Archive for the ‘Fear’ Category
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
I was asked yesterday what emotional resilience has got to do with honesty. Try this…
You know when you have said something in the privacy of your own home about someone and the kids have overheard you? For example you say that Mrs. Goggins from No 43 is a mean old git or something similar.
Then when you are with your young child in the street and you meet Mrs. Goggins, What is the one thing you pray your child doesn’t do right now?
Yeah that’s right be honest! You may recognise the feeling of the moment your child pipes up “Hi mrs. Goggins my Mum / Dad thinks (as you leap for their mouth) you are a mean old git” and you lie by saying something like, “Oh no I think she/he must have got confused we were talking about another Mrs. Goggins.”
Then in all cringe making innocence daughter or son pipes up “No Mum/Dad you said it was her, you know, this Mrs. Goggins, from number 43, you said mum/dad, you said.” as you start to die inside, “Oh look at the time, must dash, lovely to see you Mrs. Goggins, as always.” and under your breath, just loud enough for you your son/daughter to hear, “Wait till I get you home. you really embarrassed me”.
Now we all have opinions of people that we don’t tell people. We often rationalise it as ‘Not wishing to be hurtful’ or ‘I don’t want to cause trouble’, or ‘better let sleeping dogs lye’. What we actually mean (because we are often not being honest with ourselves) is “I don’t like the feelings and don’t want the consequences of being that honest.”
Fear usually drives our lack of total honesty. It takes courage and emotional resilience to really say what we really think and face up to the fact that it is often our lack of courage (not the other excuses) that prevents us from voicing our opinions.
The other side of this coin is people being totally honest with us; being told something (feedback) about ourselves that we don’t like and we don’t want to hear, no matter how true it might be. Something that ‘hurts us’. Often we rationalise this by deflection by saying something like ‘Oh it’s ok they are just in a mood’ or something like that to shift the blame and the emotional consequences. It takes real emotional resilience to firstly hear what people are saying about us, often with their body language and then face up to it and truly and openly explore the feedback for what we can learn and change about our attitudes and behaviours.
Just a thought.
Dave
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Monday, February 22nd, 2010
On the Fear Course we often get people who find it difficult to identify and articulate the range of emotions they feel. As a result when it comes to being able to deal with their emotions and being emotionally resilient they find it a tough job. They know something is causing problems and they know it’s a fear or anxiety, but they struggle to describe what the feeling is. We do a little exercise at the start of the day where we get people to start to articulate what they are feeling and when they feel it. We ask them to decide on the level of fear or anxiety they have in certain situations. A proportion of people struggle with this task.
Often in family, schooling and work systems emotions are not discussed, identified and recognised. In fact often people are told “not to be emotional”. Frequently we find that displays of emotion are considered to the the cause of ‘discomfort’ (another emotion) and therefore need to be removed from the situation as they are ‘unhelpful’.
The reason people have such problems with emotions is that they have not been shown how to be comfortable with them. I frequently find in my research that the most emotionally resilient people are those who recognise and accept their and other people’s emotions (emotional intelligence). As a result they find it fairly easy to then regulate their emotions (emotional resilience), even in really difficult situations.
The process of getting people, particularly children comfortable with something as natural and human as emotions has become known as emotional literacy. Usually the process of developing emotional literacy has a number of elements:
- Learning to recognise an emotion as it happens,
- Being able to label and identify our emotions and the difference between them,
- Being able to express or articulate our emotions in a healthy way,
- Recognising emotions as they occur in others (empathy)
- The ability to regulate our emotions (emotional resilience) rather than our emotions driving our behaviour and thinking.
However many people have not developed these abilities and are in actual fact uncomfortable or even scared of their own emotions find it difficult to cope when others are displaying their emotions.
Some schools and parents recognise the importance of emotional resilience and have started to develop emotional literacy programmes. In the mean time what about the adults who haven’t had the benefit of developing emotional resilience? The foundation of the Fear Course is exactly that. To help people get comfortable with their emotions and learn to regulate them quickly and easily. More about emotional literacy soon…
Posted in Emotional Resilience Research, Fear, emotion regulation, emotional literacy, emotional resilience | No Comments »
Friday, February 12th, 2010
One of the things we show people on the Fear Course is the research into the connection between the food they eat and feelings of anxiety, including a couple of case studies we talk about on the course. Recently we have been doing some experiments with clients on diet and cooking methods. Here is a very brief summary of what we found. I will prepare a full paper and download it to the articles and notes area soon.
When we started the test the participants had a Fear Factor (FF) average score of 8.2 with a range of 7.7 to 9.6
The group who ate normally (No dietry change) had an average FF of 8 before the test and 8.1 afterwards.
The group who cut out all fried foods had an average FF of 8.1 before the test and 7.8 afterwards
The group who stopped eating refined sugar products, sweets, chocolate and other sugary foods AND drinks went from a FF of 8.2 to 6.4
The group who only stopped fizzy drinks reduced their FF 8.1 to 7.1
The group who cut out salty snacks, crisps, slated nuts etc. had an average FF of 8.2 before the test and 7.4 afterwards
Who ate raw vegetables only went from a FF of 8 to 5.9.
There were some other conditions (like stopping alcohol, caffeine, meat etc.) in the experiment which I will cover in the paper.
You can see our up to date Fear Course dates and locations here: http://www.fearcourse.com/
Posted in Emotional Resilience Research, Fear, diet and anxiety, emotional resilience, overcome fear | No Comments »
Sunday, February 7th, 2010
I was recently sent an article that was distributed to advertising copywriters. The article starts out by giving advice on how advertisers can use benefits in their advertising copy. And then it moves on to explicit instructions of how to use fear to get people to buy products. Her is the advice advertisers are given:
“Every benefit is just one side of a coin; the other side is a fear.
Because while prospects desire all these things, they also fear NOT having them in their lives. They fear poverty and dependence … illness and pain … being abandoned and left alone, and being thought little of.
And so sales copy that promises to deliver a much-desired benefit and alleviate a nagging fear can be twice as effective as copy that focuses on benefits alone.”
The article, by an advertising consultancy company then go on to give explicit instructions on how to use fear to get us to buy their products. Here are some lowlights of advice given to professional advertising copy writiers:
“If you’re going to invoke fear in your sales copy, make sure it’s a fear that’s already waking your prospects at 2:30 AM in a cold sweat.” - This advice is given so advertisers don’t waste their time and copy on trying to instill new fears. It’s easier and cheaper to use fears we already have apparently.
“If you’re going to use fear in your copy, make sure it’s an imminent fear. Something that is likely to happen in the very near future – or better yet, at virtually any moment.” it then goes on to state that people don’t act on distant fears, ‘you have to make them imminent and gives many advertising examples including “In other words, someone near you was a victim of a violent crime in his or her home yesterday. If it was your next-door neighbor, you’re many times more likely to be buy a burglar alarm today than if the victim was a mile or ten miles away.”
“Using a fear that paralyzes prospects won’t do you any good and it sure won’t help your prospects.”. The moral for advertisers here is that “I do not want him frozen into inaction by the fear”.
“Pushing your prospects’ panic buttons is pointless unless you can show how your product eliminates the cause of his fear.” - The advice here is that advertisers don’t waste time and money “invoking a fear that isn’t actionable”. In other words the fear you use must drive ‘prospects’ to a sale, “it must be actionable.”
Lastly the guide ends on a cheery little piece of advice to advertisers:
“A little fear goes a long way. It’s a powerful attention-getter. Used correctly, it can add dimension to your product’s benefits and motivate prospects to order now.”
We all know advertisers often use fear to sell. I just wasn’t aware how cynical, clinical and purposeful the practice was.
Advice: If you are about to buy anything just question your motivations for doing so and make sure you aren’t being manipulated. The more emotionally resilient you are the less likely advertisers fear inducing tactics are likely to work.
Posted in Fear, Fear Course News, emotional resilience, impulse control | No Comments »
Saturday, November 7th, 2009
 Should you memorize your speech? I have been doing a scan of advice given about wedding speeches on the internet for a booklet I am writing for the groom, best man and father of the bride who have to give speeches at weddings. One topic keeps raising it’s head. Should you memorize your speech?
Now as a father of four daughters, having been married twice myself and someone who does a fair bit of public speaking this is a topic close to my heart.
Just about every blog and article on the internet advise that you memorize your speech. So I did some research asking speech givers if memorizing their speech helped with their nerves. I asked via The Fear Course Community on the online course, through 5 other discussion boards and in a series of face-to-face interviews. In all I had 512 responses from people who had actually made a speech at a wedding and who had memorized their speech.
So does memorizing a speech help to allay public speaking nerves?
Results:
Yes it really helped: 132 (25.78%)
No it made them worse: 339 (66.2%)
I’m not sure it made any difference: 41 (8%)
So the vast majority thought memorizing the speech made their nerves worse. But why?
Posted in Fear, groom, wedding anxiety, wedding nerves, wedding speech | No Comments »
Friday, November 6th, 2009
 Ask a silly question. How many times have you not asked a question for fear of looking daft?
I do a lot of work in organisations as a consultant and coach. One of the things being an outsider gives you is the ability to ask ’stupid’ questions without people looking to the sky and tutting. Actually even when I was in an organisation I was always pretty good at asking stupid questions.
Anyway what I have frequently found is that it is the stupid question that unblocks things.
A recent example comes from a group I was working with who kept using the phrase “Learning Culture”. I listened for a while and then wondered what they meant. So I asked “What do you mean by learning culture?” Simple question really.
One of the group looked at me and shook his head in horror. However there was total silence. Not one of the group could answer the question even though they were engaged in trying to develop ‘a learning culture’.
As it happened this question unblocked the whole discussion and moved the group on a long way.
I just wonder how often people get into conversations at work, hear phrases or ideas, wonder what they are and don’t ask for fear of looking stupid? I wonder how many projects go T.U. because people are scared to ask or to point out flaws in things at work? I wonder how many bosses don’t get the truth about what is really happening and all because of a lack of emotional resilience?
A bit of emotional resilience would help organisations in lots of ways…
Posted in Fear, emotional resilience | 1 Comment »
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
“Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear.” Albert Camus
Posted in Fear, Fear Quote | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
From our research over the last seven years, one of the key attributes of emotionally resilient people is a belief in the temporary nature of whatever is happening.This is a good technique for overcoming fear.
Many people live so much in the moment in times of crises that they can’t see beyond now, especially when they are in a heightened emotional space. The emotions are so here and now for them that they find it difficult to project out of their current situation and foresee a time when the emotion will have gone. This is called a Permanence Mindset.
What we discovered with emotionally resilient people is they tend to have a belief in the future and they know that whatever is happening now is just a phase or a passing moment. They know and believe fear is just a temporary state and they will return to normal. This is called an Interim Mindset.
When you have an interim mindset the fear starts to dissipate on its own. It doesn’t have the hold on us it once had. Our mindset is a vital tool for overcoming fear.
Posted in Emotional Resilience Research, Fear, emotional resilience, overcome fear | No Comments »
Saturday, August 8th, 2009
I hear a lot of talk about people with phobias. I often hear people say things like ‘I have a phobia about’ … flying, or spiders or beards or anything else you care to mention. I have just added an article to our Articles and Notes section of the website called:
Overcoming Fear: What is and what isn’t a phobia. Eating peanut butter and the odd case of the spotless garage.
The article looks at the difference between a fear, a dislike and a phobia. It is quite revieling about what people think are phobias and what phobias actually are. Mostly when people use the word phobia they mean something else.
Posted in Dislike, Fear, Phobia | No Comments »
Sunday, August 2nd, 2009
Another interesting thing about the Yemani airlines crash is that it wasn’t reported – guess where? You got it in the Yemen. Often governments, corporations, organisations and individuals who control the information about things do so out of fear. What would happen if people knew the truth… golly they might be able to make rational decisions.
In the UK we call it spin. If it happens in a country we don’t quite see eye-to-eye with we call it propaganda. If a company does it to customers we call it marketing! The phrase I really loved was ‘being economical with the truth.’
This now famous commentcame from the UK Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, who used the phrase during the Australian ‘Spycatcher’ trial in 1986.
Lawyer: What is the difference between a misleading impression and a lie?
Armstrong: A lie is a straight untruth.
Lawyer: What is a misleading impression - a sort of bent untruth?
Armstrong: As one person said, it is perhaps being “economical with the truth”.
Oh Veritaphobia, from the Latin veritas; is the pathological fear of the truth.
Posted in Fear, Fear of flying | No Comments »
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