I spent the day with my four-year-old nephew scouring a local pond for fish, frogs, and turtles. We love that sort of stuff! But I learned a lot about my nephew today.

A baby Eastern Painted Turtle another kid found

You see, for most of my nephew’s life he has been absolutely fearless. This kid climbs dressers and jumps off them, routinely falls down stairs, and tries to hang upside-down from just about everything. He’s incredible.

But his sudden timidness had me worried today. He saw a huge spiderweb and was creeped out. He learned about poison ivy and shied away from the weeds. He nearly caught a frog, but just missed him because he was afraid. What had gotten into my fearless nephew? But then…

Hope For The Fearless

Next to the pond was a stream. Just wide enough for me to jump across safely, and only about a foot deep. But my nephew thought he could jump over it too. And he refused to cross safely on the rocks.

He hollered, “Uncle Mikey, watch this!”

I Knew He Wouldn’t Make It

But I didn’t say a word. Amazingly, he did get one leg onto the bank. But his other landed right in the deepest part of the stream! He pulled himself out, laughed, and made the excuse, “Oops… Sorry… I thought I could do it…”

I simply smiled back with, “Never say sorry for trying. It wasn’t dangerous. You didn’t get hurt. Just a little wet. And it made for a great story, didn’t it?”

He laughed about it all and recited the story countless times throughout the rest of the day.

What We Learned About Fear

And you see, that’s how fear is most of the time. It’s irrational, unfounded fear. There’s nothing truly dangerous about it. There are usually no real social or physical consequences. We’re fearful because our parents or friends or teachers or ex-lovers taught us to be. We’re afraid to climb that tree, go out on that limb, and jump… usually for no reason at all.

What is fear keeping you from accomplishing? Think of all your fears and decide whether they’re truly something you should be afraid of.

And never discount the fear of success. It’s the most prevalent fear there is.

When I moved to the Florida Gulf Coast — essentially my second home as I’ve “lived” there multiple times in the past 5 years — I became obsessed with shark teeth.

A girl I knew would find dozens of them in a 20-minute walk up the beach. I couldn’t believe it! I looked and looked, day after day. But I never found one!

She would often say, “It’s easier to find them once you’ve found one.”

Talk about a catch-22!

But She Was Right

After weeks of looking, I found my first shark tooth. A few minutes later, I found another. And then another! And soon my pocket was filled with them. I now have a glass at my parent’s house in Florida that’s overflowing with shark teeth.

And you could go there and find them too. But…

You Have To Have The Right Eyes

To find shark teeth, you need to develop an eye for finding shark teeth. To spot opportunities, you need to develop an eye for spotting opportunities. It’s work. But once you have the right eyes, you can easily find what you’re looking for.

Entrepreneurs, day traders, real estate moguls, inventors, and even writers have a knack for finding great opportunities. But there’s nothing they’ve done that you can’t do. They’ve simply trained their eyes to quickly spot opportunities. But it all starts by looking.

The entrepreneur sees potential businesses. The day trader sees a good buy. The real estate mogul sees a fixer-upper. The inventor sees a need. The writer sees a connection to be made. They have the right eyes to see what it is they’re looking for.

Do you?

Comfort is a sure sign you’re on the wrong path.

It’s fear  you should be seeking. Discomfort. That feeling you get in your stomach that’s like a brick wall that says…

“Don’t ask that girl to dance”
“Don’t call that potential client”
“Don’t get on that stage”

If you aren’t facing fear, are you really doing anything worth doing?

We can’t control where we were born, how we’re bent, or what talents we’ve been blessed with. But remember this…

We can control the outcome by controlling what comes in.

The people we spend time with. The books we read. The shows we watch. They all affect what we become. Fill your life and mind with garbage, and that’s exactly the kind of life you can expect to end up with. But strive to be better on the inside, and life will get better on the outside as if by magic.

It’s hard to do, but it’s that simple.

Everyone wants to be successful. Here’s the problem: You can’t make people want to do the work that leads to success any more than you can make them want to exercise to lose weight.

You can’t make people want to go through withdrawal to get clean. You can’t make people want to give up their lifestyle to live a more spiritual life. You can’t make people want to stop eating out so they can get out of debt.

See the common problem? It’s them.

You can’t make them want to do anything. You can offer every logical reason under the sun for why they should do this or that. But you still can’t make them want to.