The Process of Fear

I went on a journey to get good at dating.

It began with my roommate. I have always been bad in the singles world, at least.

I had been when I was 27 and all of this happened. My roommate was so bad that our friend gave him a book on flirting for his birthday.

Now, my friend at the time was a musician and a traveling band, so you'd think life couldn't be easier.

He was a musician and his backup was, it was a really, really good magician.

Those are two hobbies that people find engaging and interesting and make it so easy to start conversations.

As you can imagine, he didn't enjoy getting a gift that basically said, "Hey, you're terrible at dating buddy. This can fix you."

When I saw that book, I said, "Hey, can I check that out?" I read it in a single day, I didn't sleep. Took me about 30 hours.

I was so engaged. And if I learned one thing from that book, it's possible to get better.

And if it's possible, then it's inevitable.

If you apply enough motivation and effort to something that's possible, eventually success is inevitable.

It's just a matter of time. Whether it takes one week, one year, or a thousand years. Obviously, I didn't have a thousand years.

And on that journey, which eventually led me to my wife and my children, I had to face my fear again and again, and I'll never forget.

I went to a bar one night right near my house. Hundreds of people flirting at a popular bar and everyone is between the ages of 20 and 30.

I'm standing next to a girl in line. There's nothing happening around us. She's bored. I'm bored.

And I was so afraid. I started crying and I was terrified.

And the moment sticks in my mind because that was a moment where fear crushed me and I could have let it, let it lead me to quitting and giving up.

But instead I saw the opportunity. I said, I'm terrified, but at least I'm trying. And so the first key to success in the face of fear is what I call micro loops.

And that is where you give yourself a reward every time you have a tiny success, no matter how small.

The only reason that I ever got good at dating, was that every time something would go wrong, I would say at least you tried.

So I cried standing next to someone. Nothing happened. We never spoke to each other. She probably didn't even notice me.

I was openly weeping and I went home devastated at my failure, and I looked in the mirror and said, that was one of the hardest things you've ever done, but at least you did it.

And I went on an epic journey that eventually led a publisher to reaching out to me to write a book of my own about dating.

That all started with that pivotal moment of terror and facing my fear.

If there's something you're afraid of, you need to break it down into tiny steps so that you can have tiny successes on the way. And we're going to dig more into this tomorrow.

To Your Success!

Steve.

Master Online Entrepreneur