Fear undermines performance by creating self-doubt, anxiety, and nervous tension. Even the best leaders can, at times, become fearful of evaluation, expectation, miscalculation, and embarrassment. As we feel fearful in a given moment, pressure mounts, and our actions and thoughts become heavy and mechanical. Performance suffers, sometimes destroying the results we have worked so hard to achieve.
Conquering fear is one of the supreme challenges we face throughout our lives. How do the best leaders tame their fears? World-class leaders know a secret. The opposite of fear, they have learned, is not fearlessness — but commitment. When we truly commit to the process of performance, fear disappears. When our focus is so strong and our actions so precise as to reflect the highest commitment, fear is nowhere to be found. It can’t breakthrough.
Laird Hamilton, a life-long competitive surfer, has learned to face and conquer fear through total commitment to his process. After years of experiencing extreme surfing situations, many of which were capable of killing him, Hamilton learned it is commitment, not confidence, that best negates fear. Once he committed himself entirely to the process of performance, his focus became so extreme that fear had no place to reside. His fearless performances earned him widespread recognition as perhaps the greatest big wave surfer of all time. You can share in his wisdom. The best leaders conquer fear through commitment. That’s a secret worth knowing.
