One thing’s for sure…

Fear is a part of our lives, no matter what age.

That’s what I realized recently when I spent time with a good friend of mine who happens to be a 69-year-old woman.

What was she fearful about? Traveling the world for a year!

Backing up, let me share with you that this wonderful woman is a friend who is now traveling around southern Europe. She started out in Portugal and stayed with friends. But from there she began traveling on her own.

In her travels, she stayed with my family for four days. It was a treat, because we had great conversations and she opened my eyes to a few things.

One of those things was the topic of fear.

You see, during our time together she and I chatted about breaking through our fears as human beings.

What became most clear to me, more clear than ever before, was that life truly is short. What you’ll regret at the last years of your life will be what you didn’t do… not what you tried and failed at doing… or had massive success in doing.

I found the topic so interesting that I did a quick video on the subject. Watch it now:

We Must Face Our Fears and Do the Things We Fear Most First!

Wow, right?

But it’s true.

Everyone on the planet has fears about something. If it’s spiders, okay, that one’s easy. Avoid spiders.

If it’s fear of flying, it’s really going to be best to force yourself through that one. Otherwise you will be stuck traveling only to those places that you can get to by train or automobile.

If it’s a fear of doing something new in your life, that’s simply something you have to move beyond. Like I said, we are all afraid at times. But if we let our fears stop us from success because we won’t dare take the first step we will be in the exact same place we are today two years from now.

After chatting with my well-traveled friend, it hit me between the eyes…

The only people who place barriers on us are, well, ourselves. Why we do it is a big topic that goes deep into the realms of psychology, and since I’m no psychologist I’ll stay away from diving too deep.

Get Over It and Get On With It!

That’s actually the title of a book I flipped through once.

The title caught my eye; the book was bright orange and white, so I couldn’t look away. The message was blazingly clear.

So what; now what, as my mentor would say!!

What this means is that we’ve all had events in our lives that put the fears in place… fears that hold us back from moving forward in one direction or another.

The only way to deal with these fears or negative emotional life events that left scars is to identify the events and then put them away. They do you no good to hold onto.

If you cling to your negative events and fears, it’s like holding big rocks while you’re trying to swim in a current. You’ll sink if you don’t drop the rocks!

Again, I’m no psychologist, so don’t take this as a rock-solid how-to in getting beyond your fears. I’m just saying that you have to find a way to get beyond them. If that involves seeking the help of a professional psychologist, do it.

Frankly, every entrepreneur I’ve ever met… and all the executives and literally any other human being I’ve worked with for that matter… experience anxieties over a variety of issues. For the executives in leadership roles (like I’ve held for years) it could be speaking in front of a group of their peers, making the decision to let someone go or evening handling difficult sales calls.

For entrepreneurs it goes deeper, because they know the buck starts and stops with their actions. If they don’t make phone calls, if they don’t put themselves out there when they go about their daily routine, if they don’t send out emails, if they don’t participate in digital marketing, if they don’t whatever they have to do… they will not earn money. They will not be able to pay their bills.

For this group of individuals, it is absolutely critical to push past the fears to pick up the phone and call prospects… to push the SEND button on their emails so other people will know what they have to offer…to keep their teams in sync… to talk to others about their goals and what they need help with to make the goals a reality.

Boy, those last few lines hit home for me personally.

Even today I struggle with a bit of fear about putting myself out there as a real estate investor who participates by investing in multifamily properties. The little negative voice in my head tells me it’s dangerous to share this information… what about your J-O-B, the voice whispers…

I have to take control, tell the voice to shut up and keep telling other people about my goals anyway. Every day I do something to move myself forward into the life I want.

The good news is that it is happening faster than I initially planned. All because I learned to push past my fears, open my mouth and start talking.

Now I have a team… and I’m adding new members all the time. I wrote a book that is now available on Amazon and on my website. (Yes, I’m excited. Can you tell?)

The book is about my journey as a real estate entrepreneur and investor, and what I’m doing now, which is long-distance investing. (That’s a fancy way of saying while I live in Barcelona I invest in properties in the U.S.)

There are lots of reasons I wrote the book and even more reasons why I choose to invest as I do in the U.S. One reason for the book is that it’s something I always wanted to do. Plus, it helped me move beyond my fears and put myself out there in a bigger way.

But I don’t want to be a spoiler.

You want the whole story? You’ll have to download the free eBook here:

You can also check out my latest podcasts and collaborations here keeponcashflow.com/podcasts/