Run out of excuses with every word
So here I am and I will not run
Guts over fear, the time is here
Guts over fear, I shall not tear
For all the times I let you push me around and push me down
Guts over fear, guts over fear

Now I don’t wanna seem indulgent when I discuss my lows and my highs
My demise and my uprise, pray to God
I just opened enough eyes later on
Gave you the supplies and the tools to hopefully use it to make you strong
And enough to lift yourself up when you feel like I felt
Cause I can’t explain to y’all how dang exhausted my legs felt
Just having to balance my damn self
Those dang eggshells, I was made to walk
“Guts Over Fear, Eminem

I remember one time reading somewhere that Jerry Rice, one of the best football players ever, ran scared. He said he was so fast because he was absolutely terrified of the opposition catching him.

Living without fear, is living without one of the most important and motivating inputs we can tap into.

However, fear can paralyze you just as fast. It can make you stuck, turn off all the lights, take your limbs from you and put the pressure of thousands of pounds down upon you. Fear can do all of that. In fact, fear can do that for your entire life. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the lady stand up in front of the crowd saying she lived her life in fear and even worse…she lived her life thinking she wasn’t worth it.

That was one of the most defining moments of my life.

Watching that woman, a 65 year old woman in tears testifying in front of 200 people that she had spent her whole entire life thinking she wouldn’t amount to anything tore something open inside of me. I was only 22 at the time, but I knew that moment was a moment  that would last forever in my mind.

You’re nuts if you say you aren’t scared. You are absolutely batsh*t crazy. Everyone gets scared. Everyone feels fear. Everyone needs to feel these emotions. Not only because they protect you in some instances, but because if you aren’t coming up against the edge, you aren’t growing. You aren’t taking steps in a new direction. Sayings you aren’t afraid of anything isn’t strength, that’s weakness pretending to be strength. Because guaranteed there are things  that are going to come along in your life that will instill the fear of god into you and oh the surprise you will have, the “I am not afraid of anything person,” when your gut tightens up, you get chills up your spine and your ability to move seizes. No. Fear all feel fear. But it’s not all about that.

Courage, is taking one step past fear. Courage, is about having guts over fear.

That’s what I focus on. Not on denying myself emotions, but being able to work with them. That’s what I have been trying to do for almost four years now. Because I can remember way back when I started…that I was terrified of what I was going to write down. I was hurting and everything inside of me resembled an emotional tornado. Go ahead, try to pretend a tornado isn’t there…doesn’t work.

Feel it.

Whenever emotions come up, feel them. The good and the bad. Tap into them. We are taught from a young age, especially with the negative emotions, that feeling sad or angry or upset is a bad thing. It’s not. It’s part of the learning process. What’s even worse is that we are almost made to feel wrong for feelings these emotions. Our parents usually tried to mediate  the situation as much as possible by trying to give us a cookie or do something to cheer us up and it was quite effective. But when you continue to grow up and things get a little more intense, and you start to go through situations that horribly diminish your self-esteem and confidence, and these emotions start to creep in…there’s no cookie or toy that can make you happy again. So we suffer. Some of us, try to find the equivalent of the “cookie or toy” in adult terms. Some of us go to food, alcohol, drugs, sex, the works. This system is broken.

If you don’t know where you are going, well, any direction will really do. But don’t go nowhere.

If you get stuck, start moving, start searching. You don’t have to have the answer from the onset. Think how easy those math problems would have been if we had the answer at the start and could simply say “solved!” Life doesn’t work that way. Not even close. In fact, the “answers” to the true secrets don’t even come to you until you are 6, 7 ,8 , 9 or however many weeks into your journey. Why?

Because you are on new ground.

Undiscovered paths always open your eyes to the new possibilities of the world…and new possibilities for your life.

It all takes guts over fear.

You have to have some guts to go out there and be willing to make an absolute fool of yourself. You have to have LOTS of guts to go out there, after you have gone out there a thousand times, and risk it all again and again until you win. I have major respect for those people.

Look at what you are doing today, and if you don’t like what you have, then you are going to have to do something different. The worst news is usually the best news. This is because you learn that you are a product of all the decisions you have made up until this point, and to change that, you are going to have to make some serious course corrections.

The best part of all of this?…is that given enough time and effort, we can correct any course we have taken.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project