The Fear Locker

There is a film out right now titled The Hurt Locker that is getting a lot of buzz as the movie awards season rolls out. The movie follows an Explosive Ordnance Disposal bomb technician, one of the hundred or so soldiers in Iraq who dismantle roadside IEDs planted by insurgents. What I find even scarier than being in close contact with a live bomb is the way that we are being inundated with messages of fear from every angle in every part of our lives.

We received a great lesson on fear over 70 years ago when newly elected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt uttered one of his most memorable phrases in his inauguration speech: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

The attempted bombing of an airliner on Christmas day is what prompted me to sort of audit everything I heard or saw on radio and TV for one day. To sum it up, I should be cowering in fear at this very moment based on what the media outlets sent my way. Trembling should rack my body with any thought of flying, driving through certain parts of town, touching my neighbor’s child, consuming a long list of foods, and not to mention that the future of civilization as we know it may be in doubt. Today, I’m sitting in my Los Angeles office looking at a light rain falling between me and the Hollywood sign. Meanwhile, the media is shouting at me about possible mud slides rather than the fact that we live in a desert and need every drop of the water. The rain is a blessing, not a curse. But of course, “run for your life” gets more attention than “we are grateful for the drought relief.”

The radio is on while I’m writing this, and it is teaching me about fears that I have never experienced. In just two minutes, I learned to be fearful of the Internet as it relates to children and that I need a paid consultant to fight the credit card companies. The recent election upset in Massachusetts was a good indicator that institutional fear is driving an increasing number of our actions.

Since I view the world around me through the prism of small business and entrepreneurial thinking, I suspect that the business of capitalizing on fear is a growing enterprise. Do you have an electronic security system at your home? How high is the stack of your insurance policies that cover the loss of darned near everything? About a year ago, gun dealers were even running out of ammunition to sell. When did we stop doing things for rational or emotional reasons and start waiting for our fears to be unleashed to prod us into action?

Business owners are not exempt from fear, but if you aren’t selling it, you are certainly working to conquer it. When I was a youngster attempting to build a submarine sandwich business with a partner, our landlord gave us some of the best advice ever. He said, “in business you have to learn to love your problems because they are the only thing you are assured of having every day.” Business problems plague all companies from time to time. Searching Google will bring over 30 million results on the topic. It is not the business problem itself that defeats people from solving it, but it is the fear the problem generates. Recognizing that difference is the first step to a solution. By identifying critical elements to the problem, the solutions reveal themselves as a by-product of the process. Fear has only a miniscule place in the equation of success.

Though I’ve chosen to sell hope instead of fear in my business, I do have some fear infused days as a business owner. I’m working to make them a rare occurrence and I hope that you are too. We can’t move forward until we step out of the fear locker. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.”