Overcoming Common Fears-with George S. Everly

0:00Welcome to the rational egoist. I'm your host, Michael Limboitz, and as someone who has suffered with anxiety and panic attacks, I am well aware of how crippling fear can be at times. So I was thrilled when I came across a wonderful article about conquering four specific fears. It was written by today's guest. His name is George S. Everley, Jr. He's a Ph.D. ABPP, FAPA, FAPM, and he serves on the faculties of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He spent almost 40 years and traveled to over 25 countries lecturing on and researching the psychological aspects of disaster. George, thank you so much for coming back to the show today. Sure. I'll be back. I'll be back for some time with you. So, when we are discussing fear, what exactly is fear and why do we have it?

1:12Good questions. So, let's start with the definition of fear. It's an apprehension and arousal, kind of like that fight or flight response, in response to a very specific stimulus, a very specific threat, which is differentiated from anxiety, which is, sorry, arousal and apprehension to something ambiguous. So, unfortunately, our language betrays us because we have terms like test anxiety or performance anxiety. Those terms are incorrect. It should be test fear or performance fear. But, getting beyond that, fear, once we are able to identify what the reaction is to, is far more easy to intervene, whereas anxiety, being more ethereal, abstract, is more difficult to deal with.

2:22So, people will say, you know, I'm anxious. Okay. I'm not sure that's helpful. So, tell me what you're anxious about, and then we begin to dialogue. What does it do for you? What does fear do for you? It's protective, frankly. When we are threatened by something, especially if you go back to that age-old analogy to prehistoric times, it was a good thing to be frightened of a lot of things because it saved your life. It allowed you to fight or flee from a threat. The problem is fast-forward literally thousands of years. We are now fortunately finding our physical integrity threatened less often, but our psychological integrity threatened more often. And that's the problem. We trigger the fear response when it really doesn't need to be triggered. I hope that makes some sense.

3:30It does, and I was a little surprised to find out that fear-related disorders are the most prevalently diagnosed psychological disorders. I would have personally thought depression if somebody had asked me. Now, you identify in your article here four fears, the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of uncertainty, and fear of missing out. Why these fears? Why did you focus on these four? I took a look at what people reported being fearful of, and there are literally hundreds of surveys and published papers out there. So I went through them and said, well, oftentimes there were lists of 10, 20 different things. And of course, if you go to AI, it'll give you a nubrival list. But I thought that there were clusters, if you will, things that almost factored in together.

4:37Shall we say varying aspects of the same themes? So these are the fourth themes that I thought were particularly present. That's not saying there aren't other themes. But if you take a look at this list, I think you'll find just about everything in your personal life is on there somewhere. Okay, what I want to do now is I want to, for each fear, I want you to tell me what it is why we have it. No, let me, what it is and how it manifests. So the first one I want to go through is the fear of failure. Can you spell Olympics? O-L-Y-N-P-I-C-S. Sadly, we had two very promising American medalists to come to fear. And it was, I don't know what he watched the Olympics, it was painful to watch remarkably gifted and talented people.

5:48Kind of fall victim to the fear of failure. And overthinking it. If you want to see an interesting, sad, but compelling video, go online and look, just Google the 10 most, I don't know exactly, the most famous chokes in sports history. And it's gut wrenching when you have gifted, talented people who can perform the task physically, but in the moment lost the physicality to psychology. I was in school, I always tested poorly. They said I had test anxiety, which is test fear.

6:48I think a lot of us can relate to the notion of going into a testing situation you studied going back to high school or college. And then all of a sudden, when you sit there, the answers don't come to you. Until what happens, you leave the test. And then all of the answers come flooding back. Now, I may be the only person that this has ever happened to, but I think not. So what's that about? It's the biology of fear, literally blocking neurologic pathways. Until that biology physiology declines, you can't access that information. So how many times have you, this is a rhetorical question. How many people have found their careers in academia, in athletics, in the performing arts hindered if not brought to a crashing end

7:58because of this fear of failure? The interesting thing to me about the fear of failure is, it's purely, I guess, it's just such a psychological sort of defense mechanism. And what I mean is that, if I don't try to, say, I have a goal and I want to lose, I don't know, 15 pounds. Well, if I try and fail, I don't lose the 15 pounds. But if I don't try at all, I don't lose the 15 pounds. So it just seems like by this fear, I'm trying to protect myself from the sort of sense of my own inadequacy. That if I try and fail, then I'm going to prove myself less than. Is that a decent description of what goes on here? I think it's complicated to be honest with you. But as you point out, I think at its most fundamental, the seeming paradox, what I've told my children and now my grandchildren, the answer is always no unless you ask.

9:12Variation of that is, the outcome is always failure unless you try. I was very, obviously, if I had this test anxiety issue, I was concerned with that failure. So how did I get through two doctoral training programs and a licensing exam that went on for two days or whatever it was? I learned something in the nick of time. And I said to myself, anything worth having is worth failing for. And I don't have to succeed the first time. So I went into my doctoral exams, I went into my licensing exam thinking I can do this, but I don't have to do it the first time. So you know what I'm going to do? I'm talking to myself now. I'm going to take the exam as a practice run.

10:16So I told my doctoral advisor, I said, look, I'm going to plan on not doing so well, but I know that we have an in-person exam after this and I'll clean up the mess then. When I went into my licensing exam, I studied, don't get me wrong, I studied. But then I took a week off and went to Florida. And I literally came back the night before the exam and people in my study group said, where were you? We didn't think you were going to take the exam. I said, no, I went to Florida. It took some time off and it looked at me like I was from Mars. But you know what? The pressure off I passed everything. You know, I failed my driver's test three times before getting it on the fourth time. I've been failing, of course, sucks, but you know what? I have my license just as if I got it on the first try.

11:16So I think that that's, it's important that to just keep going, keep trying because like you said, the answer is no if you never ask. So you might as well ask. Well, failure, as I say in the article, failure is not the lack of achievement. It's when you choose not to try anymore. I like that. All right, fear of rejection, which seems to me very related to the fear of failure. But again, so what is it and why do we have it? So there's a belief among socio-evolutionary sociobiologists that one of the reasons human beings survived was that we lived in groups. We were the smallest people on the planet at the time, probably. And yet they had to bring down woolly mammoths to feed the tribe, et cetera. How do you do that? You got to work together, right? And because a lot of the predators they were living with were nocturnal and we are not.

12:24Our great vulnerability was at night. So what does that mean? It means you have to have a guard at night. Somebody's got to guard, tend the fire and stand watch over everybody else. So we have to have a biologically wired desire to belong to a group. So this fear of rejection is another biologically wired, just like fear of failure, by your flight is biologically wired. This fear of rejection is as well because if I'm rejected by the group at a very primordial level it may mean my very survival is in question. If we're kicked out of the tribe, right? So it's a big deal. Now we just fast forward 20,000 years or whatever it may be. And we no longer have to have somebody tending the campfire. We don't hunt in groups per se.

13:27But that mechanism in the brain is still there. So there is this biological need to belong. And now there are just different challenges. So we want to belong. We don't want to be an outsider. And there's a new twist to this, which is called bullying. Now bullying existed long before social media. But now it's on basically metaphorical steroids. So it's now showing up. This fear of rejection is showing up in different ways. And given the potential addiction to social media and devices, it takes on a whole new life of its own. So what I say to people is why are you surrendering your happiness and success, your well-being, to someone who may not know you and certainly doesn't care about you?

14:35And that's one of those powerful things I've ever said to people in that particular situation. When they come to me and say, well, I was rejected. I wasn't included in the in group or whatever that is. And I say, OK, I get the idea that belonging is important, but I just want to ask you a question. Why are you doing them control over your life? They don't even like you. And not for everyone, but for a lot of people, it's like a light goes on in a dark room. And they go from being beaten down to standing up, which I think is cool. You know, when I was a teenager, I have a well-known, very violent past. And one of the greatest lessons I ever learned was I used to engage in acts of violence to impress people. The interesting thing was I didn't even like the people that I was trying to impress.

15:36So it occurred to me one day as I was thinking, like, why would I try to impress people that I don't like? They don't care about me, but I'm seeking to get them to like me, to fear me, respect me, whatever. And it was all just so irrelevant. And I think that that applies to online. You know, sometimes I'll, because I'm online, I'm very active. It's part of what I'm trying to do here with my life. And sometimes I forget how irrelevant these opinions are. And when I'm just criticized over and over again, I'll let it get to me. And then it occurs to me what you just said, like, who cares? I don't even know what these people look like. Oh, for God's sake. Like, what do I care what they think? But it's a hard thing to overcome, no? Because we're hardwired to want to be liked and accepted. But I remember a term going back to my childhood. I don't know where it came from. But when the criticism was levied, a very constructive question to me was, well, consider the source.

16:45And that wasn't designed. I fear it was taken out of context and was accepted as being dismissive. It is not because sometimes the source is very credible and should be listened to. But many times, if not most, the source is unknowledgeable and irrelevant. So it's a little bit more complicated than just putting your head down and ignoring everybody. I think we can learn from criticism, certainly. But again, consider the source. And I remember a conversation I had with my first doctoral advisor. I had written something and he says, I don't understand this.

17:46And I got defensive because I was being rejected. Or at least my writing was being rejected. I got defensive and I started defending myself. And he stopped me and it was one of those wonderful moments in my academic journey. And he said, stop. He said, I'm a PhD full professor. If I don't understand it, what are the chances the reader is going to understand it? And I got it instantly. You're right. Bingo. Consider the source. Consider the source. What about when the fear is uncertainty? We fear what we don't know. We fear a future that's not predictable. What's this all about? Well, again, I think it's a variation of the theme of survival, honestly. We must proceed cautiously into the unknown. But I think people aren't always comfortable doing that, so they stop proceeding.

18:53And they stop growing. I mean, how do you grow intellectually, unless you go into what you do not know? So you must be... The only way you're going to grow is to do something different. So what I say in the article, kind of these... I put these self-talk. And again, these are all in psychology today online. It says, if I'm not willing to risk the unknown, I will have to settle for what I've known and the ordinary. You know, when you stop and think about that, it's like, oh, okay. And then I invoked Friedrich Nietzsche when he said, what does not destroy me makes me stronger? I may get knocked down. And in fact, we would expect to get knocked down because there's no such thing in most human endeavors as one trial learning.

19:59In other words, you get it right the first time all the time. So what does that mean? And it even reflects back to the fear of failure. The growth is necessarily built on failure. And Thomas Edison was famous for that. How many experiments, how many thousands, literally thousands of times, did he fail with his incandescent light bulb until he finally got the right formula, if you will? If he had given up, somebody else would have discovered it. So it's all about being able to move forward while you're uncomfortable. And also, I guess being able to recognize when the path is unproductive when people ask me, well, if tenacity is a powerful predictor of success, which it is,

21:01when do I know to finally stop and go in a different direction? And the answer is, when the efforts you've put forth is more costly than any reasonable return you're going to get from success, then it's time to move on. So I recently watched an episode of the Twilight Zone. And when you talked about the, you know, if you knew you were going to succeed every time on the first try, it reminded me of the episode. Because what happened was, there was this guy, and he was a criminal. And he ended up, he robbed somebody, ended up in a shootout with the cops, and he was dead. And he's got this, now he's, you know, in the afterworld, and he's got this guide that takes him around. And the guide provides him with everything he wants. So he's got women, he's got money, he's got a beautiful house. The guy liked to gamble, so, you know, he had slot machines, poker, and he always won every time. And after a while, not a very long while, he started to hate this.

22:06Because he said, well, I want to go rob a bank. Is there a chance I'm going to get caught? And the guy said, well, we can set it up that way if you want. You know, it's all up to you, what you want. And so the guy got so sick of it after a while, and he says, alright, I don't like heaven. I want to go to the other place, and his guide laughed at him and said, what makes you think you're in heaven? You are in the other place. And the point was that that type of certainty where there's no struggle, there's no growth, there's no risk, would make for a very, very dull life, right? I think you're exactly right. Part of the appreciation of success is looking back at how difficult it might have been to achieve. It makes it that much more rewarding if you've failed, if you've had to face adversity. People that have things given to them, I think you'll see in developmental psychology,

23:06people that have things handed to them without effort, often have a difficult time, kind of struggling as being responsible adults. So the FOMO fear of missing out. This is something I had heard about until very recently, last three or four years. And the reason I've heard about it is because my girlfriend ends up with FOMO sometimes. She won't want to come with me somewhere, and she fears that she's going to be missing out on something. And I tell her, why come if you're not going to have fun, if you're not going to enjoy yourself? So tell me about FOMO and what it's all about. You know, so I included this one. This is kind of George's add on. The other three are empirically based in a more controlled organized way. This, honestly, I just added on.

24:07Because to me, it is a relatively new phenomenon. I'd say the term, the acronym is probably 10 years older, so not even sure. But it is so true. I mean, the concept is age old. And I think about variations of it where I remember being a child. And I was asked by two different friends to go someplace at the same time. And I wasn't sure what to do, so I waited and waited and waited until they both left without me. And it was a powerful lesson. Somebody sent me a nice quote, don't know who it's from. But they basically said, you know, sometimes you just have to decide. You have to make a decision.

25:07Because the moment of absolute certainty is never upon you. But what happens when you delay is you may lose the opportunity. So I wrote the fear of missing out less as a kind of upfront singular variable. What do I do when I have conflicting the conflicting opportunities? But the other part is I think what happens if we want to dig a little bit deeper. Is the part of the fear of missing out is to somehow think that we are either inferior or what other people have is superior to what we have. So we are always chasing the other thing, thinking it may be better than what we have.

26:09And that's the fear of missing out. What we fail to realize is sometimes we have it pretty well. I mean, it's like a variation of the grass is always greener on the other side is the fear of missing out. And sometimes we risk giving up what we have, thinking that what other people have has got to be better than what I have. And there is this moment and the sooner the better in the lifespan that you recognize, let me continue to strive to do better and be better. But you know what, where I am right now ain't so bad. And it takes the burden, the quest for that always something better. I mean, it's an illusion sometimes. How many times, and maybe your listeners can relate to this, how many times have you strives for something?

27:11You worked really, really, really, really hard for this destination and life, this achievement. And when you got there within a very short period of time, you were disappointed. It's like, oh my God, kind of like your guy in the twilight zone, he got there, he got it. And it's like it's not always cracked up to be. And I mean, you see that all the time in life and people say, I've worked my whole life for this goal. And now I'm here. It's not always cracked up to me. You included a quote in here, it's one of my favorite quotes. It's from the Epic Tetis. Hopefully I pronounced that right because I really have no idea how to pronounce it. But he says that men are disturbed, not by things, but the views which they take of them. What does that mean and how does it apply here? It means go back to Ben Franklin, beauties in the eye of the beholder.

28:15So Epic Tetis or Epic Tetis, depending on how you pronounce it, was a stoic philosopher in ancient Greece. And the stoics basically said, control what you can, cope with the rest, and understand the only thing you really have control over is how you interpret the world as it unfolds before. When you analyze what upsets people, seldom is it the thing, although they tell you it's the thing. What they, what's you then, if you dig down just a little bit deeper, you find it's what they're telling themselves. So let's say being late for a meeting for a legitimate reason, but you're still stressed out. You're late for a meeting. So you stop and you say, why am I, why am I so stressed out? You know, you're in a traffic jam. I can't make the traffic go any faster. I'm going to get there when I get there.

29:16Why am I so stressed out? Why not? I just sit here in the traffic jam and think about nice things or listen to radio or whatever else. And so dig down a little bit deeper and you say, well, if you come in late, people are going to think you're irresponsible. And if they think you're irresponsible, they're not going to get a promotion. If you don't get a promotion, you're going to get fired. If you get fired, you're going to lose your house. If you lose your house, you're going to lose your marriage. See how it just cascades in this catastrophizing pattern. And it's like, whoa, put the brakes on. A lot of what you're saying is just wrong. Now, there may be a few people that say, yeah, you're irresponsible for being late. You should have left earlier. You know, maybe they have a point. Maybe they don't. You can always arrive and say, sorry, I should have left earlier. I didn't plan properly. Own it and move on. As Homer Simpson, the great American philosopher once said,

30:16he said, look, when you mess up, blame yourself, but just blame yourself once and move on. So, you know, it's that battle between your ears. You know, the, as Epictetus said, you know, men are disturbed not by things, but the views which they take of them. But, but that scene is continued all through history. The mind is its own self. And in itself can make a heaven or a hell or a hell of a heaven. That's John Milton writing in Paradise Lost. And fast forward, Eleanor Roosevelt, no one can make you feel bad without your permission. Why are we giving people so much control over our lives?

31:18What are, this would be my last question before I let you go. People frequently ask me when I have discussions like this, okay, but what do I do? What can I do? So, what are some practical tips that your average person can employ to overcome these fears without having to go, you know, spend 10 years in therapy? So, there are two things one I talk about in the article. Again, I would, maybe you can put a link to the psychology today article. We'll do. Yep, definitely. So, I, I tend to gravitate to the stoic philosophy of life, which is, you know, it's, it's not just what happens to you. The matter is, it's how you take it. It's how you interpret it. So, that's what's sometimes called self talk. What can I say to myself to move beyond that? And in that article, I list some of my favorites.

32:23But they, it sounds silly. It sounds ethereal. It sounds psychological in quotes. But it works. The other before, before you get there, before you get to that step, there's also a technique called distraction or thought substitution. If, if a fear is weighing on you, the easiest, quickest thing you can do is focus on something else. Just get yourself out of that mind that do not go down that spiraling dark hole, which we tend to do. So, stop. Think about something else. Some people even wear a, you're ready for this? A rubber band on their wrist. And when they see themselves really going down the rabbit hole, they, they take the rubber band and just pull it out a little bit and let it go. And that little sting reminds them, oops, there I go. So then the second step, putting the two steps together would be, now what can I say to myself?

33:24My 10 year old daughter came to me. She, she said, daddy, I want you to take me roller skating. I said, fine. So, she can roller skate. I can't. So I get, get there and she says, daddy, come on, come out on the, on the, on the rink with me. And I said, no, I don't really roller skate. She said, come on. And then she'd skate. I was just sitting there watching her. She'd skate by and she said, come on, daddy. And I finally said, okay, fine. What was the turning point? A little voice in my head came to me and said, George, anything worth having is worth failing for. This time with your daughter is precious. It'll never happen again, quite in this way. Put the darn skates on and get out there. And I did. And it was a, it was a life changing moment, even though I fell and broke my elbow. Oh, that's pain. I do it. I do it over again. It was, it was a, it was a literally a life changing moment. It's like, oh my godly, this 10 year old kid is teaching this Ivy League professor about psychology.

34:42George, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule this morning to be with us. Where can people find you? You know, that's a good question. I'm really not on many social media. I have a LinkedIn page, I guess. That's about the only social media I'm at. And, you know, my, my email is Dr. George at icisf.org. If people have questions, I can certainly reach out to me. Awesome. And I will include the link to the article with this episode. Thanks again. You're very welcome. Thanks for having me on the show. For now, this is the rational ego is signing out. I'm Michael Liebowitz. Until next time.