Start Something That Matters

by Blake Mycoskie

Fear stays with us throughout our lives. When we’re unemployed, we fear that we’ll never get another job. When we do get a job, we fear being fired. When we invest our earnings, we fear losing our savings. And when we start our own company, throwing in our own savings and efforts and faith, we fear losing everything. Since fear is going to be with us for the rest of our lives, we must learn to face it, and the first step is understanding what fear is. Fear happens when we feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible situation or event—in other words, something that hasn’t even happened yet. It’s our brain’s way of telling us to pay attention and to alert us to dangers or risks. Without fear, our ancestors would have walked right up to a saber-toothed tiger or woolly mammoth and become that night’s dinner. We no longer face prehistoric predators, but we still need to listen to fear when it warns us not to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, pick a fight with someone twice our size, or walk into a busy street without looking.