The We Are Better By Design podcast, where small ideas become big actions, passing thoughts become life changing decisions, and you can be do and have anything you want. I\’m Andrew Sharp. It\’s time to be better by design.
Welcome to the We Are Better by Design podcast, I\’m your host, Andrew Sharp, and I am so grateful that you have chosen to join me today. We are going to be diving into this fact that we are only born with two fears. And I wanted to actually start off with a quote from Marianne Williamson from her book Tears of Triumph.
It says, \”Michelangelo felt God had already created a great statue such as the Pietà or David, and the sculptor\’s job was simply to get rid of the excess marble surrounding it. So all of us have within us the eternal self, the perfect self, the unchangeable self that is God\’s creation. Enlightenment means dissolving the fearful thoughts that surround and obscure it.\”
Our greatest work here is to unlearn the things that we have used to create limitations around us. In the past year, my personal biggest work has simply been to unlearn. Unlearn patterns of belief that I am not deserving or not good enough. Unlearn thoughts and beliefs around money and what it is and how it works. Unlearn how I thought business works. Unlearn that things are difficult when in reality they\’re just new and there are others who can show me how to do things.
A while back I was talking with a friend about how Jesus simply had no resistance. Now, whatever your beliefs are around this. I get it. Looking simply at the stories, though, you find all kinds of evidence that he live without limitation. As a result, he could do most anything, heal sickness, walk on water, calm storms. He saw all things as they were intended to be, not as others thought they were.
This is why it is so aligning for us to be in nature. It operates in a way that was intended. So nature by nature is a high vibration place to be. And it\’s also why when something is often nature, it\’s so glaringly obvious. Like think of a raccoon that\’s out in the middle of a day or a deer who ends up in a city somewhere. You just know something isn\’t right. And the same is true for us. When something feels off, it\’s just a cue to us that we want to move back into alignment. Right? Like there is this metaphysical world that we live in where all of these different things are available, health and abundance. They are our natural state. Anything else is learned. And hence our work is to unlearn fear and limitation and replace them with limitless mind and being.
Now, caveat, I get that there are circumstances that seem to not fit in, just as there are solutions for total and complete health and wholeness no matter what. And the truth is, is that whatever that outcome is, it may come slow or it may come fast. Oftentimes for us these things are a bit more nuanced. And so I\’m not saying don\’t go see a doctor or anything like that. Do what you need to do and know that there are options available to you.
So let\’s take a look a bit more at this idea of fear. I read a couple different studies over the past week, basically pointing at the fact that we are only actually born with two fears. One of them is the fear of falling and the other is a fear of loud noises, both safety safety systems within our body as babies. Like we want to be aware that we don\’t want to fall over. And if there\’s a loud noise, it might mean, hey, something\’s going on.
But I want us to actually think about this for a minute, just two fears. Everything else we fear is because we have experienced something or it\’s been taught to us. Let\’s think about public speaking. This is a very common thing that people say they are afraid of. Now, even in that, I want you to notice what just happened right there. What I did was provide evidence to you that people are afraid of public speaking. It\’s an accepted societal norm. Truth is, is I don\’t actually know lots of people who are afraid of public speaking. They might be, but I don\’t typically go around asking them. Right. So how often do you actually participate in public speaking? What about a certain type of speaking? What if you were at a rock concert and you got pulled up on stage and got to just yell out to the crowd of thirty thousand people, \”You guys rock!\” Would you feel afraid to do that or would it feel exhilarating? Technically, that\’s public speaking on a really large scale.
So take a moment and just ask yourself, what are you afraid of? What\’s holding you back right now? The truth is that you don\’t need to be afraid of it. And if you choose, you get to let go of that fear. And I want to talk about a process that I used to become aware and then actively shift out of places of fear. I\’ve talked a bit about this before, about dealing with limiting beliefs, using what we call the table leg process. Right.
You\’re limiting belief or your fear is the table and all the ideas that flood in to support this belief are the legs. And so I\’m going to pull from a conversation I had with a friend the other day. He was saying it\’s hard to come up with content for emails every week without sounding \”salesy\” or needing a discount. Right, so the tabletop is this idea, it\’s hard to come up with content for weekly emails, I\’m going to sound \”salesy\” and I need a discount, right.
And so our four legs are the thoughts that he has around. It\’s hard to write emails, that\’s a leg. That\’s all it takes a long time and they all sound the same. It\’s another leg. If I sound like I\’m selling something all the time, people will unsubscribe. Here\’s another leg. I need to have a discount or a reason like a sale in order to send an email, because otherwise people won\’t open them. There\’s another leg.
So we have our four legs. And so what we do then is we look at each idea and we replace it with an example of someone that this idea either doesn\’t apply for or we identify evidence that shows it\’s not exactly true. Right. So you work your way through each one of those four supporting ideas and that belief will begin to crumble.
So let\’s take the first one. It\’s hard to write emails. Is it? Is it hard to write emails to the love of your life? Your best friend? If somebody were to ask you a ton of questions and you needed to respond, would it be hard to respond or would you just write the answers? Are there others who write emails for a living because it\’s easy and it\’s fun for them? Absolutely. All of these things. It\’s not hard to write an email. You can shift that and set yourself up with all kinds of tools and resources, you could hire somebody on. There are lots of ways for it to no longer be hard to write an email. It\’s just the way that it\’s been contextualized.
How about the next leg? It takes a long time and they all sound the same. Well, how long does it actually take? This is a really big one for beliefs or fears that we have when we use words like long because long can\’t actually be measured. It\’s a word that is a generic descriptor of size. Right. And so when we have words that are like that, when we find ourselves using those words to describe things that feel difficult, it\’s a big queue in that your fear is holding on to something ambiguous and making it bigger than it needs to be. If you change that to a specific time and you simply say, \”It takes me 30 minutes to write an email.\” Well, that\’s neither long or short. It\’s simply a fact. It takes you 30 minutes. Right. And then this idea that they all sound the same, they might. But chances are you could change them. And 100% you can choose what you write about. The control of the content is 100% yours. And so this idea that it takes a long time and they sound the same. Now we say it takes you thirty minutes and you get to decide what they what you write about, what people want to hear. Right. So you can control the length of time by practicing more, by setting yourself less time to do it. All of these different things allow you then to actually have measurable things in place so that that fear of it\’s going to just sap your afternoon, isn\’t actually true.When you understand what is happening, you remove some of that fear.
How about the, if I sound like I\’m selling something all the time, people will unsubscribe. To that, personally, I say, great. If you are a business who is selling something and somebody doesn\’t want to hear from you… I want you to listen to this. They are not your customer. And so if people unsubscribe from your email list, that\’s fantastic because they did not want to buy from you in the first place. So ask yourself, how often do you unsubscribe from emails of other companies that you love who sell things, right? I get an email from Best Buy almost every day. Sometimes I read it. Most of the time I probably just delete it. But they tell me I\’m a loyal customer since around 2007 and I haven\’t unsubscribed yet. And I\’m pretty adamant at going through and getting rid of stuff that I don\’t like. You can write messages that are also more friendly. right? You again, like our previous belief, you can actually change the content. You can write an email that is less salesy and more friendly. Right. Not every email has to be a buy buy buy. And in fact, I would suggest against that type of approach. Look for ways that you can connect with your audience. Right. And always offer an action for them to take. Like you can give them guidance to a blog post. You can give them guidance to something that you offer. You could sell something, but you don\’t have to have it be salesy all the time.
The last leg here is this idea that I need a discount or a reason like a sale to send an email. And this kind of falls back a little bit under the previous belief that we looked at. You don\’t need a reason like a sale to send an email to your customers. That is a belief that people won\’t want to open the email, won\’t want to read it for whatever reason. Which again, it is actually better as a business to send out emails consistently. Consistency is one of the biggest pieces to finding success in a business. Simply saying I\’m going to consistently send an email out, takes away the need for it to always be about a sale. If you can map out what that content is going to be about, if you can map out just kind of general broad topics and ideas, it will actually free up what it is you feel you need to write about. Right. So as we go through these four table legs that are supporting this belief, we come up with that evidence that says, wait a second, these reasons that we\’re saying this is hard and difficult, it isn\’t actually true. We\’ve allowed ourselves to latch on to this belief and then we\’ve allowed this evidence to pop up. But the evidence isn\’t actually truthful. And so when we bring these things into light, we can then create a new support, a belief, and you can even turn it into a mantra. You can start to practice this idea that is new and different, that actually supports you. Right.
So let\’s shift what we were saying and instead come up with \”I create emails for my audience that they love to read and supports the growth of my business.\” What if when you sat down to write emails, this is the energy, this is the space that you come from. Right. It\’s a different belief. It\’s a different idea. It\’s a different energy. And so what you create in that time and space will actually be more impactful. You\’ll put a different intention into it. Right. And that is part of the follow through as well, is that we honor this new belief by taking action. And when you take action, you will strengthen the new belief that you have in yourself. And this process, this can be applied anywhere, which is why I love it so much. Like we use it here to talk about a belief, about writing email. You can apply it to anything, reaching out to people for sales, following up on social media, creating social media, coming up with a different type of product for your business. You can use it in your personal life, like we talked about earlier, overcoming a fear of whatever that might be. Take some time and simply write these things out and then recreate a belief that supports the life that you want to have.
Now, I know that sometimes it is easier to work these things through with someone. That\’s why having a coach by your side is such a fantastic option. And if you\’re feeling that right now, you can connect with me at sharpteamdesign.com/easy, or if you are a woman looking for a life coach to be able to work through some of these things with you, you can connect up with my wife Liza at LizaByDesign.com. She is a rock star, amazing woman.
We would love to support you in squashing your fears and becoming the powerful person that we know you are! Regardless of what you are feeling, regardless of what you are believing, there is an incredible, incredible life ahead of you. Make the choice to make the change and you will succeed. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. I\’m so grateful to have had this time with you. Be blessed.
Thank you for listening. I love connecting with people and helping them elevate both in life and business. And this is just one of the ways I get to do that. Now, it\’s up to you to take what you heard, synthesize anything that resonated with you and choose to add it into your life. Because when we do that, we create a life that is better by design.
Show Notes
We are only born with 2 fears.
All the others are learned.
Today we dive deep into this one and we talk about using the Table Leg Process to crush fear and limiting beliefs.
https://sharpteamdesign.com/easy
Connect with me on social media @sharpteambetterbydesign
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