during a workaround or
a turnaround, that's where you do the annual maintenance in
the plant, and there was a number of catastrophic failures
and the planning and the way it was organized that
resulted in the plant being shut down for a number
of weeks. Get hauled in to see the vice president
(06:32):
thought this is it when we sat going to lose
my job and he said to him, so what did
you learn from this event? And he explained the various
things that went wrong and with hindsight, what would be
better to do? And he said, okay, don't let it
(06:54):
happen again. And he looked at them really taking off guard.
They said, I thought I was coming in here to
get sacked. And the response was, why do you think
I would sack someone that just had a two million
pound learning experience. Happens again, you'll be sacked. Make sure
(07:18):
that these lessons learned are deeply ensconced within you and
your team, and make sure that you tell people what
happened and the lessons learned, so this never never happens again.
The second one is being our own worst critique. During
(07:41):
I know reviews, leaders and workers might hear ten well
done to ten accolades about the performance throughout the previous
year and maybe one area for improvement. I would say,
at least an excess of eighty percent of my clients
tell me that, well we're all said and done, the
(08:04):
focus on the one area for improvement, and this miss
what they've done well. This is really like driving one
with one foot and accelerator and the other on the breaks.
This for me, and I'm sure you would agree, it's
not a strategy for accelerated performance. In fact, it guarantees
(08:27):
reduced performance and increases a personal level of satisfaction and effectiveness.
The dilemma that we all have is most people, I
would say yes, listen to two mental radio radio stations
(08:49):
on a daily basis. The first first station broadcast positive
the filming messages such as you're really talented, you're acceptionally
good at making complex ideas and making them practicable and applicable.
The other station isn't nearly nearly as pleasant to listen
(09:11):
to who do you think you are? You can't do that.
You're not half as good as you think. Whichever station
you listen to influences very powerfully the message you broadcast
to others, and then that that's a rum. Unfortunately, the
(09:33):
second radio station gets far more airtime than the first,
also broadcasts a higher volume. And I would suggest we're
so accustomed to listening to negative broadcast in our minds
that thinking positively of ourselves is considered boastful and arrogant.
(09:57):
If we feel that way about ourselves, think about the
implication for message es to workers and customer. There's a
beautiful book that summarizes some of these thoughts called the
Chimp Paradox, The Monkey Mind, or the Chimp Mind by
Steve Peters. It speaks to this mind model of creating
(10:23):
this mind management program for confidence, success and happiness. But
of course, what we've said there about all these boastful
and arrogant thoughts that we have couldn't be further from
the truth. Beating yourself up doesn't do anyone any good.
(10:47):
You you alone have the capacity to be your biggest
advocate or your biggest critic. Every day you wake up,
make the choice. Which radio station are you tuning into.
If you're tuning into the negative radio station playing in
your head, the chimp brain is time to change the station.
(11:11):
By taking stock of what you pay attention to on
a daily basis, you can determine whether the negative or
positive messages gets more of your time. If you're listening
to your biggest critic more than your biggest advocate, then
it's clear this is time for us to make a change.
(11:33):
Good news is I would suggest you that once you
commit to shifting your focus from negative perspective to positive ones,
you'll begin to create a different experience for yourself.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
As well as for everyone around you. You'll provide greater
praise and recognition by turning your mindset to what's working.
As an executive, as an influence, as a leader, it's
your responsibility to make sure your mindset is tuned into
the correct radio station and that you broadcast this marvelous
(12:13):
mindset to others. And of course you've got the opportunity
when you broadcast positivity of transforming fear into fortunes.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Next week, we'll explore in a weey bit more depth,
why there's fear in people, Why there's fear in organizations,
and let's see if we can get a wee bit
more understanding of why people are not living, in doing,
and being their very best, all the best, live life
(12:52):
with passion. Say you again next week
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