Transcript
Speaker: Hey everyone, it's Courtney here and you're listening to the Unfiltered Podcast.
Speaker: Today we are going to be talking about fear and I've got Kylie here.
Speaker: Hi, Kylie.
Speaker: How are you doing?
Speaker: So we're going to be talking about fear and all the ways that that really presents in our lives and hold us back from doing things that we really have the potential to doing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we were over on the Filming Life Instagram account.
Speaker: We asked the question, what's holding you back from switching your camera over to video?
Speaker: And if you know us at all, you know that we run Filming Life and that is a filmmaking educational platform for photographers.
Speaker: So we do...
Speaker: have this a lot where people you know they they get a bit scared of of switching over to video and just getting started so we asked that question like what is it that's holding you back and some of the answers that we got was just fear just plain and simple fear it was by far the most common response
Speaker: So this had us kind of thinking to ourselves like, well, you know, what exactly does that mean?
Speaker: And what exactly can we sort of say to help alleviate some of that fear for you?
Speaker: And we just want to kind of have a conversation about that.
Speaker: And because, you know, it's not just fear that stops you from holding, from switching over your camera to video, but it's also fear that often stops us from starting a business that we're really passionate about or really just doing anything new or
Speaker: creative, like, yeah, just trying new things.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Giving things a go.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I would say that to anyone who's out there and sitting there thinking, I'm not going to do this because I'm scared, really drill into that and ask yourself, what is it that you're afraid of?
Speaker: Are you afraid of what people are going to think?
Speaker: Are you afraid of not being good at it?
Speaker: Are you afraid of the time that you're going to,
Speaker: like spend on that, that you can't, you can't do something else.
Speaker: Really drill into that and try to understand where is that fear coming from?
Speaker: Because there's something more than just you're scared.
Speaker: Usually there's something that is creating that and sort of instilling that fear inside of you.
Speaker: And a lot of times I think
Speaker: That it's the fear of what other people are going to think and probably the fear of failure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the fear of putting yourself out there, doing the thing and it not working out.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know for me, like one of my biggest struggles with this and this whole fear thing is it's kind of almost like a combination of the two.
Speaker: It's not even like it's not just what are people going to think and how are they going to like look at me and it's not just like what if I fail.
Speaker: For me, it's what if people know I've failed?
Speaker: What if other people see me fail?
Speaker: Like if I put something out there and it doesn't work, like,
Speaker: everyone's going to know that it didn't work and that it was a failure.
Speaker: And that to me is almost even worse.
Speaker: I never, like, you know, my biggest fear is looking stupid and like I don't know what I'm doing.
Speaker: You know, and I've struggled against that my whole life.
Speaker: Yeah, it's so relatable.
Speaker: I think I've had a lot of conversations with my son about this lately because he started high school and, you know, and I think like he's afraid just to raise his hand and ask a question.
Speaker: And, you know, the reason for that is because he doesn't want to look stupid in front of his peers.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And that totally carries through with us into adulthood, whether we like it or not.
Speaker: And so, yeah,
Speaker: And something that I will often say to him to kind of help him work through that is just ask yourself, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker: What's the worst that could happen?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They'll think that you were silly for a brief period of time.
Speaker: But sometimes I think we actually like, we think people care way more.
Speaker: about what we're doing than people actually do.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Like 100%.
Speaker: I mean, nobody's actually out there going, Oh, look at that person.
Speaker: Like maybe they are, but it might last a day and people move on.
Speaker: And at the end of it, like it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And this was something that I think I sort of, I guess when I first started switching over to video, starting my business, starting photography, I
Speaker: It's like, yeah, I'm not that great.
Speaker: I'm not that great at this.
Speaker: Weren't you born great?
Speaker: God, no.
Speaker: But I remember kind of thinking to myself, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker: I'm going to put it out there.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: If it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.
Speaker: I'll figure something else out.
Speaker: but I'm just going to do it.
Speaker: I'm going to do it.
Speaker: And, and, and it really is like kind of just jumping off the cliff and trusting.
Speaker: It's kind of having that like trust and belief in yourself that you can, even if it doesn't work out, even if you do fail, I think that's where the fear really stops us is it's because we kind of sit there and think, well, if I fail, like, what if I know?
Speaker: Cause what if I fail or what if I'm not good at it?
Speaker: Well,
Speaker: you probably won't be good at it.
Speaker: I hate to break it to you.
Speaker: When you start, you will probably be good.
Speaker: You might not be good at it right away.
Speaker: But that is why.
Speaker: I wasn't.
Speaker: Yeah, I wasn't.
Speaker: I'm never good at it.
Speaker: But like, but do it anyway.
Speaker: You know, like just do it anyway.
Speaker: Do the thing.
Speaker: even if it's not going to be good.
Speaker: And so that, I guess that's where you have to let go of not only the fear of failure or the fear of not being good, but just like trusting yourself that you can work through that, trusting yourself that things do take time and that nothing is just an overnight success.
Speaker: And also always think to yourself, well, what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker: You're always going to feel like,
Speaker: if you don't do the thing you're gonna regret that more yeah than if you tried and you did the thing and it was hard and maybe it didn't work out but then you learn something from that and then you get a little bit better and then you show up the next day and you get a little bit better yeah I think um you know it's also like
Speaker: coming back to that idea of like what's the worst that could happen and like who's really going to see it.
Speaker: It's almost like a getting over yourself as well.
Speaker: A hundred percent.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And it's, you know, like something that's kind of been similar for me is –
Speaker: you know, working on body image issues and, like, how I think about myself and how I look at myself.
Speaker: And I remember, you know, as a teenager and, like, in my early 20s and, like, constantly worrying, like, that people were looking at me and how did I look and people were judging my body and all the rest of it.
Speaker: And then I remember reading something and they're like, nobody cares about you.
Speaker: Literally no one is looking at you because they're all thinking about themselves.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that was such a huge, like, I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, maybe I'm just like, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know what it is.
Speaker: Maybe I'm just slow or something.
Speaker: It took me so long to get it.
Speaker: But that was a real turning point for me when I suddenly went, oh, actually, that's probably right.
Speaker: Like, I'm not walking down the street and looking at other people's bodies and judging their bodies.
Speaker: So, like, actually, they're probably not doing the same to me.
Speaker: So why am I worrying about that?
Speaker: Like, you know, and it's like that with other things.
Speaker: Like, you know, when I've put things out with my business and they've failed, let's be honest, probably nobody's noticed.
Speaker: Because the only person who cares is me.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: No one is noticing.
Speaker: And you know what?
Speaker: The people that are noticing, don't worry about them.
Speaker: And probably they've noticed because they like you and are invested in you and maybe they're worried about you.
Speaker: So really they're noticing and they're probably not going to say anything.
Speaker: No one will say anything to you.
Speaker: And probably the only people that do notice have noticed.
Speaker: They won't say anything because they don't want to embarrass you, but they also notice from a place of love.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They follow you when you're invested.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I think kind of going back to it, really drill into that fear and ask yourself, what is it that's making you scared?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Is it you're worried about taking time, precious time that you should be spending doing other things to do this thing?
Speaker: Is it the fear of, you know, putting things out there publicly, you know,
Speaker: what can you do to like lessen that fear for yourself?
Speaker: What can you do, you know, if it's the learning curve?
Speaker: Well, invest in education to help like lessen the learning curve.
Speaker: Learn from somebody who is going to teach you how to do those things.
Speaker: Like, you know, just for as an example, at the moment, Kylie is doing a marketing course because we both realize that we need some help.
Speaker: with the marketing side of filming life and unfiltered and so you know we're we're learning right now how to do the things that we are scared to put ourselves out there and do and so and sometimes you've got to do it a few times this is not my first marketing call but the beauty of it is that like you know sometimes you can do something and then it's not until like a few years later that
Speaker: things start to stick or whatever.
Speaker: And that's the other thing, like, you know, when I, the first kind of intensive marketing course that I did, I was really, I still had a lot of fear around that.
Speaker: And, you know, and that really held me back.
Speaker: Like I learned so much and I got so much out of it and it helped me so much.
Speaker: But at the same time, it's also taken me almost three years to get to a point where I can now like put those things that I learned in
Speaker: into practice yeah and that was one of the fears and now I look now that I've got that time and I've got that hindsight I'm like oh why was I scared about how long it was going to take like it was going to take a lot of time yeah that's just the way it is yeah and I've got that hindsight yes yeah you just get in your own head and I think um you know really kind of drilling into what is it that's making you scared you know are you worried about what one person is going to think block them
Speaker: Just block them.
Speaker: Who cares?
Speaker: You know, just put yourself out there.
Speaker: And yeah, we just want to encourage you, encourage you from the bottom of our hearts.
Speaker: I know for me, like just a bit of a backstory.
Speaker: I was a musician.
Speaker: I could, you know, growing up.
Speaker: And I played the flute and I was a singer and flute was something I was naturally gifted at.
Speaker: I was really, probably a really talented, naturally talented musician.
Speaker: I didn't have to work that hard to be good at it.
Speaker: And that really carried me through to a certain level.
Speaker: And I had a full ride to university with on a flute scholarship.
Speaker: And I was on my way to becoming basically like a professional flautist in an orchestra.
Speaker: I can't even imagine that life right now.
Speaker: But anyway, that's what I was doing when I was like 19, 20 years old.
Speaker: And what I didn't develop over that time was work ethic because I didn't have to work that hard.
Speaker: And what I did develop was a strong fear of failing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You want to be good at it straight away.
Speaker: And if you don't, you won't even try.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: And that helped me.
Speaker: back so much.
Speaker: And if you are sitting there thinking that, oh, are you nodding your head over there?
Speaker: If you're nodding your head over there and you've been through this too, then you know what I mean.
Speaker: And so what I did instead of continuing to pursue that was I just like, I sort of self-sabotaged.
Speaker: I didn't do very well in my classes.
Speaker: And if I didn't try to
Speaker: that hard then it wouldn't hurt as much to not do well but if I gave it everything and I didn't get it or get you know whatever it was that I was trying to get um you know position first chair whatever um
Speaker: then, you know, I wouldn't, it wouldn't, it wouldn't hurt me as much.
Speaker: And so I just, yeah, I kind of like stopped trying and in it, I really didn't understand, I guess, I kind of just wanted to be done with it.
Speaker: So by the time I met my husband and I moved out here to Australia, I was just not interested in music.
Speaker: I did not pursue music apart from, like I sang in a few different bands and stuff here and there, but like, I didn't pursue anything professionally, nothing.
Speaker: I just was so done with the whole thing.
Speaker: Then fast forward, having kids, starting photography, it's kind of like I had this whole different perspective.
Speaker: And it was like, well, I'm not good at this to begin with.
Speaker: So I've got nothing to lose.
Speaker: And it was once I realized that I was going into it with the mindset of having nothing to lose and
Speaker: that I felt so much more freedom to try things and experiment and do new things.
Speaker: And I still had that fear.
Speaker: I definitely still had the fear of, you know, what if I, what if I put all this effort into this and it doesn't work, but I never let it hold me back because I knew kind of just from going through what I'd been through that, you
Speaker: I had nothing to lose.
Speaker: Like, it's not like I had this, you know, career or anything at that time to, to like walk away from.
Speaker: And if anything, I just had so much to gain from learning and experimenting and trying something new and the freedom that that gave me to then be my own boss, create my own schedule, do all the things that I wanted to do made it so much more
Speaker: impactful.
Speaker: And so I definitely encourage you to think about this, really think about this, think about what the fear is, why it's there to begin with.
Speaker: It might be really deep rooted, might be something from your childhood.
Speaker: It might be something that you need to like do some real professional work on.
Speaker: And I think it's also really important to
Speaker: acknowledge the fact that
Speaker: Even when you know what the fear is and you know how to get past it and you know that the worst can't happen or anything like that, it doesn't mean that you won't ever feel fear again.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: But it just means that you don't have to be scared of the fear even.
Speaker: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There is that kind of thing like the only thing to fear is fear itself.
Speaker: Right, right.
Speaker: And then it does become that thing.
Speaker: But I think once you kind of acknowledge the fact that you know what, okay, this is going to be scary, right,
Speaker: and there are going to be things about this i don't want to do and i'm going to hold me back but i've done it before i can do it again i can push through it because like i know for us now um you know say looking at um you know unfiltered with the retreat and like filming life and our goals that we want to meet for that there is fear around oh yeah are we gonna are we gonna do it yeah are we gonna
Speaker: meet those goals yeah like there is fear around that but the thing that I guess is important for us is that we kind of acknowledge that and then we go well you know what it's going to be worse if we don't try it's going to be worse if we don't try and the results that we could get from trying are so much greater yeah and I think too the thing that makes it helpful for Courtney and I is that we have each other
Speaker: So we can talk about these fears.
Speaker: It does help.
Speaker: And that can be really tricky for a lot of people because, you know, a lot of you listening run your own business.
Speaker: You don't have anyone to talk to.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so, you know, getting involved in communities, like I know that's one of the things that in Filming Life people love about our network community.
Speaker: They've found like a best friend that they can share those fears with.
Speaker: And, you know, with Unfiltered, one of our hopes for the retreat is that, you know, maybe you'll find your person.
Speaker: You'll find that person you can share those fears with.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: you know, like not feel so alone.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It totally helps when you, you do have a fear of something to talk that out with someone else and then to hear them sort of say, oh my gosh, I was terrified too when I first started, but then dot, dot, dot, you know, it's kind of like, it makes such a big difference to know that you're not alone.
Speaker: And I can tell you right now, you are not alone in the fear of
Speaker: starting video or starting, you know, doing something new in your business, putting something out there in your business, even if it is something that no one else has done, you're not alone in feeling that fear.
Speaker: And every part of your business
Speaker: you're going to have to get used to working through that fear because as you level up, as Kylie was talking about earlier, you will face new fears.
Speaker: As you grow, as you become more well-known, as your business expands, you will face new fears.
Speaker: because things will change and things will shift and you have to adapt to those things and you have to be able to change and re-evaluate and make some shifts and maybe learn some new things and a lot of that change can come with fear of am I doing the right things am I making the right choices am I making the right decisions and so you know
Speaker: knowing that now and learning how to kind of like break through that and work through that fear is going to really set you up for success long-term.
Speaker: And it's going to really make a big difference to how much
Speaker: what your capacity is for growth in the long term and that's what we want for you we want you to have a really long successful business and career as photographers and filmmakers and so we want you to realize how good you can be because even if you don't have a career even if you don't have a business and you just
Speaker: you know, you're just making films because you love the creativity of it.
Speaker: Like there's still fears around that as well, you know, and we want you to succeed and to have that.
Speaker: So I guess what would you say are kind of the two takeaways from this that, you know, if you are feeling fear about anything, you know, what are the two things?
Speaker: I guess, you know, one of them is sitting down, thinking about exactly what it is that's making you scared.
Speaker: Name it.
Speaker: Face it.
Speaker: Don't turn away from it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I guess the second one would be find someone that you trust that you can talk about it to.
Speaker: Whether it's another photographer, whether it's your partner, your best friend.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, don't be scared to be a little bit vulnerable with them because you will, at the end of the day, you will feel so much better, even if you don't come up with a plan or a solution or whatever, like because sometimes it's not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: but just talking about it with someone will just, it'll make such a difference.
Speaker: And I also want to end with this little question for you.
Speaker: Write this down in on a piece of paper or whatever is in front of you.
Speaker: Write this question down.
Speaker: What would I do if I knew that I could not fail?
Speaker: What would you do if you knew that you couldn't fail?
Speaker: The answer there, that's what you should do.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it doesn't matter.
Speaker: And that is how you're going to manifest the things that you want to be doing.
Speaker: What would you do if you couldn't, you couldn't fail?
Speaker: I hope to see you achieve that.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: Here ends our little cheerleading.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Episode.
Speaker: It was just, you know, it was sitting on my heart.
Speaker: I know that Courtney, when we looked at these answers, we were both thinking that and thinking, gosh, you know,
Speaker: what can we say to people to maybe make them not feel so alone?
Speaker: And this was our solution.
Speaker: So hopefully, you know, you can take comfort in what we've said.
Speaker: And if you are still feeling a lot of fear, like, get us up, send us a message.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm a really great cheerleader.
Speaker: So is Courtney.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: life absolutely so yeah but just hang in there and push through and do it because i know that everyone who's listening to this you're listening because you're like pretty kick-ass and you're awesome and i know you can do great things so absolutely just do it i want to see you do it yeah all right thanks for listening bye
Speaker: Well, we really hope you enjoyed that episode of Unfiltered Podcast.
Speaker: Head to the website.
Speaker: It's unfiltered.au slash podcast.
Speaker: And you'll find the show notes there with all the links to the things.
Speaker: And you'll also find information for the Unfiltered retreat.
Speaker: We would love it if you joined us.
Speaker: It's going to be an incredible three days of education with...
Speaker: just so many amazing inspirational speakers so unfiltered.au for all of the details about everything retreat podcast specifically for the podcast unfiltered.au slash podcast and if you enjoyed this episode make sure you subscribe and jump over to our instagram account unfiltered.au and let us know what you thought of the episode
