I'm afraid of heights, and that's not one I can easily work through. Worst case scenario? I fall to my death. Semi-bad scenario? I break a limb.
So there aren't a lot of points I can argue there. I'm clumsy and uncoordinated. I move quickly. The odds are stacked against me, so my fear is at least somewhat founded. Whether that justification makes sense to anyone but me, I'm not sure haha.
But what about the fear of launching my business? Worst case scenario? It fails. I have to start over or go back into the corporate world. Semi-bad scenario? It's not very successful or not fulfilling.
Both of those situations suck, sure. But both fall under "It sucks, but..." It sucks, but you'll learn what doesn't work. (The only true way for finding out what does). It sucks, but you'll grow as a person. I promise. It sucks, but how impressive would that look on a resume that you had the ambition to start a business?
A specific fear a lot of us face is the fear of rejection, like mentioned in the podcast above.
When you ask the question, you'll get a yes or no answer and can move on accordingly.
If you don't ask, you're automatically choosing "no" for yourself.
So, is the discomfort of rejection really worse than not knowing and choosing no for yourself?
There's that well known quote, "If you don't ask, the answer is always no."
I also like this quote from Jeff Bazos, founder and CEO of Amazon: "I knew that if I failed I wouldn't regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying."