“What’s the worst that could happen?” – that’s what I was telling myself each time I was getting out of my comfort zone. Another rejection? Beach please. My first “seed” investor pulled out of the project “Family” at 3 months old, offering my mom a choice between an little Kamila orphanage giveaway or his permanent unsubscribe. Never even checked if his MVP survived. Better for him. Not so, for my mom. With my appetite, I probably turned out to be my mom’s worst ROI ever (that cash burn on maintenance alone :). So yeah, clients ghosting me? That’s just another Tuesday. After a 100th one, the 101st just rolled off me like water off a duck’s back.
Fear has been my constant companion through every major leap. Ok, sometimes my ‘brave’ actions were due to plain naivety or stupidity, e.g., when doing bungee jump in Thailand in a place with questionable safety measures. Moving to London alone at 19 was exciting, but also damn terrifying. I had to work while studying just to afford being here. Starting a business with zero connections and idea how to land clients was even scarier. Back home, my mom represented the typical Polish approach to security in times of communism – one job for life. Safe, stable and boringly predictable. That was the worst fear for my future. I just knew I wanted the opposite.
“Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Nelson mandela
Your brain wants you to run, Lola, run.
It’s wild how fear hijacks our brains. We’ll waste years playing it safe in jobs we can’t stand, lose sleep spinning worst-case scenarios, and check our phones a hundred times waiting for bad news. We’re so focused on what could go wrong that we’re blind to what could go spectacularly right (our innate loss aversion plays a role here too). But how many times did your worst fears actually materialise? I’m guessing close to… none?
Luckily, sometimes we manage to override that glitch. It’s a bit comforting that it’s all ground in good ol’ science that says your brain literally can’t be anxious and creative at the same time. Activities engaging the Default Mode Network (btw, the more I read about neuroscience, the more fascinating the whole relation with AI and neural networks stuff is) – the brain’s ‘imagination network’ active during creative thinking or doing – tend to quiet the amygdala, which drives our fear response. Flow states during creative work trigger dopamine release that can help counteract anxiety’s stress hormones. Some artists say that mild anxiety (like your yesterday deadline) can occasionally enhance creativity. It’s not a perfect on/off switch, but rather a complex neurological dance.
So when you’re dead awake at 3am at night imaging your worst fears, don’t worry – you’re not alone. It’s just your prefrontal cortex – our logical brain center – operating at reduced capacity. This explains why potential disasters seem so much more plausible in those dark hours. Your brain’s threat-detection system runs unchecked by rational thought.
Keep calm and carry on is a sound advice, after all.
We all feel fear.
Even the most established, successful people do so. But they lean in anyway. Richard Branson was a dyslexic kid who dropped out of school, now running a business empire. He says he still gets nervous before public speaking, but he doesn’t let it stop him. He just reframes it as excitement rather than fear. (Although I am not so sure if after so many years of rehearsals it still renders true. Most likely such stories are just more convenient and “cute” for personal branding warming, but anyhow, they make for a good argument.)
Fear not only never gets away, it often amplifies. Fear of success often feels worse than fear of failure. Scaling a business isn’t just about bigger numbers – it’s about more relationships, more responsibility, more potential for things to go spectacularly wrong.
Be worthy of your fear
American business culture worships at the altar of ‘fearless hustle.’ Everyone’s a CEO-founder-ninja-rockstar posting about their 5 AM workout routine while popping antidepressants like Tic Tacs. This ‘Fear is for losers’ mindset might look great on motivational posters, but it’s about as realistic as those ‘live, laugh, love’ signs in startup offices.
Jeff Bezos got famous for telling his employees to wake up “terrified” every morning (he since then took it back – probably after realising that ‘terrified employees’ doesn’t look great in ESG reports). Amazon is one of the most successful companies ever built, but at what cost? Running your engine in the red zone might work for a while, but eventually something’s going to break. But fear not. In a world where everyone’s actually disposable, it’s just old-fashioned exploitation wearing a Patagonia vest. As long as those quarterly reports keep the shareholders in their summer Hamptons’ homes, who’s counting the burnout rates? Robots are coming, anyway. And they are not going to complain about lack of wee breaks. (Or so the big tech bros hope).
In the latest Diary of a CEO episode, Dr. Martha Beck nails it when she talks about the anxiety spiral in business – fear of failure leads to over-control, which leads to more fear. Your team doesn’t need another ‘fearless and hustling’ leader – they need someone honest enough to admit that sometimes success means being scared shitless but showing up anyway.
The British approach fear with their signature ‘keep calm and carry on’ stoicism – essentially institutionalised repression with a side of a cuppa. Their solution to any crisis, from a missed deadline to an actual war, is to pretend everything’s perfectly fine while stress-drinking Earl Grey. And history shows it’s surprisingly effective, in a sort of “if you ignore it hard enough, maybe it’ll go away” kind of way.
The Japanese have a saner take, though. Fear isn’t something to beat into submission between your morning cold plunge and your bulletproof coffee. It’s something to acknowledge and work with. The Japanese are not trying to be fearless. They’re trying to be worthy of their fear.
How do you know when fear is protecting you versus paralysing you?
Some say listen to your gut – it knows when something’s off. But our bodies are complicated. That knot in your stomach could be your intuition saying “don’t do this deal” or just last night’s questionable Indian takeout. And in today’s world of constant connectivity and social media comparison, our fear sensors are constantly bombarded and overloaded.
But where there’s a problem, there’s an opportunity. We’ve created an entire, very lucrative industry around ‘conquering’ fear, with self-help books and courses promising to cure our anxieties. Yet the real solution is simpler: befriend your fear. Acknowledge its presence, understand it, but don’t let it control you.
Most decisions aren’t irreversible, anyway. If something doesn’t work, you can always pivot and try another approach. The media thrives on selling bad news, painting headlines in the most alarming colours possible. That’s why I avoid consuming too much news – although it’s challenging to find truly informative pieces that aren’t loaded with fear-inducing rhetoric.
Every notification, catastrophe screaming clicbait’y headline, like, and digital ping is essentially playing ping-pong with our stone-age brain. We’re running the most advanced software on hardware that evolved to spot lions in the savannah, so no wonder we’re experiencing digital-age anxiety attacks.
But contrary to what the news might suggest, the world is actually in a better state than ever before. Extreme poverty has plummeted from 36% in 1990 to less than 10% in 2015. Child mortality rates have halved and global literacy has risen to 86%, up from 70% in 1990. Life expectancy has increased from 67 years in 2000 to 73 years in 2020. We’re making strides in renewable energy, nearly eradicating diseases, and solving complex global challenges.
It’s the best time to be alive, so how can you stop wasting it by living paralysed by fear?
You are because we are
The Africans have the concept of Ubuntu ‘I am because we are’, but isn’t just a philosophy, it’s an actual survival strategy. When you find your tribe, those kindred spirits who see your potential even when you can’t see it yourself, you can overcome your demons easier. When you add a purpose and work on something bigger than yourself, it becomes a mission so compelling, that it can transform your fear into fuel.
For years, getting customers for us was like trying to sell sunscreen in London – technically necessary but nobody was buying it. We just knew we understood the technology and saw the massive problem of fragmented data in large organisations. We wanted to build something meaningful, something we’d actually be proud of but we’re geeking out too much on data possibilities instead of taking about good plain cost reduction / savings increase. After countless rejections, a few clients gave us that initial credit of trust and we did everything to overdeliver. They helped us simplify the message too and help state the obvious (which we thought is unnecessary).
Meaningful impact comes from showing up, again and again and living up to your promise. Now, I’m sitting at tables I once only dreamed of – working with stock-listed companies, collaborating with the UK police. I am heard. I am seen. And I’m damn proud of what we’re building.
I no longer fear being ridiculed or downplay my worth. I learned that you always have something unique to offer – your fresh, unbiased perspective is your greatest asset. At least that’s what I tell myself when I reach out to people way more established than myself, I still do get rejected a lot. But some do respond and meet me. That’s why I managed to meet many C-level senior leaders or get prominent names on my Are You Human podcast. It’s just the numbers game with a much of a FOMO and Domino coming in play. The more you try, the more chances you get at succeeding. And the more success you get, the bigger names/numbers you’re able to ‘close’. People start associating you with those names and they feel like they’re missing out. And I know I could be doing even more and growing even faster once I completely stop doubting my capabilities. It’s a work in progress, that I’m getting better at every day.
I see that very little happens by pure accident, and almost nothing happens exactly according to plan. You make things happen with purpose and intention. So show up when you’d rather hide. Make the call you’ve been avoiding. Admit when you don’t know something and ask for help. (Pro tip: Admitting you don’t know something is way less embarrassing than pretending you do and then spectacularly failing.).
And those who claim they’re never afraid? They’re either living the most boring, safe life imaginable or are plain liars.
