You must slay the dragon — Why fear should never stop you

You might be the shinny knight in the white horse, but you’ll face the dragon.

This post is heavilly inspired in Steven Pressfield and Ryan Holiday books, the ancient but always modern “Letters from a Stoic”, and “Lose Yourself” from Eminem. Please listen *AND* understand the lyrics from this music, before you even think about reading anything else here.

You might not like Eminem or Rap, but his lyrics are as real as it gets.

Now that we are on the same page, let’s talk about what matters today: fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of loss, fear of public, fear of speaking, fear of pain… We all have been there and tasted so many of the faces of fear, and most of us end up trying to eliminate these moments from our lives. How many times did you gave up something just you wouldn’t let the omnipresent dragon of fear walk into your life again?

We are conditioned to think that there are fearless people, heroes who are just programmed to be above this negative feeling and that are used to go against all the odds with a huge smile in their faces. If you saw any action movie from the 80’s or 90’s, you might remember so many characters in lead roles who would fit this description, like the Marion Cobretti, in the nostalgic movie “Cobra”:

“I don’t deal with psychos, I put ’em away”

But the truth is that no one is above feeling fear. Only Hollywood heroes might seem unshakable, in real life not even the most Stoic person is capable of being truly fearless. Fear is like just death, an unavoidable part of life, wether we like it or not…

So what can we do about it? In my humble opnion, we must all face fears in order to learn how to tame then. You don’t like speaking in public? Guess what, if you never try, you will never get good at it. Find an audience, grab the microphone and be read to fight, that’s the only way to do it.

In the “War of Art”, Steven Pressfield writes one of the most powerful essays on this subject. One of the best lines of the book is this:

“The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.”

So now it’s the time to just stop talking and planning, and let’s just slay our dragons…