Are You Afraid or Scared? Here’s Why It Matters

I’ve written before about the time I went tandem paragliding off a mountain in Interlaken, Switzerland. So you might recall that I only did it because I made a promise to my son that I didn’t think I’d have to keep and that I survived it even though I was darn-near paralyzed by my fear of heights.

In short: It was terrifying, not fun.

But I don’t know that I’ve ever provided a better description of how I felt when taking part in that misadventure than what John Foley told me when he defined fear.

John, a recent guest on Off the Rak, is a guy I think of as fearless. Before he became one of the world’s top keynote speakers and an expert on developing high-performance teams, John was a fighter pilot and the lead solo pilot for the Blue Angels flight demonstration team. And since retiring from the Navy, he has found other ways to satisfy his thirst for high-risk adventure – jumping out of helicopters so that he could ski down remote mountain trails, for instance, or paragliding off a ski lift with skis on and then landing on a frozen lake.

When John talks about those types of things, he can’t hide the excitement in his voice as he says things like, “Yeah, that’s fun!”

So what does John know about fear?

Quite a bit, as it turns out. And his understanding can help us deal with our leadership fears in more appropriate ways.

For starters, John said he likes to differentiate between being scared and being afraid, and that led him to share his definition of fear. When we feel fear, he said, it’s like “a force coming at you, something out of your control. That’s why it causes that stuckness in us.”

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That’s exactly what I felt when I went paragliding. I was teamed with a highly trained, experienced pilot who gave me all the right instructions for a successful and enjoyable flight off that mountain. But I was stuck on take-off like a water buffalo in a mud slide. I could barely lift my feet as I tried to run off the edge of the cliff, I struggled to open my eyes once we were drifting through the air, and my legs locked up so much that I had no hope of a smooth landing.

That type of fear enslaves us, I’ve found, and not just when paragliding. But being scared, John said, isn’t the same thing because it can come from a place of awareness about the dangers we face.

“Scared is when those little hairs stand up on the back of your neck,” John said. “Scared says, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna walk down that dark alley at night.’ Or it says, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna paraglide again.’ That’s good stuff. Trust that stuff because it’s coming from you and you’re more aware.”

If we never feel butterflies in our stomach when we take on something dangerous or difficult, John said, we can give into the type of complacency that leads to big-time mistakes.

“I’m scared all the time,” John said. “To me, being scared is being on the edge. You’re alert, mindful, and aware, but you’re willing to go forward. You just gotta be smart about it. If I get too comfortable doing something I shouldn’t be comfortable doing – if I’m strapped in that jet about to take off and I’m not alert and aware – that’s a bad thing. I like that little bit of scared.”

Let me break down how I see this and why it matters to leaders.

Fear comes from the outside and if we give into it then we end up stuck. We aren’t effective in whatever we’re doing and we can’t enjoy it.

Scared comes from within us and alerts us to take responsible precautions that might cause us to change directions or take on a challenge in a way that creates better odds for success. We are more effective and we can enjoy what we’re doing.

You might keep this in mind if you are thinking about paragliding in the Swiss Alps, but it’s even more important to remember it in your daily leadership adventures.

When we face difficult decisions or have to step into unknown territory as leaders, it’s easy to be paralyzed by fears that keep us from being effective and steal our joy. We don’t want that. But it’s OK to be scared in those moments, provided we can access where the feelings are coming from and how we can best respond. Then we can move forward toward success, even if it metaphorically takes us off the edge of a mountain.