Overcoming Fear in Business: Unpacking the Four Fs with Viv | EP251

Are you ready to conquer the fear that's holding you back in your business? Discover how by tuning in to our latest episode of the Mindset & Action podcast with our insightful guest, Vivienne Joy. Together, we break down the four Fs of fear—fight, flight, freeze, and fawn (or "please," as Viv aptly puts it)—and examine how these responses can subtly sabotage your professional life. From underpricing your services to dodging challenging tasks and aggressively pursuing sales, Viv reveals how these patterns, often rooted in childhood, manifest in our business behaviours.

Gain a deeper understanding of the root causes of your fears, whether it's fear of failure, success, or even overachievement. Through relatable personal stories and real-life client examples, we shed light on how self-awareness and compassion can guide us through fear-triggered reactions. Learn how to identify your fear triggers, and envision how the best version of yourself would handle these situations to foster more effective business practices. Don't miss out on these valuable insights and strategies—be sure to check out all of Viv's links below for more resources to help you on your professional journey.

CONNECT WITH VIV

Website

The Video Vault

Viv's Facebook Group

The 5 Power Pillars of Podcasting 12th Dec 1pm UK register here > BOOK

www.donnaeade.com

Buzzsprout - Your go to Podcast Host!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating Fear States in Business
• 9:39 Understanding and Navigating Fear in Business

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. Welcome back to the podcast, everyone, I am glad to have you here today. We have the lovely Viv in the house and today we're gonna be talking about an interesting one. We are going to be talking about freeze, flight, fight and fawn.

Speaker 1: 1:02

So the four Fs and you may not have heard of the fawn one. It's one that's kind of like bought in and bought out of the realms. Now you may be thinking but, donna, what's that got to do with business? And I would say, more than you think, because oftentimes we think these are things that happen when we're in danger. So, if you know, as women, unfortunately, if you're walking down the road at night and there is a guy on his own walking behind you, you are going to feel that anxiety building. It just happens whether he's the nicest guy in the world or whether he is, you know, a serial killer. You just you just don't know and your brain immediately fills in the gaps. So, viv, freeze, flight, fight and fawn not in terms of danger, but in terms of our everyday lives and business. Does it show up. Why does it show up? What are we missing?

Speaker 2: 1:56

oh, I love it, thank you. Well, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to replace one of your four f's with a p. That's the true story. Right, have a p please, bob, for I don't know how old your listeners are, but they might not remember that, in which case I'm going to sound ancient no, they'll remember, they're my age.

Speaker 2: 2:10

It's fine so we call it, or I call it fight, flight freeze and please.

Speaker 2: 2:17

So if you, we would.

Speaker 2: 2:18

So we might understand the word fawn, because no one, they think it's bambi, don't they? But if we think about the word, fawning is pleasing and it's the most popular one, shall we say we're going to choose one of the four because it's people pleasing. It's much easier to just say, oh, that's fine, I want to do that or I don't want to do that, based on what that person wants, and we'll see that a lot in business. I'm going to start with it and it goes something like oh, I want to use your services and you say it's 300 pounds, I've only got 250 and the the fauna, the people pleaser, will say, yeah, all right, we'll do it for that. So that's how pleasing. Oh, actually I want to come, I want to come to your thing, but I'm going to be late. Is that OK? Yeah, that's OK.

Speaker 2: 3:00

So what we're doing is we're doing everything to please the other person. And you know, whilst we learn this, we learn this at school to fit it. We learn it in jobs so we don't get sacked. We learn it in friendship circles so we don't get ousted. So people like us. So we learn people pleasing from a very young age and, in fact, depending on how you were parented, you would have learned to please your parents, because it would have stopped them from shouting at you, would have got you treats. So you know, that's basically how we get a fear, which is what we're talking about here that all of these F states, as you call them, are fear states. So they're all about what we do when we're scared. And, of course, when we're in business, we are scared most of the time because we're doing loads of new stuff, we're trying stuff. We're being judged by the people. That's our perception actually, that people are not that interested in us. Sadly, we're not that visible, that people are actually judging us. But we believe the whole world can see that post we just put out. Everyone is judging it, everyone is thinking it's not true. So lots of fear involved.

Speaker 2: 3:59

Um, so people pleasing or the fawn is one of them the fight will be I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. Oh, you say I'm rubbish. I'm gonna prove to you I'm right. I'm right that I'm right. You're not right, and that can come across energetically as quite aggressive. Um, think about when you go to a networking event and someone's fighting for sales, they'll be throwing their business card at you Like, and they'll be the one that does. You know, you've got I don't know. Say, you're doing a pitch and it's 40 seconds, they'll be the one that takes does a TED talk and take 10 minutes.

Speaker 2: 4:27

So these are the people that are fighting for positioning in the group, fighting for the leads, fighting for the sale, and, ironically, we don't like fights. We don fighting for the sale and, ironically, we don't like fights. We don't like to fight. That. We're lovers, not fighters. So you know, in real life, we don't like that. You know we I'm not saying we won't, you know go into confrontation, but we will do anything to avoid pain and confrontation and fighting is pain. We don't like it. So we don't like people that have that attitude. We don't like aggressive people, and so because of that, then we become the the fawners. So that's where the people pleasing comes from. They're the opposites of each other.

Speaker 2: 5:00

So then we've got the flight. Now the flight one is what I see all the time. When we talk about avoidance, procrastination, self-sabotage, essentially what we're talking about is people who are in flight. Oh, I know, I need to write a blog or record a podcast, but I'm not feeling up to it today. So I'm just going to go and watch Netflix and chill not the same sort of Netflix and chill as I'm sure the kids talk about. Or I'm going to go and walk the dog for two hours when the dog probably didn't need a two-hour walk. So we'll find, we make it. So you know, when we're quite.

Speaker 2: 5:26

You know most of my clients I'm sure yours and your listeners are intelligent people, so we make nice excuses for ourselves. We don't sit there going. Oh'm avoiding that. I'm just going to sit and eat the whole biscuit tin and watch back to back episodes of Friends. We say I'm just going to relax because I had a hard day yesterday. So we make lots of justifications for our flight, but what we're really doing is running away from the things that we know that we need to do, but we're scared. So fear sits at the base of all of these. So, yeah, the flight part is really interesting. We'll go. It could be actually.

Speaker 2: 5:59

And in fact I coached somebody yesterday with this where she's working. She started to do some work for a company and they want her to do all the work. So she's a coach, so she's been coaching one of their executives and now they've said, can you quote us to coach our whole team? And so she's gone in. You'd think Donna, wouldn't you? Wow, that's exciting, that's lots of work, that's lots of money. She's gone into full flight mode. My god, I can't charge them that.

Speaker 2: 6:22

When I worked out what it would be hourly for all of the team and then what they were wanting, you know the quote came in at 80 grand. I've never earned 80 grand. So actually you think, wow, 80 grand. So most people would say that no, they don't know, because actually what she's going is I'm not worth that. I've never earned 80 grand, let alone for the you know, 20 hours or however much she's quoting for. So in her head she's not worth it. So now she's avoiding sending the quote. The company are chasing her to spend money with her and she's terrified, because she's terrified what that really means for her. It means she'll change. We've talked a lot about identity in this series. It means you'll have to change your identity of somebody that struggles for money to somebody who has loads of money and is very well valued.

Speaker 2: 7:01

So lots and lots of stuff going on with the flight. Flight is probably again a very common. They're all very common, um, but the flight is one. You know. I run whole workshops, as you know. In fact, there's loads on my website around procrastination, self-sabotage, overwhelm. Overwhelm comes from this. Oh my, it's too much for me. I'm going to go and do something else, let me just run. Anything that we leave behind is flight.

Speaker 2: 7:22

And then the final one is freeze. I'm terrified, I'll do nothing. That's when we do nothing. Nothing could mean going and watching Netflix still. So just notice whether you're in flight or freeze. But freeze means I'm not, I just don't want to do anything. I'm scared. These are the people who have anxiety. So that's essentially. Anxiety is comes from a freeze response. I'm so scared I didn't move side to side. I can't breathe, I'm just gonna just stay here. It's the rabbit in the headlights, sort of stuff, and of course that shows up. Um, if you need to do it sometimes you see, I'm sure you get this as well I've got to record a podcast. Yeah, no, yeah, just can't do it, don't know what to say, don't know what to do.

Speaker 2: 8:02

I don't hope you haven't had guests like that, that absolute freeze, and what the brain says is just stay very still and no, we'll, we'll see or hear you and you'll be safe, which actually in business actually see it in people as well, where they actually just become very still because I've been on stages and you know I've done a lot of public speaking and I've been there with somebody who's quite new to it, and they get on the stage and you see them literally think I don't want, I can't be here, they're not going to actually wet themselves, they're absolutely terrified. Of course, then the physiological effects of how the brain is seeing that follow. So you know, all of these states come from the brain making a decision about how we're going to handle a situation. That's essentially what fight, flies, fight, flight, freeze, and please is is. This is a situation I'm scared. In. Which one of these am I going to have? And it's throughout the day you could be going through this process. You can have all four. You could be like a proper, you know user of this process, but you'll typically have a favoured one. Uh, am I, you know? So if you think about what that is, my fight will show up. If right, I'm going to do it anyway. I'm feeling a bit shit. I'm not sure. Just get on with it. Get on with it.

Speaker 2: 9:07

The jfdi comes from people who are in fight mode, but if you're not a fight person and you're a flight person, you're going to run from them. And I know this because if I go in with that attitude to a client who is a is a runner, they will just go yeah, no, it sounds good, never see him again, that's it. They're off because they don't want to fight, they just want to run or they want to freeze. And if they're, and if they are a pleaser, they'll say, yes, that's a brilliant idea, let's do that, I'm going to do that. And then they don't do anything. So these show up very much in my world. They show up in your world.

Speaker 2: 9:39

When you start to realise, so you know, what you can do about this is to understand your own behaviour. So you know, when we're in a fear state, something is causing this. So the first thing you can do is understand what that is. What am I really actually scared of, regardless as to what my reaction is? One of the Fs. What is it I'm actually scared of? Am I scared of failing? Am I scared of succeeding which is more important, by the way? Am I scared of actually doing it? What if I'm scared if I can't do it anyway? Forget what anybody else thinks. What if I'm gonna let myself down? Am I scared of having too much money? Am I scared of not having enough money? Am I scared of having too big a business? Um, I've got a client at the moment who is scared of building a business big because she had massive burnout and nearly died. She was properly ill. So you can understand now how she wants to stay at a certain level of activity and success, because next level success for her equals possible death, you know. So these are real beliefs that sit in the back of this. So you've got to understand what is causing it, what is the trigger of it, and then understand your own behavior.

Speaker 2: 10:36

And if you can laugh at your own behavior, like I know when I'm in fight, flight, freeze, or please, I know when I'm in, please, please is the one that annoys me the most because it's not my natural state and I've got oh, yeah, that's fine, we can do that, yes, ok. And it shows up typically for me when people say I'll be late. No, that's OK. Every partner is going. No, it's not OK, actually, it's not OK, it's going to be in trouble with the person in front of me. So I can laugh at that version of me, because that's my 12 year old going, it's okay, like me, that's my 12 year old saying that my 51 year old is saying, okay, yeah, we're still, we're still listening to her, we're still listening to your 12 year old self. So you have this version going on.

Speaker 2: 11:21

So, yeah, where we've got fear, we believe there's imminent danger. That's essentially. The two go together and it is our natural condition. You can't change that. By the way, we can't remove fear. Remove fear you probably would die crossing the road, right, we need fear. So, uh, we need to just understand it. We need to have some compassion for ourselves. What am I really scared of? What's going on for me? What triggered it? What am I scared of and what is best for me? Remember, we talked about the business version of yourself. Actually, would my best business version react like this what would she do? What would he do right now? So they all kind of sit together? Does that answer the question?

Speaker 1: 11:57

yeah, it does and it's great. And I tell you what we literally could talk all day, because that's thrown up so many things that I'm like, oh, I could say this, oh, I could say that, and I would love to sort of probe into that. But these are 10 minute mini mindset so we're not going to jump into it. Thank you so much for that, viv. So, guys, take a look just over the next week. Look at your behavior, what you're doing in your business, and see if you can find these. Because I tell you, just as Viv was talking, I your business, and see if you can find these.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Because I tell you, just as Viv was talking, I was picking out things that I do in my business with oh yeah, that's that one then, that's that one then. So I know very well I don't have any fight in me at all, but the other three show up regularly. So that is it for us this week. Join us, join me on Thursday, join me and Viv in a couple of weeks time and we'll see in in the next one. Don't forget, all Viv's links are below. Come and join us over in Viv's world.