How to Overcome Fear: The Framework Nobody Taught You || Masterminds Podcast EP69

Download Achieve By Petra – https://app.theachieveproject.com/PSL0001000

Everyone wants to overcome fear. But most people are trying to fix the wrong thing.

In this solo episode of the Masterminds Podcast, Richie Mensah breaks down what fear actually is, where it really comes from, and the practical framework for getting past it — for good. Fear is not the disease. It is only the symptom. And once you understand what is actually causing it, you will never look at fear the same way again. From walking at the bottom of the sea in Zanzibar to walking with lions in the wild, Richie draws on his own experiences to bring this framework to life in a way that will stay with you long after the episode ends.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why fear is not the disease — it is only the symptom, and what the real cause is
• Why every fear you have comes from a lack of knowledge — and how to fix that
• Why a courageous person is not someone who feels no fear — but someone who moves through it
• The bird on the branch principle — and why building your skills is the real antidote to fear
• How to take calculated risks instead of blind leaps
• The overthink the positive framework — and why imagining the worst is a choice, not a reflex
• Why being delusional about your potential is actually a mark of a true entrepreneur

Chapters

00:00 – Fear Is Not the Disease. It's the Symptom. 00:45 – Sea Walking in Zanzibar: A Personal Fear Story 02:38 – How to Identify and Dissolve Your Fear 03:15 – The Bird on the Branch: Build Your Skills 05:18 – Courage Is Moving Through Fear, Not Away From It 07:07 – Overthink the Positive: The Framework 09:56 – How Richie Applied This When Starting Masterminds 12:19 – Take Calculated Risks — Not Blind Leaps 15:17 – Summary and Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

One of the things most people are suffering with is how to overcome fear. So today's episode, we're going to take our time to dissect what fear really is and how to get past it. So the first thing you need to understand is that fear is not the disease. Fear is only the symptom. So fear comes from a lack of knowledge. Anytime that you are afraid of something, the fear is coming from you, the fact that you don't know enough about it. You don't know what's at the end of the rope. Let me give you an example. It's like a child being afraid of the dark. The child does not actually fear the dark. What they fear is all the things they imagine to be in the dark because they cannot see. But the moment the light comes on and they see the empty room, the fear is gone. So the fear was really an ignorance of what was going on around them. So the first thing to understand about fear is anytime that you are facing anything that makes you afraid, it's an indication that you don't know enough about the situation you are in. I remember when I was going to walk under the sea. Crazy experience where I was going to actually walk at the bottom of the sea. And as I was going and I was feeling afraid, thinking, what if something goes wrong? I saw the tall guide. You know, while they had given me the safety gear and everything so I can survive, I saw the tall guide just jumping into the water, swimming all the way to the bottom and coming up like it was. He wasn't wearing any gear, he was just having fun, swimming with the fishes. And it made me realize something. Okay, the only reason I'm afraid is because this is my first time. I'm afraid because I don't know the outcome. I'm afraid because I don't know how many people have done this, how have they been able to, you know, do it without getting hurt or anything? I was having all these questions in my head. So my lack of knowledge is what made me afraid. So to overcome the fear, all I did was before we went under the water, I took out my phone and I Googled to see other people who had gone seawalking. And here they were under the water, holding hands and dancing and everything. I realized, well then, I don't think this is as scary as I'm imagining it to be. So the first thing to understand, I repeat, you overcome fear when you realize that the fear comes from not having enough knowledge. So anything that you are afraid to do, anything you're afraid to try, that person who's afraid to start a business is because you don't understand business. So anytime that you start to feel fear towards anything, take practical steps to overcome it. The first thing is identifying what you're afraid of, then identifying the ignorance that you have when it comes to that situation. What don't you know that makes this scary to you? Read about it, watch about it, inquire about it, learn about it, and then develop the skills needed to be able to overcome that fear. And developing the skills brings me to something. One of my favorite sayings a bird does not land on a branch because it trusts the branch not to break. It lands because it trusts its wings to fly. Think about that. Listen to it again. A bird does not land on a branch because it trusts the branch not to break, it lands on the branch because it trusts its wings to fly. The way you overcome situations is not by thinking that the situation can never get bad. It's by improving your skills to know that if anything goes wrong, you can handle it. So my seawalking example. The reason I was afraid is I'm not skilled enough in the water. If anything goes wrong, if the helmets shift and water starts to go up, or you know, anything goes wrong, I'm not equipped to handle it. So I was afraid. But this guide was floating around and diving to the bottom like a fish because he knows he's a skilled diver. He knows he's an expert swimmer. So it's not that he's not afraid that something can go wrong in the water. He knows whatever goes wrong, he can handle it because he's skilled. Any situation that you are afraid of, become the person who can get past that situation. You know, somebody who knows how to fight martial arts is not afraid to walk around in the night. Because you should be afraid of him, not him being afraid of you. Someone who understands finances is not afraid to start a business because they know how to manage the business finances. Somebody who's an excellent tailor knows he can finish the job in two hours. So he's not afraid to take a last-minute order because he trusts his skills. So overcoming fear does not come from the situation being safe, it comes from you being equipped to handle the situation. So for any particular thing you're afraid of in your life right now, identify the skills needed to overcome that situation and start working on those skills. Work on becoming the person who can get past it. You know, I've met a lot of people who had talking disorders, who were shy, couldn't come on stage and stuff. And they didn't expect the anxiety to go away, they didn't expect the crowd to change. Instead, they developed their skills on how to talk in public. So they'll try in front of their friends all the time, they'll keep practicing, they kept doing it till they were so good that the fear was no longer a part of them because now they trusted the skill. And that brings me to one of the biggest misconceptions when it comes to fear. A lot of people think that a courageous person, a brave person, is not afraid. You are 100% wrong. Every person has fear, but the difference with a courageous person is they act in spite of the fear. They understand that they are afraid, they understand that things can go wrong, but they are choosing to still take action regardless of the fear. You know, fear is actually just our brain's way of warning us, it's our brain's way of keeping us safe, guiding us, letting us know that the situation you are putting yourself in right now could harm you. So fear is a good thing, but you are not supposed to act based on the fear. You are supposed to be courageous to know that things can go wrong, but I will be careful, I will be skilled, and I will get past it. So a courageous person moves through the fear, not away from the fear. Now let's come to a framework that I like to use to overcome fear. I call it overthinking the positive. You know, a lot of people say, I'm an overthinker, you know. But why are you always overthinking the negative? You know, when people say they are overthinkers, what they really mean is that they are just creating every negative scenario in their mind. All the positive negatives is what they are consistently daydreaming about. You do not know what is going to happen in the future. In fact, you don't know what's going to happen in the next two seconds. None of us are in control of the world. The only thing you can control is yourself. So, my question is: if you don't know what is going to happen next, why are you spending your brain power? Why are you spending your energy imagining all the negative things that could happen? You are coming to start a business. Hey, what if it fails? What if nobody buys my product? What if nobody follows me? What if nobody likes me? You're a content creator, you come to post your first video, what if I don't get any likes? What if my friends laugh at me? What if, you know, what if this? What if that? Try overthinking the positive. You're a content creator and you're about to post for the first time. What if people really enjoy it? What if people like it? What if people want to see more of me? What if everything is going so great? I need to open multiple channels. Since we are playing a what if game, because let's be honest, we are all just dreaming of what is going to happen. So, since it's just imagination, why not imagine the positive? The possibility of the negative happening is equal to the possibility of the positive happening. So, why are you spending your time overthinking the negative? And the worst thing that you hear someone who overthinks the positive say is, I'm realistic. No, you are not. Because we don't know what reality is, we don't know what's going to happen. Do you know that Netflix opened before Google? But Google was successful way before Netflix. At that time, I'm sure everyone would have said Netflix is a flop. But we didn't know what was going to happen, and they succeeded. If Netflix had stopped at any point in time where they were making losses, we would forever remember Netflix as a flop. But they kept going, we didn't know the future. But now on hindsight, we can say, oh, these guys were visionaries. So the truth is, we don't know how it's going to go. When I was going to start Masterminds, I had no idea how it was going to go. Everybody's always known me as the music man. Oh, Richie can produce, Richie can manage artists, he builds stars and everything. Out of nowhere, Richie wants to start sharing knowledge and giving advice. I had no idea how it was going to go. But did that make me think it was going to go bad? No. I imagined, hey, what if people really like how I speak? What if people really want the knowledge I'm about to give them? What if masterminds go so well that Ghana is not enough and I need to go to South Africa and interview people? The moment I was starting masterminds, I started to overthink the positive. You know, this is why I always say one of the marks of a true entrepreneur is you need to be delusional. Because you need to be so positive that there's no room for failure. So overthink the positive. You're about to go skydiving and you're thinking, what if my parachute doesn't open? What if I fall flat on the ground? What if I throw up in the air? You are thinking about all the things that can go wrong. What if you have an amazing time? What if you love the feeling of the air on your face? What if this is the most liberated you've ever felt in your whole life? Overthink the positive. I walked with the lions. And as I was going to walk with the lions, all I was thinking is, what if this is an exciting moment? What if the lions actually like me? What if I get amazing shots? What if I feel alive walking in the wild with the king of the jungle or the king of the Sahara? Think positive. And I don't just mean think positive. Overthink the positive because you don't know what the outcome is going to be. And most of the time, when you are expecting a bad experience, you bring that bad experience upon yourself. Even the process of thinking negative is making yourself be in a negative experience consistently. Now, of course, as I'm talking about overcoming fear, please don't watch this episode and go and jump in the lion's den and say, I'm Daniel. Richie said, overcome my fear. So everything can no. You need to learn how to take calculated risks. This is why from the beginning I explained to you that most fear comes from a lack of knowledge. So before you take that action, you need to learn about what you are going to do. If let's go back to today, I'm using my adventures as examples, but if I go back to the seawalking, you see how I told you that I was afraid. Of course I was afraid. Like I can barely survive in a pool, and here I was going to walk in the bottom of the sea. So when I went online and I went to watch, the first thing I Googled is has anybody died from seawalking in Zanzibar? No. Okay, that's a good step. Then I started to look at other pictures, see how people like were behaving in the water, see how people enjoyed it. So gathering this information helped me to calculate the risk. How risky is what I'm about to do? What do I need to do to make sure I get it right? As I was about to be put in the water and they were giving me strict instructions, they said, don't raise your head or the water can come up your nose. Don't do this, don't do that. I was listening very closely. Because if I do Yawah, it could be nice for here. So I was listening very closely. I was taking a calculated risk. That's why when you are going skydiving, unless you are a pro, they will have someone jump with you. Because if something goes wrong in the air and you don't know what to do, you need someone there to help you out. So you need to take calculated risks. You're about to start a business. You've never started a business before. Write a business plan. You see, what most people don't understand is that they think writing a business plan guarantees success. No, it doesn't. What it does is it gives you guidelines so that when things go wrong, because they will go wrong, you have a document to fall back on. You're starting a business, learn finance. Because whatever business you are doing, you need to make money, you need to spend money. Understand basic concepts like cash flow, income, expenses, interests, taxes. Understand these basic concepts so that somebody doesn't cheat you or you don't go and make a mistake where you are thinking that you are making plenty of profits, not understanding that that's not actual profit because you've not calculated your operational expenses. So take calculated risks. The biggest difference between running a business and gambling, because trust me, running a business is gambling. The biggest difference is with running a business, you can calculate the risks. Whereas if I'm betting Manu versus Chelsea, now I don't know if you calculate anything. If it doesn't work, you know, I go home crying. So take calculated risks. So in summary, I need you to understand that the first thing is fear is a part of every human being's life, it's not going anywhere. So don't expect to not be afraid. Remember that you need to move through the fear. The second thing, your fear comes from ignorance, your fear comes from a lack of knowledge. So when you find that you are afraid of something, learn more about it. And then back to my saying again: the bird does not land on a branch because it trusts the branch not to break, it lands on the branch because it trusts its wings to fly. So build your skills so that whatever you are afraid of, even if it happens, you are equipped to handle it. But most importantly, overthink the positive.