Many of you know that the topic of moving through fear is one have often visited on this blog and that I sometimes broach as a speaker. I think it’s imperative to learn to conquer our fears so we can live our lives fully and accomplish our goals. I rarely publish an interview on this blog, but I felt compelled to do so after reading a free ebook, called The Flinch, by Julien Smith, which is also about moving through fear—or overcoming fear. The Flinch also is about asking people to change, compelling them to change. In that way, Julien is a change agent. So, I was thrilled to get a chance to interview him and to share that interview with you.

Julien is a New York Times bestselling author of two books, Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust and The Flinch. He is a consultant and speaker who has been involved in online communities for over fifteen years, from early BBSs and flash mobs to social web as we know it today. He also was one of the first Twitter users and one of the first people to podcast in 2004 (which is impressive to me since I’ve just struggled to get my first podcast up). He has worked with numerous media publications, such as Sirius Satellite Radio, GQ, CBS, Cosmopolitan, and more.

The following interview is part of a three part interview. You can read the other parts here and here. In this part, Julien talks about our bad habit of “flinching” when we expect to experience pain and how to train ourselves to consciously build the strength to get past our fear–to stop flinching.

I just finished reading your newest book, The Flinch, which, I loved. For those who have not read it, could you just briefly explain the concept?

Sure. I guess in a way The Flinch, in a nutshell, is about our pathological lack of courage as individuals. Many of the things we shy away from are, in fact, not painful, not damaging, not bad in any way, but we just sort of shy away from them out of habit. So, really it’s a book about how to break out of bad habits and break into good ones.

That’s something most people need to do. Fear stops people from doing what they want, from writing and publishing a book, trying something new, getting into or out of a new relationships or jobs, creating the life they desire and succeeding. Can you talk about that a bit?

You start to notice as you speak to a lot of people who are trying to make change in their life that there are two kinds of people. One is a general optimist who knows at the end of everything they’ll end up fine. The other kind doesn’t explicitly say so but often feels like they have a lot of anxiety around life, let’s say quitting a job or something like that. The feeling is, ‘I’ll be broke and then I’ll die,’ or something like that. That’s the kind of sentiment that they have around change, even though they’ve never verbalized it that way. What I tried to create in The Flinch is a feeling, through a number of exercises, that you can do painful things and survive and be better as a result of them. I think that’s a series of habits that you need to develop.
Any time they feel something is difficult, many people just quit. I know I just quit often. That was a terrible habit of mine until I broke it.

That’s a pretty common habit for most people. You suggest that people should get in the ring, like a fighter.

Exactly. The reason for the title of the book, The Flinch, is because I spent a lot of time around athletes and self-defense professionals and officers and so on.  I noticed that the people who understand these things the most are the people who feel it in a visceral way. Some of the best reactions from people about the book have been from swimmers, for example. Swimmers are like, ‘I feel exactly like this every single time I’m about to do an open-water swim.’ And you have, of course, boxers and people who do Muay Thai. Athletes naturally understand this.

I think most people find it really hard to create change. Why do we not change even when we say we want to? Is it a fear of change?

Let’s talk in a more specific manner to try and sort of make this more concrete for people. They get this impression, ‘Oh, why is it so hard for me.’ We have no faith in our ability to reconstruct, and we have no faith in our own ability to make things better for ourselves. Some of the simplest things that you can do are to put yourself in situations where there really are no sort of negative social or psychological or physical consequences for what you do, but you feel this anxiety—what I call the flinch.

 

So try exercises in meeting strangers; you know, strangers are something very new in our lives. A hundred years ago there were no cities, or very few…Ninety-nine percent of the people we see every day are strangers, right? So this is new and in a way a sort of anxiety creating thing. We don’t feel that we have the ability to walk up to these people, but the reality is that there are no social consequences for walking up to a stranger at all.

 

I would say that one of the best things you can do is find hard things and do them over and over again. Before you can find them, you have to feel that sentiment inside of you, and most people just ignore it. Learn to train yourself in feeling that, and going, ‘I know what I need to do when I feel that feeling,’ and then go forward with it.

Talking to strangers is a great tip. Do you have others?

There’s a million of them, you know.  I spoke to this guy who’s one of the lead speakers in regards to the stuttering community, and he said, ‘You know, some of the exercises that you present in [your book] are the same exercises that stutterers do.’ It turns out that [they are] some of the same exercises that people who have PTSD, post traumatic stress disorder, or people who have anxiety attacks use. I’ve, sort of, without really thinking about those problems, have created something which really works for them and also works for the population at large.

 

I’ve been building homework assignments, and I plan to release them later in some capacity. One of them is to stutter on purpose. It’s this amazing thing you can do maybe four or five times in a day, and then just go about your daily life. Everybody knows how to do this, but it’s an exercise they make stutterers do so they can gain control of something they normally would not be able to control at all. If you go over to someone, especially someone who’s paid to talk to you, like a clerk in the corner store or something like that, and you stutter through what it is that you want to do, and then feel that embarrassment—it’s almost like purposeful embarrassment—to realize that when you get past the embarrassment you’re totally fine.Something else I would do to feel it physically is to do something like begin weightlifting at the edge of your capacity.

 

Most people when they go into the gym, they’ll go and they’ll do weights, like twenty five or thirty reps of some insignificant weight. Instead of doing that, do something like put it up to what weightlifters call your five-rep max, and put up a weight that is almost impossible for you to lift. Stare at it, and then go ahead and do it. You’ll feel in your body this extremely hard not only physical thing but psychologically taxing thing. Even weightlifters say if you squat three times a week at that kind of ability you become psychologically drained from how difficult it is, but it also carries forward into other parts of your life if you’re able to do it.

Let’s say we don’t only want to create change in our personal lives, but we actually want to be  change agents in the world. We want to make big change, or affect change. Do these small things you’re talking about doing, these exercises you’re giving us, help us learn to make change in the world?

Some of the criticism of this book comes from people who are like, ‘What the hell. This is so trivial.’ You know, Victor Frankel wrote a book called Man’s Search for Meaning. He was in the Holocaust; he was in a concentration camp, and he was one of the few survivors. He wrote something which is a famous phrase: ‘Between stimulus and response, there is a moment, and in that moment lies our freedom.’  Basically, you have a stimulus, and you have an ability to react instinctively or an ability to think out a reaction to that stimulus, whatever that stimulus is. He claims the reason he survived the concentration camp is because he was able to stay psychologically strong. He could watch people and see that once they had psychologically given way, their bodies would begin to wither away after that.

 

To me, the biggest strength is an internal strength. No person can give you a job that will give you this strength. No individual can ever take it away from you once you have it either. To me it’s an internal strength that you build. It is built with a conscious sort of construction that comes from the mind and from the psyche, and then, thereafter, builds out into the world. And you’ll see that when you do this, when you become a more conscious person as a result of these supposedly trivial acts, that people will see you differently, and doors will open as a result of it.

What does it take to really accomplish something and to create something that affects change in the world?

I’ve already written a few books. To write is actually is not a big deal at all. You just have to sit there and do it. A girlfriend of mine used to say, ‘People respect travelers so much; but really all you have to do to be a traveler is to get on a plane. It’s an easy thing to do.’ In the same way, being a writer is a very easy thing to do. It’s the ability to sit down every single day and do it over and over and over again and to have the humility to destroy things that you once thought were good that you now think are bad because your standards are higher. This is really what makes someone excellent. That’s a great internal change which is really effective in the world.

Julien spoke to me about writing books, making them bestsellers, and being a change agent via your writing. You can read this part of the interview here. He also spoke about blogging and affecting change with a blog. You can read this part of the interview here.

I highly suggest you read The Flinch;  you can download it for free for your Kindle (a free version of this program is free for your laptop). I’ve told all my family members to read it. I have a personal interest in the subject of moving through fear to achieve your goals. I wrote a short book, which will one day become a full length one on the topic: Navigating the Narrow Bridge.

Do you “flinch” often, avoiding fear and not moving toward your goals? Have you found ways to change your habits or thoughts about fear? Tell me about this with a comment.

If you are interested in writing and blogging, read the other parts to my interview here and here.

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I spend so much of my time doing things to try and get noticed. Promote, promote, promote. With my new book coming out soon, I feel the pressure to make myself seen and heard all the more intensely.

Yet, truth be told, most days I feel quite alone. I make the effort to reach out and to connect, but I don’t hear or feel the response.

And here’s the truth of the matter: If I were to just focus on the real purpose behind what I do, I wouldn’t have to try so hard at all.

A few weeks ago I interviewed Julien Smith, co-author of Trust Agents and author of The Flinch (which you can get for free on Kindle). He told me that you shouldn’t have to share links to your blog posts on social networks. Your readers should simply share them for you because they like them so much.

That’s actually the truth. And if you are on purpose, if you are writing, working, speaking, networking, whatever,  from your heart, doing what you are meant to do–and doing it well, your message will touch people in a way that makes them want to spread the word. You will get heard and noticed.

You won’t feel like you are working in a vacuum. You won’t feel like you aren’t really communicating.

So, the big question becomes: What’s the real purpose behind what you do? In other words, why do you do what you do? Do you feel a sense of mission? Do you want to help others? Would you like to provide a solution to a problem?

If all you want to do is earn money, accrue a huge amount of cash in the bank, no one will probably listen to you–or share anything that you have to say. You’ll still be all alone at the end of the day.

If you do it just to get more people to like you or to buy your product, you’ll still be alone at the end of the day.

But if you want to give to others, to share your knowledge, to help in some way…that’s different.

The Kabbalists tell us that’s the real purpose of being here–to give, to share. Everything we create should be shared in some way.

So, I’m rethinking what I’ve been doing lately. Getting quieter. Going back to the core purpose behind my actions…trying to fulfill my purpose. Doing what I was meant to do in the way I was meant to do it…and sharing as I go.

It’s easy to get off track in this harried world we live in where we are tethered to our phones and social media, never wanting anyone to forget where we are, what we are doing, where we are going, or what we might be thinking. They might forget us. We might end up alone. We might end up with less friends or followers than someone else. No one might see or hear us. That’s not a good enough reason to keep doing what we do.

What about you? What’s the real purpose behind what you do?

Every day I feel like I”m being pushed to grow bigger than my former self. No one has made me grow; I started the process myself. I wanted to grow. I added the fertilizer and the water. The problem is that now I can’t stop the process. The process has begun, and I no longer have a choice.

Maybe growth is simply a natural process over which we have no say. I’ve heard that said. However, when we have goals and dreams and we take action towards them, sometimes we do, indeed, cause growth to happen.

The other day I stood  in my driveway prior to going for a walk and looked up at the redwood trees that grow all around my house. They towered over me reaching seemingly to the sky. I wondered how tall I could grow. That tall? As tall as those majestic trees? How big or wide? In my backyard there is a redwood tree that is absolutely huge–bigger and wider than most I’ve seen. And it continues to grow.

I had a dream of who I could become. And I took action to make that dream come true. To stop myself from growing into that person, I’d have to stop nurturing my growth, my dream. I’d have to allow myself to wither up and…well…to fail.

Some days, success feels scarier than failure. But failure at this point would disappoint more people than just me.

I’ve watched the redwood trees go through phases at different times of the year. During the drought of late summer, they drop an enormous amount of needles. It’s as if they draw back into themselves and get rid of what they don’t need to conserve energy. They don’t stop growing, though. Like them, at certain times I have to pull inward and drop things–activities–so I can accomplish what I need to do to keep growing, keep moving forward toward my goals.

At other times of the year, such as in the winter, the trees produce fruit, small cones and berries that drop onto my patio and stain it when it rains. I can hear the birds and insects in the trees eating. The redwoods seems to be sharing what they have to offer, giving away the fruit of their work. At times, I do the same, freely and willingly as I reap the benefits of my progress.

Always, though, I am stretching upward, still growing. And I’m trying to allow my roots to grow deeper, keeping me stable, grounding me. Like the redwoods, I’m also hoping to create a circle of friends around me–a cathedral of those that know me, support me, appreciate my growth, my work, my progress, that encircles me. There the sacred giving takes place…

The giving of what we gain as we grow really is the sacred act. And what better place than in a cathedral? Call it a tribe, a circle, a fan group. It really doesn’t matter.

But as the cathedral grows, I’m pushed to continue growing. And I have to ask myself, “How big, how tall, how wide am I willing to grow? How large am I supposed to grow?” I know there is a Greater Plan for me and I’m just following it, fulfilling my purpose. I wonder if I can fulfill than plan, that purpose.

So I continue to water, to fertilize, to push myself to grow.

How about you? How big, tall and wide are you willing to grow?

2012. The world was supposed to end, some said. (We knew better.) But things were supposed to change–the energy was supposed to change, at least.  A whole week has gone by. We are being flooded now with the light of the first full moon of this pivotal year, which is supposed to affect our consciousness on every level. Something is supposed to be changing. Or it should be getting easier to create change, right?

I wrote my vision and my goals. I created a vision map or board. I set out with good intentions. Nothing. Same ol’, same ol’.

I could blame it on the fact that my daughter is here visiting. That clients called. I had things that got in the way..projects, the need to learn to podcast, interviews to conduct, old work to get handled and out of the way, bills to pay, shopping to do, emails to answer, social media to attend to, etc., etc., etc.

It felt l like 2012 came in with a rush, driving me forward at breakneck speed. That’s how 2011 went out. Why would the new year be any different? I don’t seem to have brakes on this car I’m in. I’m not sure I’m driving. I’m trying to get control.

Here’s the fact: In the first eight days of 2012, I  didn’t keep to the schedule I set as part of my plan. I didn’t do even one of the things I said I would do. Well…I take that back. I did do one thing. I took a bit of time off to spend with my daughter. I relaxed with family. That is on my vision map and in my goals–to find balance in my life between work and personal.

Yay! I made one change. I made it consciously.

Changing habits can prove difficult. Yet, to achieve some new degree of success we must change our old habits. They’ve only gotten us the degree of success we enjoy right now.

Anything can get in the way and become an excuse. For me, getting up early to complete my client work first is a new goal, a new habit, I’d like to form. It’s easy to say I went to bed too late and simply not get up early. It’s easy to answer the phone when it rings during that time period, or to schedule an activity anyway (like walking with a friend, since that’s a goal, too), and to say that’s why I couldn’t meet my goal, make the change, create a new habit.

I find myself saying all too often I just don’t have the time to change, the energy to change. I’ll do it tomorrow or next week.

Well, a week has gone by of this new year…this year that everyone said would be one of such awesome change…when we could affect change in ways heretofore not possible. I, for one, have not found this year much different. It still remains up to me to make the change. (I hear the refrain of some song…I can’t quite put my finger on it…)

Ah, well…the Kabbalists must right. We are simply in transition. We have a long way to go before the predicted time of peace on Earth or the World to Come. (They say not until the year 6,000 on the Hebrew calendar.) Actually, many other people also say we are simply in a time of transition. And it’s likely our consciousness is changing. We can affect change and do so faster, more effectively if we do it in a conscious and focused manner. We don’t need a new year, a new era, a new anything for that.

The trick is to put that lesson–an old one really (and no “secret” either) to use now to create the desired change. For me, I’m starting small–in my life, with my habits. This helps me achieve what I need to achieve and then has a ripple affect, allowing me to affect others through my work.

I’ll go back and focus again on my vision, my goals, my vision board. I’ll work every day to keep on track, making those little changes that end up in new habits formed. By year’s end, I may have achieved a new level of success based upon those new habits.

What about you? How’s it going after the first week of the New Year? Does the energy of 2012 seem to be supporting you? Is change happening in your life or around you?

Have you ever thought about why you are who you are right now, and how you will create who you will be in the future?

When I ask most people what makes them who they are right now, they respond, “My past experiences. My education. My environment. My genetics.” These are things that either happened in the past or that you were born with–things you carry with you from the past into the future.

And when it comes to the experiences you had, you made decisions about those experiences that you also take forward with you. In fact, you project them forward into the future. You expect those decisions–those thoughts–to continue being true.  Thoughts like:

• I’m not good enough.
• People don’t like me.
• I should have been a boy (or a girl).
• Men (or women) leave me.
• I never have enough money.
• I’m not worthy of earning more money.
• I make bad decisions.
• I’m unlovable.
• I’m ugly.
• I’m stupid.

With these thoughts projected out into the future–with you expecting them to be true tomorrow, the next day, next week, a month from now–you perpetuate yourself being that same person you believe yourself to be in the future. You recreate the same experiences over and over again, proving to yourself over and over again that you are, indeed, this person.

When you stop expecting to find yourself in that same situation over and over again–expecting to find poof that you are that person, you will stop having those experiences. For this to happen, you have to leave all of these experiences and decisions in the past. Stop bringing them with you into the future.

I learned all of this long ago when I was doing a variety of self-help, personal growth and human potential workshops and seminars, like the Loving Relationships Training. It can be hard to remember these lessons though, when you aren’t around other like-minded people who also know these principles. The other day a colleague invited me to a preview of the Landmark Forum workshops. There I was reminded of this idea.

It made me stop and consider what decisions I made because of past negative events or experiences that I place in my future and then create that same unwanted outcome. If I can become aware of the experience and the thought, or the decision I made about myself, I can then affect my future outcomes, I can begin changing them. If, for example, I believe I am unworthy of earning more than $50,000 per year because I’ve never been paid more than that before and I’ve had many experiences where I was told I would not be paid what I thought I should be paid based on my experience or worth, I can change that thought, that expectation. And I can expect to earn $100,000 per year or more.

By being conscious of the decision made in the past about myself, I can affect my future and change who I become. I can become someone who earns more money.

Byron Katie, an author, says we should always ask if we really know something is true. I would have to ask myself if I really knew it was true that I was unworthy of getting paid more. If I can’t answer, “Yes, it’s true,” then it must be true that I am worthy of getting paid more. So I have to ask myself if this is true. Can I answer yes to that question?

Can you think of a decision you made in your past that is affecting who you are now? Do you know if the decision is based on truth? Can you change your mind so you can affect your future positively?

I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about as a Yom Kippur, Day of Repentance topic. This Jewish High Holy Day typically brings up issues of forgiveness. I didn’t really want to delve into that once again.

Then I watched an Oprah Winfrey Master Class video about surrender, and I knew. That’s my topic: surrender. If ever there were something for a Jew to forgive himself or herself for during the High Holy Days–or for anyone to forgive themselves for any time of the year–its for not surrendering.

More than that, simply commit TO SURRENDER. It’s one of the most powerful things you can do. Seems ironic since it’s actually a passive action. When you surrender you “let go and let God,” as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous. Then amazing things happen. Your path and your purpose are revealed.

In the Master Class video (link below) Oprah talks about jogging and talking to God and singing and praying. This has been my practice–my hitbodedut. Rebbe Nachman told us to walk in the fields and talk to God, to tell hand our problems over to God, to have a conversation with God. To listen to God. I don’t run, but I walk and I cycle. I often talk, plead, pray, chant, sing, ask questions, cry, listen…try to hear or see  the plan God has for me while walking or cycling. This is just what Oprah describes.

And while she focuses on what she wants, she lets go and surrenders. She allows Something Greater to bring her “this or something better… for the highest good of all concerned.” Those are the words are was taught to offer up as I asked for something–a way to surrender my desires to the Universe. And because she is aligned with the energy, sure enough her thoughts, her focus, her intention lines up with her desire and with God’s plan for her.

As always, Oprah just says it all. I couldn’t say it better even if I keep trying.  Her message is the message I take to heart today, for the upcoming High Holy Day, for the year, for my life. I pass it on to you, my friends. Surrender to something larger than yourself. There’s a plan. You have a purpose. Let it unfold.

Watch the video…(I couldn’t find the video anywhere to updload it–sorry–so follow the link).

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about people who do things that are inspirational. People who are courageous in large ways and small ways.

They take risks. They put themselves on the line. They overcome obstacles. They move through fear. They don’t let anything stop them from pursuing their dreams. They put others before themselves.

And their actions–their courage and determination–makes us cry, makes us smile, makes us laugh, and gives us hope. They inspire us and make us realize that if they can do it, so can we.

My son inspires me. He left home his senior year to attend the School of American Ballet in New York City. He left behind his friends and gave up whatever normal life a teen might have to pursue his dream of becoming a professional dancer. This might not seem like a big deal, but it took courage, and I find it inspiring.

Watch the video below of Emmanuel Kelly, a victim of chemical warfare and a survivor from Iraq. Orphaned and found in a shoe box, he doesn’t know how old he is, but he does know that he wants to sing.  And he has managed to become a great singer. Here’s a young man who, despite his past and his physical deformities got up in front of the whole world to pursue his dream of becoming a professional singer. That takes courage. That’s a risk. But let’s not forget about his mother who had the courage to adopt him and his brother. That takes courage, too.

If this video does not inspire you to have the courage to pursue your dreams not matter what obstacles lie in your way, think about the people who inspire you. Martin Luther King? The non Jews who helped saved Jews during the Holocaust? Moses, with his speech impediment, who freed the Israelites from Egypt? The first responders who went into the Twin Towers on 9-11? I’m sure you can think of someone.

I haven’t been writing much lately on this blog…not from lack of desire. It’s because I’ve had my nose to the proverbial grindstone. It’s been a good thing, though.

For quite some time I’ve been complaining that I can’t get anything done. Then two things happened. I needed to get some things done on deadline, and I got inspired to do the work. Amazingly, that was all it took for me to buckle down and really put my mind to it–and my nose to the grindstone. In fact, I combined my sense of purpose, which I had lost, with my passion for my work, and took inspired action.

That’s what it’s all about. That’s how you create things in your life. Come from purpose and passion. Feel inspired to act. Press your nose to the grindstone. The Divine forces will join in to assist you.

I’ve accomplished some amazing things in about two weeks time. You can, too.

It will be about another two weeks until I can back to regular writing. I’ll drop in for some short posts between now and then, if possible. (I’m away next week.) In the meantime, I hope you can try this methodology in your life and see how much you can accomplish in a short period of time.

Everyone talks about authenticity. How do you find your authentic voice as a writer? How do you ensure that as an business person you come across as authentic? When you get up and speak about yourself and your services, how can you guarantee the audience “gets” that you are being “real”?

There’s a formula that works every time: passion + purpose = inspiration

When you combine your passion for your whatever it is you do with your sense of purpose or mission–the reason you feel you must do that thing–write, coach, provide a service, speak, heal, etc., you will feel inspired. When you feel inspired, you are “in spirit,” in touch with the core of who you really are–your true self. When you act from this inspired place, your authentic, or real, self shines through every time.

To achieve authenticy, do things you feel passionate about and about which you have a sense of purpose. When you feel inspired, act. You’ll then achieve the inspired and authentic results you desire, and everyone who sees your work, hears you speak or encounters you will comment on your level of authenticity.

I’ve been working really hard lately to change my negative thoughts into positive ones in a variety of areas in my life. I’m a firm believer in the creative nature of our thoughts and words.

Sometimes, however, I need inspiration as well–I need to be reminded that I need to keep persevering even when something feels difficult, when I’m experiencing rejected, when I feel alone, or when I perceive obstacles getting in my way. So, I thought I’d look for a video to inspire me that I could also post here to inspire others who might feel some area of their life was getting them down.

If you feel like something has happened in your life that has caused you to fall and it’s become difficult to get up and, therefore, to achieve your goal, watch this video.

Then get up. You can do it. And try again. You can do that to. You can achieve any goal if you set your mind to it. If this guy can do the things he does, you can, too.