My professional history has caused me to be asked on occasion, “What will it take for us to communicate effectively with the world?” Over the years, the first words out of my mouth have become, “Learn to manage fear.”
Eyebrows have been known to hit the skylight in response—“fear” being the most despised four-letter word in American business, if not everywhere. No surprise, really. We fear most what we understand least.
So I offer my two cents.
For individuals and institutions alike, the more we understand who we are committed to being, and the more clearly and powerfully we communicate that identity to the world, the easier it is for some people to reject us, having realized that what we’re proffering is too rich or scary or just plain nonsensical to them.
Now, for the healthy company or person, this is good news. Marketing is the art and science of establishing a heart-and-mind rapport with those one can actually serve, the exquisite fit of offer and need. Excellent communication, a component of marketing, is respectful of its entire audience, helping those who shouldn’t be customers to say “No thanks,” just as easily as it helps those we can truly serve to say, “I want to know more.”
For an unhealthy company or person—one where the fear of rejection holds sway, where the motivation is (as my friend the marketing whiz Jim Doyle puts it) to make a sale rather than make a difference—such arresting, emotionally powerful, meaningful and memorable communication is impossible to create. It’s not a mystery why so much of every kind of man-made expression deadens the soul, from sermons and TV ads to architecture and the color choices for automobiles.
It’s hard to get really cooking in life until we start messing around with that most explosive of questions: “Who will I be or die trying?” The only answer that counts, we learn as we go, is found in our heart. And the key to our heart, that place in us that knows only love, only kindness, only endless creativity and possibility––where it is impossible to make a mistake and so-called failure is just another sacred teacher––is the ability to manage fear.
Of course, how to manage fear is a whole other conversation. If you wish, you can read more in my essay Learning at the Speed of Fear.
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