If you’re ever going to walk a tightrope between two skyscrapers, here’s a good rule to remember:

Don’t look down.

Yea, I know, you already knew that!

But why is this rule so important? If you look down, you’ll get scared. If you get scared, you’ll lose confidence, start wobbling, and fall to your death.

Splat!

Now, let’s forget about a tightrope, instead let’s assume you are walking across a board, that’s a foot across, and very sturdy.

But it’s also between two skyscrapers. No wind, (or birds attacking you or whatever) but it’s still a 1000 foot drop.

Could you do it?

Most people wouldn’t even try unless there was a HUGE reward at the other end. Like not dying, or bag filled with endless money.

We’d take one step out, look down, and say, “nuh-uh!”

But think about it. 

Same board, laid across a soft field of grass. Would you walk across?

Of course you would. It would be easy. A foot across?  You wouldn’t even need to worry about your balance. You’d probably be able to play Angry Bird on your iPhone the whole time, no problem!

So why is the skyscraper so terrifying, but the grass so easy?

Same EXACT process. Only one has a potential deadly outcome, and one is you just step on some grass.

Now, these two “mind experiments” both have REAL outcomes. Grass is easy to step on. Falling to your death is horrible. (Or so I’ve heard.)

So even though the chances of falling are pretty minuscule, you’d have to have a pretty good reason, since one mistake would end you.

But most of the time when we think about doing something, the fear is really imaginary.

Especially social fear. Sales, speeches, talking to strangers, (especially attractive strangers) feels like we’re going to fall to our death if we fail.

But seriously, is it really that likely?

If we give a speech and people get bored, or think it’s silly, are they going to throw hand grenades at us?

If we walk up and start talking to somebody, and they’re in the middle of something, are they going to give us a spinning roundhouse kick to the throat?

Probably not. But we act like we THINK they will.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

We can train ourselves to really appreciate the potential positive, and literally blow it up in our minds so we’re COMPELLED to do what we want, while minimizing the negatives so we don’t even give them a second thought.

Blasting away all social fears, and replacing with automatic self confidence.

What will you be able to do then?

Check it out:

Self Confidence Generator