In this month’s “Own Your Outcome” series, we are focusing on fear.

How fear affects your business, personal relationships (which then affect your business), and your personal perspective (which is the place we all build our businesses from).

Rodger and I already shot this month’s videos about this subject, except for the very last week’s, because we want to wait and address any questions that come up.

That said, I have been thinking a great deal about this. People have already been emailing us, asking questions, and making their points about how they deal or don’t deal with fear, and so I have started taking a closer look at my own process.

SO I have noticed I have one major “force multiplier” in my life when it comes to fear. I’m sure many of you can relate to this.

MORGAN SKINNER!

That’s right: my daughter, or as many call her, my clone (Sorry sweetie, you’re stuck with your Daddy’s looks!).

Quick Disclaimer: As many of you know, I am divorced. My daughter lives 15 minutes away from me with her mom and Popi (stepdad John).

Let me just save time and say that anyone who has been around me on a personal level will tell you I have a very unusual relationship with my ex-wife and her husband.

Since this isn’t today’s topic of conversation, I will just say we are all working very hard to keep Morgan in the center of our decisions, even when it causes us discomfort and pain.

I see my daughter 3 times a week. During our time together, I turn off my phone, email, txt, you name it. As many of my married friends have told me, in many ways I have more quality time with my daughter than they do. Again, this is a great conversation for later, but it’s important for you to know my arrangement before I move along.

Back to the point.

I have noticed in the past few weeks that my time with Morgan is not neutral in any way when it comes to managing my fear and anxiety.

Truth be told, it’s pretty amazing to watch the outcome of my time with her. It seems I can choose to let that time affect me positively or negatively.

I know that might sound awful, but let’s be real. We are all wired in this manner.

We all have relationships that sometimes build us up and sometimes don’t seem to.

I’m not talking about negative relationships here. I’m talking about relationships that affect us all differently, based on what’s going on in our lives.

In other words… it’s not really the person as much as it is what we are focusing on while we are with that person.

Morgan, who will be 3 in November, is the best example I could possibly use.

Just another stressful day of hiding my daughter under a thousand stuffed animals:)

I mean look at her!

She is pure joy and discovery.

We don’t sit around and talk about the economy or family drama. We don’t even discuss the state of my business affairs.

Our drama comes from deciding whether she is going to eat dolphin-shaped chicken nuggets or dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

Are we going to watch Peter Pan (which was my favorite when I was her age and is now hers)

or Annie (not so much my favorite! Mostly because I catch myself singing those songs all day!!! Ugh.)

Yet there have been times when I would swear I was in a worse mood after spending time with Morgan.

I’m an ass… I know. But hear me out:)

I started asking other Dads and Moms (even some grandparents) and you’ll never believe what I found out to be true!

I’M NOT THE ONLY ASS!!!

Hahaha…

The truth is all parents I have spoken with have felt this sensation.

Now let me be clear.

I’m not saying I am amazed to find out parents get stressed with their kids, or that we have bad days with our kids because they have discovered a little thing called “free will”!

No, I’m talking about after a perfectly good, even great day, this overwhelming feeling of anxiety, fear, and yes, even loathing, that seems to creep up on us.

Come on… you know that feeling.

Sunday afternoon around 3 or 4, you start to get this sense of dread. This feeling of being pulled back into the fray.

Almost like Wendy returning home in Peter Pan.

SO what is that?

Well, for me it appears that the more I feel connected to Morgan, and the more time I spend with her, the more I become aware of my own shortcomings as a parent and as a man in general.

I know. I’m not supposed to say that out loud, right?

We Americans love our PC world (politically correct, not your computer, for my dork friends) because we can hide in it so well.

Well, I am saying it.

If I have lost a client or a bid before I get Morgan, and I don’t make a conscious decision to get that out of my mind and focus just on Morgan, I will feel myself getting depressed and even resentful.

There is no way I resent Morgan any more than a sane person would resent a puppy playing with them.

What I believe it is for me is that it sucks to be reminded of how vulnerable I am.

No matter what image I project to the world, my loved ones see right through me!

SO here’s what I do.

Ownership is an amazingly empowering tool if you will just use it!

ACTION PRINCIPAL: I choose to own my feelings and beliefs of inadequacy, doubt and fear.

At the end of the day, 90% of our perceived negative emotions are rooted in just one: FEAR.

I used to be so driven by fear that it cost me my marriage, my business, and several dear friends.

Fear of failure… but as I start to succeed, I have fear of success.

Fear of being alone… but once I have built friends and loved ones around me, I am fearful they aren’t real relationships!

It goes on and on and the only way to stop a life of fear is to take total ownership of those feelings.

Remove the thought that there is any external truth to your feelings and instead look at them from the place of, “Why would I believe this?”

I am choosing to see, imagine, and believe this negative belief, when I could just as easily believe something positive.

Long story short: If I feel inadequate when I am with Morgan, it sure isn’t because she is telling me that or showing me that.

It’s my own internal perspective, skewing my perception of those around me.

When I take ownership of that fact, I begin to see IMMEDIATE results in my attitude, thinking, and actions.

It’s pretty hard to be a failure when no external source can cause you to stop because you OWN it all.

I don’t mean some cheesy mental crap and I don’t mean staying in abusive situations.

I do mean that regardless of how destructive or innocent our environment is, we choose how to respond to it.

How someone responds to their external factors is the SINGLE greatest distinguishing factor in any true success story.

We all fail. Some of us are just better at it than others:)

If this rings a bell for you then just remember this. No one sees 100% of their true POTENTIAL.

Your ACTIONS are based off of your belief of your potential.

Your actions lead to RESULTS, big or small, good or bad. You truly get out what you put in.

Those results shape your BELIEFS. Depending on the nature of the actions you took this either shows you that you can do more and become more or it solidifies what you already believed in your mind.

It’s from these beliefs that we ALL derive our understanding of what our potential is.

So if you start that cycle on a negative you will simply reinforce the negative perspective you had of yourself and that belief is now rooted even deeper in your psyche due to seeing the actions and results.

This is when we all see those folks do the “See I told you so!”

I truly believe it is this fear that is among the greatest in us all. There fear of being told “I told you so” or even worse, saying to ourselves “See I told you so!”

So here’s my question. What are you telling yourself about your potential?

Your “I told you so” could be very positive. It could be “I told you you could get that job!”

See the problem isn’t the process of fear but how we use this process.

I have discovered that left unnoticed I am controled by fear.

Once I acknowledge this process in me I can then OWN this process and use it to grow and become what I desire to become.

In other words I begin to “OWN MY OUTCOME”!!!

Let me know your out there and your thoughts on this.

Please leave comments below or email me directly at damian@riotloungeent.com

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