Overcoming Fear

I remember the moment as if it were just the other day.

The doctor came into my room and informed me that he had put in an order for me to go home. I had been in the hospital for a month following open heart surgery to repair an acute aortic dissection (a condition where the aorta splits open). The surgeon and his team had to replace the entire upper arch of my aorta to save my life 1,581 days ago at the time I wrote this article, so my heart is comprised of 25-30% synthetic material.

By all accounts, I should have died in my sleep...nobody wakes up when it happens in your sleep but somehow I did.

After six hours of surgery, a week in a coma, and a total of one month in the hospital, I'm told it's time to go home. While most people find the idea of being discharged from a hospital as one to celebrate, I was terrified. Truth be told, I had done everything in my power to extend the stay because fear had taken hold of me. I could not imagine being at home and having something go wrong...not having the call button for a nurse or doctor to come and fix whatever might be wrong. In no way did I feel qualified to go home and take on this responsibility. On top of the basic recovery issues, I was still recovering from the emotional roller coaster of the experiences and dreams that had been my reality for a week while in a coma (that's a story for another time).

Despite how I felt, it was time to go home.

All of us confront these moments when facing a new reality, the unknown, a crisis, or some other overwhelming challenge...and fear has overcome us. We have to confront it, choose to move forward, and fight through it.

Next month, I will lead a session for my colleagues in the Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA) on confronting and overcoming fear at the Leadership FPRA session in Orlando. I'll share some of my experiences and then take them through an exercise to demonstrate how we all can break through fear to achieve important things. The exercise comes from my experience as a martial artist and involves breaking a wooden board. I hold the rank of a Master and Fifth Dan (fifth-degree back belt) in Tae Kwon Do and have done board and concrete breaking throughout the numerous testings over the past 25 years. So, for me, this is something I am very familiar with, have done consistently over the years, and am confident that I can complete the task.

Some of the Leadership FPRA participants will be overcome by the fear that they can't do this. However, we will go through a number of exercises to prepare for the break -- mentally and physically -- and everyone will succeed at it. One interesting note about board breaking in martial arts is why we do it. Simply put, it's a celebration of our advancement and illustrates our commitment to continue on the path by increasing the difficulty and challenge of the break.

I've included a video of the break I did for my third-degree black belt. In this situation, I was supposed to break three tiles, however, my grandmaster decided it wasn't a good enough test for me and "suggested" I break three concrete blocks.

I had practiced the tile break for weeks in preparation for the testing. So, when she changed the break, it completely changed the test. Fear crept in. Could I actually do this? You'll see the results in the video (please forgive the quality) or the photo above. What made that possible? How did I overcome fear?

This is a beautiful illustration of trust. Trust is an antidote for fear. This begins with trust in ourselves or trustworthiness. I had to trust that I could do this and not injure myself. In addition, I had to trust my grandmasters and instructors that they were not putting me in a situation I could not handle. This is the same process I had to go through when I was sent home from the hospital. First I had to build trust in myself to do the things I needed to do to manage my recovery, develop strength, and build a new, healthier lifestyle. In the early days, the exercise was just to get outside and walk (slowly) for 15 minutes. None of it was easy, but steadily, over time I got more confident, stronger, and was able to go farther and longer.

Ultimately, I found my resilience and completed my first half-marathon in January 2021.

Fear can be debilitating.

You can overcome it by building trust in yourself first and cultivating trust in those around you. This begins with small steps (for me that started by walking for 15 minutes) and over time, getting strong enough to do much harder things (completing a 13.1-mile half marathon).

I'm excited to meet the 2023-2024 Leadership FPRA class next month and take them on this journey of breaking through and overcoming fear.

In your role as CEO, or at level of leadership, you must alleviate fear where you can by cultivating a high trust culture. I've developed The CEO Trust Blueprint for leaders to do just that, if you'd like a copy click here.