The Influence of Fear - Living Code

Most people fear judgment from others. Powerful leaders fear inauthenticity. That's the shift that matters. You finish a meeting where everyone laughed at your comment, then spend the next hour dissecting whether they were laughing with you or at you. This is what it looks like to live entirely in your self-concept rather than in your actual body and mind. We construct an imaginary version of ourselves because honestly acknowledging how we think, look, and act might be too painful. This fear of our own unknown-all the things happening inside us that we can't control-keeps us trapped in make-believe.

The same fear shapes how we interact with other adults. We're comfortable around animals and children because they can't really harm us. They're less powerful, less unpredictable in ways that matter. But other adults? They have as much power as we do, maybe more. They could cause real damage. So we stay guarded. We keep our distance. We're willing to commit to caring for a pet or child, but committing to another adult means putting ourselves at risk of being dragged through whatever they're experiencing. It means carrying the weight of their struggles as our own.

Here's where leadership comes in: as you become more comfortable with yourself-as your mind gets more peaceful and you gain better understanding of your own emotions-you fear yourself less. You become less vulnerable to harm. Less vulnerable means less afraid. Less afraid means you can be more honest about what's actually happening inside you. And that honesty lets you connect more readily and deeply with others. You can shift from "you and me" to "us"-just people together. When you commit to others from this place, binding your fate to theirs, you unlock exponentially greater potential for collaboration and connection. You open yourself to both wonderful and terrible possibilities, but that's where the real work happens.