What is currently costing you more than bills, more than your taxes, and all of your monthly expenses? Fear. And I'm not talking about the kind that has you shaken in your boots. I'm talking about the kind that calls itself wisdom. The kind that calls itself preparation. And the kind that sounds responsible. That is the dangerous kind. And that's what we are talking about today. And before we go any further, I need you to really understand something. Fear doesn't usually look irresponsible. It actually looks responsible. Like you're logically making a good choice. It's going to say things like, let me do a little more research. Or maybe next quarter, I'll have it already. Or let me wait until things settle down and then I'll get started. Or better yet, let me get one more certification. I got my bachelor's. Now I can I can go and get my master's or my doctorate. And this one is a good one. Let me rewrite it one more time. And this is why so many people never realize that they are operating in fear, because fear isn't trying to destroy you. Most of the time, fear is trying to protect you. It's trying to protect you from embarrassment. It's trying to protect you from rejection. It's trying to protect you from criticism and disappointment, maybe even looking foolish. And that's why people struggle because fear doesn't sound dangerous. It actually sounds loving. But what it does is it makes you think, oh, I just wait a little longer. But what you don't realize is that everything in life has a price tag. Software has a price, marketing has a price, hiring people has a price, raising children has a price. Building a business has a price. But sometimes the most expensive thing in your life, it isn't an invoice. It's the vision that you've been negotiating with. And most people, they don't wake up and decide to quit on their dreams. They just reduce them. They shrink them. They postpone them. And then they convince themselves that they have more time. And little by little, fear starts negotiating with your vision. It doesn't destroy it overnight, but it reduces it little by little, chip by chip, thought by thought. And it doesn't usually tell you to quit. That would be kind of obvious if you had fear saying, just quit, just quit, right? But what it does is it negotiates. Maybe not this year. And you might find yourself saying, maybe after the kids are older, maybe after things settle down, I just need one more course, one more mentor. And then eventually you're going to wake up and you're going to realize that the vision isn't gone. You just minimized it. You might even find yourself thinking, maybe I'm thinking too big. Maybe this isn't the right season for me to do this. Or maybe somebody else is better off doing it. Maybe I should wait until I feel ready. But you know what? You're never going to really completely feel ready. I remember a few years ago, I was preparing for a speaking engagement and I was practicing my speech. I remember spending weeks thinking about what am I going to talk about? And then finally I locked in and I spent hours putting it all together. I had about three days before showtime. And I thought, I just need one more revision because this is not good enough. One more adjustment to my speech. One more person. Let me just get one more person to hear me and confirm my message. And honestly, the speech wasn't even difficult. I was going to be speaking for about 45 minutes. That's it. The hardest part was allowing something that was imperfect to exist. And the hard part was moving before I felt completely comfortable. And once I finally started moving, I realized that I spent more energy rethinking my decisions than I actually spent doing the work. And guess what? After I got off the stage, nobody knew about the revisions that I almost made. Nobody knew the speech that I deleted. Nobody knew the changes that I almost did not stop making. And the only thing that they experienced was what I actually delivered. And that's when I realized one thing people can't benefit from what you refuse to release. And maybe, maybe you experience that too. You're probably thinking about something for months. You replay it in your mind, you stress over it, you lose sleep over it. And when you finally do it, you finally realize it wasn't nearly as heavy as the weight of avoiding it. See, fear chooses disguises. And that's why we miss it. Because you're looking for panic, you're looking for anxiety, you're looking for obvious signs. But fear, it rarely announces that. It hides. Fear has disguises. And sometimes it looks like perfectionism. You don't want anyone to see the version of you or the version number one. You don't want people to see what happens in the green room. But what you want is the version 10 before anyone even knows that it exists. And sometimes that looks like endless learning. You got another book to read, another class to take, another framework to use, another tool. And you know what? Learning does feel productive, but learning without execution, eventually that is going to become a hiding place. So I want you to think about it. How many books do you actually need to read before you actually get started? How many YouTube videos do you have to watch? How many certifications do you need behind your name? How many opinions do you need to get started? Because eventually there's going to come a point where more information isn't producing movement. It's producing delay. And sometimes fear creates complexity. You build 10 steps when two steps is good enough. You overcomplicate because you're trying to eliminate every possible problem before you even begin. But life doesn't work that way. Business doesn't work that way. Leadership doesn't work that way. And vision becomes clear in motion. It doesn't become clear before motion. And maybe that is why you may feel frustrated. Not because you don't have enough, not because you don't know enough, but because you already know what you're supposed to do. But then you're waiting for certainty. And certainty, it almost never comes. Trust me on this. Fear doesn't just cost you money. You know what else it costs you? It costs peace. Because unfinished things, they occupy mental space. It costs energy because carrying a decision is exhausting. It will cost you your confidence. Because every time you delay something that you already know that you should be doing, you slowly teach yourself not to trust yourself. And every time you ignore something you already know that you need to do it, you teach yourself something else. I don't trust me. And eventually that is why you stop believing in yourself. Not because you failed, not because you stopped following through. Confidence, it does not disappear overnight. You know what it does? It leaks. It costs opportunities because timing matters. And eventually fear will start charging interest. And we know that the interest rates are high in this day and time. And years later, what happens is people don't start regretting trying. They regret waiting. They regret shrinking. They regret talking themselves out of something that they really felt called to do. And yes, sometimes it's going to cost revenue too. Everything costs because speed matters. Think about the person as delaying writing the book, right? Or maybe the entrepreneur is sitting on the business idea. We know a lot of those people. Better yet, maybe you're the professional that's staying in a position you already know you've outgrown. Or could you be a leader avoiding difficult conversations with underperforming employees? As you can see, the problem doesn't disappear. It grows, morale suffers, and people feel the tension. Your deadlines slip, trust decreases because fear never stays isolated. It spreads. And I always say this: a movie vehicle can be corrected. A parked vehicle cannot. An 80% solution in motion will teach you more than a 100% solution sitting on your laptop. Real refinement happens in motion. It doesn't happen in isolation. It doesn't have to be perfect. You just have to get it done. So here's what I want you to do. First, stop waiting for perfect. Version one is allowed to exist. Second, adopt the 70% rule. If you have about 70% of what you need, move. The remaining 30% usually reveals itself while you are already in motion. Third, audit your hesitation. What have you been putting off? A conversation? A book? A business? A promotion? A boundary? A decision? And what has that delay actually been costing you? Not just financially, but emotionally, mentally, spiritually? Because carrying unfinished vision is heavy. And before you move forward, ask yourself these three questions. Am I preparing or am I avoiding? If I already knew this would work, would I still delay it? Am I protecting the vision or am I protecting my comfort? And I actually want you to know that I have a solution for you. I created something that will help you answer those questions specifically. It's called the Mid-Hour Chat Reset Assessment. And it only takes seven minutes. It shows you exactly where your fear is, where it has been hiding in your life, and your business. And this is not to shame you. It will calculate what your hesitation has already cost you to wake you up. Because once you see it clearly, you can't unsee it. The link is in the description. Go take the assessment right now. So I got five things, five solutions that I want to give you today. Number one, you might not have all the information, right? And you may not even have an information problem. You might have a courage problem. And this is the one that might make you feel a little uncomfortable because you're thinking five books later, 10 videos later, three courses later, and the thing that changes everything is still waiting on your action. Because what happens is eventually there's going to come a point where you don't need another answer. You need a decision and you need action. So stop consuming for 24 hours. No videos, no books, no new opinions. Just execute something you already know that you need to do. Point number two, fear rarely looks like fear. Most of the time it sounds like it's responsible. And I told you this earlier. You keep saying you're gonna start, right? You're gonna start after the class, you're gonna start after the certification. And it just continues. You just continue to keep on starting and never finishing. And I remember talking to someone who had invested in a course and then another course and then another course. They had notebooks full of information. They knew exactly what they needed to do. But every time that they got close to starting, they found something else to learn. And honestly, the problem was not information. The problem was exposure. Because once they started, people could judge the result. And that's basically what happens. But you have to take action. Identify one thing that you've labeled preparation that you might actually be avoiding and get it done. Number three, delayed decisions are expensive decisions. Now you've known for months that something needs to change, right? You've always been talking about it, but you've stayed stuck because the familiar feels much safer. I don't know. I was talking to someone one time, and this person hated their job. Every Monday they complained. Every Friday they celebrated, making it through another week. And for almost a year, they kept saying, I'm just waiting for the right time. And I'm thinking to myself, like, why don't you just leave? You don't like the place. You're miserable. Well, it's not the right time yet. But you know what the truth is? There was no right time. There was only fear dressed up as patience. So what do you do in this situation? Put a deadline on the decision that you have made. Number four, confidence doesn't come first. I had to learn this over and over and over again. Nobody ever feels completely ready. Not leaders, not parents, not entrepreneurs, not even speakers. And honestly, I learned this through speaking. I don't think I've ever walked onto a stage feeling 100% ready. And I've always had the thought, oh my goodness, did I prepare enough? Is this message going to connect to the audience? And every single time, confidence showed up after I started, not before. So what do you do in this situation? You gotta get moving. Move before your feelings agree. You have to do it scared, do it. And lastly, complexity is often fear in disguise. Creating 12 steps, I said this earlier, when all you need is two steps to get started is crazy. I've done this over and over and over again in the past. I try to count to account for every possible scenario. I tried to make sure nothing went wrong. I tried to build the perfect, perfect, perfect process. And meanwhile, the simple next step was sitting right in front of me. And you know what? I know I'm not by myself with this, but sometimes we complicate things because complexity feels safer than moving. So what can you do about this? What can you do to fix this? Ask yourself, what is the simplest next move? You know that saying where they say uh kiss and they're like, keep it simple, sweetie. Keep it simple, sweetie. So here's your challenge. Within the next two hours after you listen to this episode, I want you to take one imperfect action. And whatever that looks like for you, whether it's send the email, make the call, write the first page, follow up on the client, apply for the position, have the conversation, whatever it is, do something. Because movement does what? Movement creates clarity. And what does clarity do? Clarity creates momentum. So if you gotta do it scared, like I said before, do it scared. Eventually, moving while afraid is going to become normal. And one day you're gonna realize fear is no longer the reason why you're stuck. And what I've learned is people forget tips, people forget quotes, but they rarely forget regrets. And I don't want you waking up years from now wondering what would have happened if you've trusted yourself enough to move. Because the goal isn't to eliminate fear. That's not what I'm telling you in this episode. The goal is to stop allowing fear to make your decisions. Remember, everything cost, growth cost, success cost, discipline cost, but shrinking your vision will cost you more than all of them combined. So stop negotiating with what you already know that you're supposed to be doing. And here's what I want you to understand before we close this out. Everything that we've talked about in this season, season one, the parent, the patterns, the identity leaks, the expired version of yourself, the negotiation, and the fear, all of it comes back to one thing. You cannot build towards something that you cannot see. And that's exactly where we're going next. Because once you deal with your identity, the next question becomes what are you actually building towards? That's the vision conversation. And trust me, it is not what you think. So in the next episode, we will be going deeper. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. And also don't forget to go take the mid hour chat reset assessment. The link is in the description. It's seven minutes, honest results. Trust me, you've never seen an assessment like this before. Until then, keep connecting the dots between who you are and how you move.