How Top Performers Turn Fear into Success

by Steve Shull, Founder & Head Coach

When I was in rookie training camp with the Dolphins, one of our daily drills was a one-on-one pass defense session. As linebacker, I would be paired up against a running back, which highlighted my weakness as a pass defender. 

At first I did everything I could to avoid this drill. I started by getting in the back of the line, secretly hoping time would run out before it was my turn to go. My big fear was looking foolish in front of my coaches and teammates.

This went on for weeks before I finally realized my mistake. 

Avoiding the drill wasn’t protecting me. It was actually hurting me.

I was never going to get any better by going to the back of the line, and if I didn’t shore up this weakness, I was guaranteed to let the team down one day—or simply get cut before that day ever came. From that moment forward, I went to the front of the line. 

That’s what top performers do with fear. 

While everyone else is clinging to their fears and running away from them, top performers let go of their fears and move towards them.

That sounds pretty counterintuitive, so let me explain.

When you’re afraid of something—some pain or failure or disaster—the typical response is to worry about it. You think about it, sometimes obsessively, in an effort to prevent that bad outcome. In trying to avoid the fear, you cling to it in your mind.

Top performers run towards their fears instead of away from them. They know that to turn a weakness into a strength, they have to get the repetitions in, no matter how uncomfortable it feels. And it’s impossible to move towards your fear if you’re clinging to it in your mind.

You have to let go.

The idea of letting go of our fear is the biggest fear we have, even scarier than the fear itself. We think that if we don’t worry about the bad things that could happen, they will happen. By holding onto these fears, we believe, somehow we control them.

In truth, we control very little. The universe will do what it will do, with or without your worry, and the only thing you can ever do is give your best to the moment in front of you.

Fear stops you from doing that. It distracts you from the present and focuses your attention on the future, on what hasn’t happened yet. In that state, you can’t possibly give your best to what’s happening now.

The only way to let go of fear—and give your personal best—is to be in the present moment. 

This is why we talk about mindset so much at Performance Coaching. Every day, you step into the unknown, whether you want to or not. You can do it from a place of fear, worry, and doubt…or a place of confidence, curiosity, and courage.

The former is the default we all know well. The latter takes practice. That’s the whole purpose of meditation—to practice being in the present. 

If you’ve ever tried it, you know it’s a real challenge at first. You can’t sit still. Your mind won’t stop remembering the past or imagining the future. Staying in the moment for more than a second feels impossible. But with practice, it gets easier.

This is the work that gets at the root cause of your self-limiting habits.

Most real estate agents share one crippling fear: rejection. That’s why you don’t want to knock on doors, call your past clients, ask for 6%, have the tough conversations, or do so many of the other things that lead to success in this business. 

Well, you can try to time-block or will your way to doing these things, but that’s just treating the symptoms. The root cause is your fear, and as long as you keep clinging to it, building good habits will be an uphill battle. 

In real estate right now, fear is in the air. 

Everyone is clinging to the idea that the market needs to change and worrying obsessively about what will happen if it doesn’t. Every day on my coaching calls, I hear the panic ramping up. The more people worry, the less they do, which makes them even more afraid.

You have two choices in front of you: you can worry about what’s going to happen next, or you can just do your job with no worry. 

I think you know which one will feel better and be more effective.

The market will do what it’s gonna do. No amount of fear will change that. All you can do is give your best to what’s happening in the moment—and you can only do that by letting go.

Letting go is part of life, so learn to embrace it. 

Just this past week, I dropped my daughters off at college for the first time. Talk about a lesson in letting go! I see and talk to them and take care of them every day for 18 years and then boom—they’re gone.

I felt the weight of fear as I watched them go. For a moment, I wanted to cling. I wanted to keep them close and stay in control of their lives, like any protective parent would.

But because I’ve practiced living in the present, I was able to let that fear go and move forwards instead of shrinking back. 

The truth is, any control I had over them was an illusion anyway. 

They will do what they will do, just like the real estate market and the universe.

I can’t control that, and neither can you. Worrying about it won’t change it.

So let go of your fear, be in the present, and give your best to what’s in front of you.

Have a great week!

Steve