Overcoming fear in your business is a critical step to becoming a successful entrepreneur. Today, we’re drilling down to examine our most common fears and learn how to kick them to the curb.

Just a heads up – we won’t be talking about Pinterest this week, so if you were really looking forward to getting some tips, I recommend you go back and listen to the Best Pinterest Marketing Practices for 2019.

One of the biggest hurdles in business is fear, and fear holds us back.

In today’s episode, I’m chatting with my friend, Ruth Soukup. Ruth joined us back in episode 126 to talk about how to change your blogging mindset, and that episode got everyone talking about how they were going to reevaluate their mindset and time. She’s back today to continue the conversation and to talk about her new book, Do It Scared. 

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I was able to read an advanced copy of Do It Scared, and as someone who deals with the fear of failure, it made me hesitate and even frustrated me a little, which we talk about in this episode.

After reading through Do It Scared and learning about the ways I can challenge those fears and turn them into something positive, I was so inspired. I love this line from the book that says:

We’re not called to balance, we’re called to purpose. — Ruth Soukup

How Do It Scared Came to Be

Ruth has dealt with fear her entire life.

There have been so many times when she felt like she has no idea what she’s doing, and so, “do it scared” became her mantra for most of her adult life. She went through a terrible depression in her early 20’s and the mantra helped her to just take the next step.

After Ruth started her company, Do It Scared became one of the company’s core values.

Over and over, Ruth has had people come to her and say, “I feel like I’m stuck, watching my life go by.” It made Ruth so curious about fear and the role it plays in our lives. She wanted to know if there was a way to overcome it and if that would look the same for everyone.

All of Ruth’s questions produced a snowball effect. Pretty soon, her company had surveyed over 4,000 people on the role fear plays in their lives. It was so much data that she hired a whole team of researchers to help her sift through it all.

Researching Fear: The Study Results

Through all the research, the biggest discovery she made was that not all fear is created equal. The way fear manifests itself is different for each person.

Ruth’s team uncovered seven different fear archetypes. They took all the information they had and created a fear assessment. Three thousand people have taken the beta version of this assessment and it’s been reviewed by psychologists, as well.

The ability to help people overcome fear in their lives and businesses is something that Ruth felt called to do. Do It Scared covers the fear archetypes and then helps you find out how to overcome it.

The 7 Fear Archetypes

The 7 Fear Archetypes uncovered by the research process include:

• Procrastinator/Perfectionist – their deepest fear is making a mistake. They get stuck in “analysis paralysis,” not wanting to move forward so they don’t mess up.