“Anytime I see something screech across a room and latch onto someone’s neck, and the guy screams and tries to get it off, I have to laugh, because what is that thing.” – Jack Handey
Harry Potter may be fictional, but if he were real I’d try my best to get his story into our quaint little Muggle book. There is one small attribute of his character that represents an enormous and liberating truth about the battle against fear.
Voldemort, the villain of the Harry Potter series, is such a terrifying and dark figure that the vast majority of the wizarding population can’t even bring themselves to say his name. They call him “You-Know-Who” out of fear of wetting themselves, annihilation at the hands of the Dark Lord himself, or both. Harry is one of the few characters in the books brave enough to say “Voldemort”, and that’s not just because being afraid to say a word is a ridiculous concept. Harry knows that to fear the name is to fear the being, and he figures, how can you fight something you can’t talk about?
It’s no coincidence that many of Fear.less’s contributors are writers and speakers. Pema Chödrön, Seth Godin and Julia Cameron are all prolific authors. Benjamin and Rosamund Zander have cranked out a book. William Ury has written a few. Immaculée Ilibigiza’s is great. Seth, Danielle LaPorte, Chris Guillebeau and others have popular blogs. The Zanders, Karen Armstrong, and Jacqueline Novogratz have all given TED talks. The list goes on. These are successful people who know how to get messages across. Their ability to articulate their fears is not only what makes Fear.less possible but also what helped them overcome their own personal Voldemorts.
A few contributors (I won’t spoil which ones) present the idea of taking a good look in the mirror to figure out what exactly you’re afraid of. Identifying, classifying, pinpointing the nature of their fears play a big role in their stories. These people know that if something has a name, it exists. If it exists, it can be destroyed. With talking, writing and fleshing out comes information and knowledge, and knowledge is power. There’s a reason “the truth will set you free” is such a popular Bible passage.
Other contributors go on about support systems or transparency which are neat entrepreneurial jargon words for discussing your concerns with others. In general, things get less scary when everyone knows a lot about them, and that’s sort of the point of Fear.less in a nutshell.
In commemoration of seeing your fears in your reflection, today’s Fear.less editing soundtrack sample is Nine Inch Nails – Right Where It Belongs. It also features the notion of your world being all in your head, another theme among various Fear.less contributors. And I didn’t give one for the previous post on Seth Godin, so here: A Perfect Circle – Rose, a great song about rising up from the paralysis of fear.
What is that thing? Find out, and you will be empowered.
The concept of knowing something to make it less scary is pretty powerful.
I’ve recently pondered whether it isn’t that very concept which drives Apple’s success in the IT and consumer electronic space. Their technology is just as complicated – if not more – as all their competitors, yet Apple fund a way to make light of it. Their offerings aren’t overly complex and bogged down with data. Instead, they focus on what their customers want to use their products for and make smart decisions on what to include, what to omit and how to talk about it. The result is a small assortment of high-quality products and a simple, uncomplicated copy. Takes the fear right out of the equation, because even though you still don’t know what you’re getting, you feel it taken care off by someone who does.
you have a really good point there. apple is so sly with their marketing. the soft white computers and putting “i” in everything… it’s so non-threatening. it just says “here is what you want”.