Fear of Unknown

In this video, I want to talk about fear and the power of fear and what it could do to us. And as always, I will bring it to you through a story.

This story takes place a while back. A spy was caught by a Persian army. And after some torturing, it was decided that he was supposed to get killed by firing squad. And obviously, right before that was about to take place, a general approach the spy and said, I am going to give you a choice. You see that black door over there? You can choose that black door and face what will be waiting for you on the other side of the door or firing squad.

And the spy, after thinking decided that he would rather go and die through a firing squad than walk through that door. So it was. He got killed. Now, next to this general was his assistant. He couldn’t help but to ask, general what is behind the black door? So the general said, behind the doo is freedom. But very few people were brave enough to choose that door. So think about it. How about this story? How crazy it is?

And the first time I read this, I was reading about this story, I would say why would anybody choose firing squad when it is for sure death? Why not choose the door? Maybe there is an opportunity to stay alive over there. But the general also explained, I forgot to mention, to the assistant that people usually rather choose what they are familiar versus choosing something unknown. We have a fear of unknown. We don’t know what to expect. So we usually go the familiar way.

It doesn’t mean that in life we should always deny the familiar road and go after a not familiar. What it means basically, is, I mentioned before, first thought that probably came to you too, that you would rather choose the door versus getting killed. But how many times in life we had opportunities in front of us where if we would choose this opportunity, our whole life would transform and change but because we don’t know if we could pull this off or we don’t know what to expect, we are afraid of that and we rather stay where we are, choosing the familiar road, which is automatically means a failure or death or there is no growth.

So just something to dwell on and encourage everybody not to fear the unknown. Evaluate even different unfamiliar way, maybe there is a way to do things, a new way better way that could take you to the next level.