Day 133: Erik Kieser

February 10, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“… anytime I can help someone, myself or someone else, break past a fear, see through a fear, step beyond a fear, then it’s my belief that you can’t help but move towards your potential; the two things are interrelated.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Erik, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you introduce yourself?

Erik Kieser: Yes, my name is Erik Kieser.

Toni: And Erik, what do you do?

Erik: Well, I currently do communications consulting and training.

Toni: Okay.  And when you think about that word inspiration, who do you inspire and how do you do that?

Erik: Wow.  Well, that’s a great question.  I was thinking about that a great deal.  I think I inspire the people that I’m currently working with as clients, both as corporate and coaching clients, because my big interest is helping people overcome fear.  It was a big element, a huge element of my early life, and it’s where I’m setting my focus.

And I’m finding more and more that as I talk about my earlier experiences and the tools that I’m developing to streamline the process of thinking through fear, it seems to be where I’m inspiring people these days.

Toni: And so how … can you give an example of how you might do that, how you inspire someone to work through fear?

Erik: Well, I think it’s two things.  One is that I was … the people that have known me earlier and the experiences I can share with people make it pretty clear that I lived pretty fearfully.  In fact, I was agoraphobic.  I was trapped in my house and couldn’t escape, and things got pretty dark there for a while.  Just talking about fighting my way through that and both acquiring and developing tools to accelerate that process seems to be inspiring to people, which I have found surprising until recently.

I think the second thing are the tools themselves that I’ve been working for a long time now — almost 20 years on some of these tools — and the effectiveness of some of those tools seems to be an inspiration to people.  People really do wrestle with fear way more than I ever thought, and any lever on that seems to be an inspiration to do more.

Toni: What do you do to help explore the potential in others?

Erik: Well, again, I believe – thank you for asking that question – I believe that it’s all that keeps us from reaching our potential is our fear, that we’ve attached a lot of names and words and conditions to a simple topic but a powerful one, which is fear.  So to me, anytime I can help someone, myself or someone else, break past a fear, see through a fear, step beyond a fear, then it’s my belief but you can’t help but move towards your potential; the two things are interrelated.

Toni: So from your perspective and your example, the way you inspire others is to help them overcome their fears by sharing your stories and the tools that you’re developing and how they’re so powerfully aligned that once that happens, then the potential can be worked on and reached; that’s what I’m hearing you say.

Erik: I would stray from that only slightly by saying I believe that the minute you overcome a fear, any fear, you find yourself being drawn towards your potential.  I’m convinced that we all feel a pretty powerful gravitational pull towards our calling, our dreams – again, pick the phrase you like — and that all that gets in our way is our fear.  When I say all, I don’t mean it’s a small thing, but it’s the basic element that stands between us and our potential.

Toni: Wow; that’s pretty powerful stuff.  What do you need to be inspired, Erik?

Erik: Well, I need stories of people overcoming their fears.  For a very long time, like I said, I was a prisoner of my fears, and it was a handful of people that clearly also who were afraid but were fighting their way past it that pulled me forward.  That’s one thing I need for inspiration.

Two, I have to have a sense that I’m helping in any respect and, most particularly, again if I’ve helped someone find a key or a lever to get around their fears, man, that really inspires me.  I can ride that for weeks.

Toni: And are there other things that you find yourself reaching for, looking for, needing, when you might be experiencing a time where you’re going “Oh, you know what, I need a little inspiration here.”

Erik: Well, maybe some standard answers; music helps a lot.  My friends help a lot.  Lucid thinking helps a lot.  I have to say, again, I’m finding the core of it is when I really need a kick, I need to look to an example in my own life or someone else’s where they have risen past this, they have seen their way through it; they’re less afraid.

Maybe that’s another answer to this is that I’m finding that one of the most effective ways to be inspired is to face one of my fears, even a small one.  If I can make any progress against a small fear, that’s pretty inspiring, too, for me.

Toni: Well it sounds as though you’ve done that in leaps and bounds in this interview with what you’ve referenced.  The tools that you speak about as far as helping others to be inspired to move past their fears and also look towards their potential, are these tools that you yourself used in order to get to this place you are today, that you’re able to help others overcome their fears?

Erik: There’s a piece of that.  There were a couple of programs that I worked through in the middle 90s that I would now call “first generation fear toolsets.”  A huge amount of what inspired … what followed them was my frustration.  I was happy; they helped me get free to some extent, but it was clear they were incomplete.

And so I’ve been working since on my own what I would call “generation two fear toolsets,” and I’ve just about finished with that.  I’m getting ready to take that … I guess take it out to people, and I’m test driving it right now.  And so it’s a combination of tools that already existed and then some refining of those tools and creation of new tools.

Toni: People that have been interviewed for the Project in the past, really, there’s the common theme that they are inspired by the stories of survival and also they set an example.  So, has it been part of your journey is to talk about your own fears?  Has that been liberating for you and inspiring for you since you also like the stories of survival for yourself for inspiration?  I would imagine that you must be inspired by your own journey.

Erik: Absolutely.  That’s again … yes.  I have a family history that says “Never, ever look to yourself; never, ever pat yourself on the back,” but in fact, I discovered that I had done what I have to call these days “heroic work.”   I’m afraid of that sounding arrogant but, in fact, yeah, it is pretty inspiring and in fact I don’t know …

I was so out at the edge that when the first guy I saw to help me with this said “All I need is 60 minutes, and I can give you a crack in the door” and he did, and that’s when I promised myself I was going to beat this thing.

I often go back to that when things get pretty dark.  I remember when they were way worse than they are now, that all I needed was a sliver of light, and the sliver of light probably stands for me as the most important metaphor for what it is I want to do.

Toni: I can only imagine, and how powerful to have someone show up at that moment.

Erik: Oh my gosh, yeah.

Toni: That’s what I’m hearing, and that’s what is so inspiring about your story is that you’re not afraid to say, talk about fear.  You’re not afraid to talk about it and to share this story with others, even with the readers and listeners of the Get Inspired! Project, so that they can understand where you came from; and that’s how you’re able to help others.

Erik: Yes, ma’am.

Toni: So I can only imagine the stories and how you’re able to help; that’s just amazing.  So what do you do now to continue to explore your own potential?

Erik: Well, a huge piece of this has been working on what I’m calling the Fear Mastery Map to finish the basic outlines and then develop ways … I’m trying to figure out the best way to get it to people, use it as an educational tool.  That’s one piece.  The second piece is in the consulting work I do.  In working with this Fear Mastery material, I have inadvertently made myself a more confident presenter and consultant, and that’s inspiring.

I’m having a lot of joy now from work that I’ve always liked but now feels like it’s a real energy giver, and I find myself maybe for the first time in my life with ambitions, real ambitions to have a larger impact.  And, I guess, “do something of significance” might be a way to say it, and that’s really inspiring.  That can be by itself a great source of energy for me.

Toni: And how do you explore those ambitions?  How do you go about that now that you … what an awesome thing to say, that you have them; so what do you do to explore them so that they keep growing and growing and growing?

Erik: Well, I’m being audacious for the first time I can ever say in my life about acting as if I have actually have something that could be useful to other people that’s original with me.  That’s pretty audacious for me.  And then talking about it.  I just have stopped being reticent or shy about what I’m thinking.  I’m just … I’m pigeonholing everyone.

My friends have been teasing me recently that I won’t shut up about this stuff, but it’s a great thing to be teased about.  Even people that I’ve known for a very long time and would call my intimates are telling me that I’m giving them material and tools to help them, and we would not have labeled them as fearful from any external examination, so that’s pretty exciting.  That makes me feel pretty good.

Toni: Well, fear can come from a lot of different places.  I’m wondering, can you just give us an example of what these tools are that you use, the Fear Mastery Map, is that what you said?

Erik: Yes, absolutely.  When you say an example, do you mean what’s a component of it or …

Toni: What is it?  Just so that we can understand what it is.

Erik: It’s a lucid map.  A short definition – it’s a lucid map of what generates fear, what sustains fear, and then what you can use to overcome that fear.  Based on our biology, we have created a whole host of mechanisms that generate and sustain fear.  I’m calling it the “chronic anxiety cycle.”

It’s that map that I’m developing a series of what I’m calling “keyholes” for where you can at any point begin to unplug the fear that you’re generating and shut it down and take you from a “reactive” to a “proactive” approach.

And I can talk about this all afternoon, I suspect, but the basic mechanism is how do you interrupt that cycle?  Because what sustains fear and what generates fear is reacting as opposed to being proactive.  Most of it’s unconscious.  We’re not clearly thinking through our response to a frightening thing.

And the goal of the map is to unplug that unconscious thinking and to virtue off to proactive approaches.  That sounds awfully academic, I’m afraid, but that’s the bottom line.

Toni: No … it sounds very powerful is what it sounds like, and the question that it raised in my mind is,  I’m wondering from your perspective if you feel that you have moved from reactive to proactive?  And just based on this interview talking about how you now have ambition and you’re not stopping and you’re talking about it sounds as though you’re being very proactive, and so you’re actually walking the talk which is what has been substantiated in this interview.

Erik: Thank you for saying that.  I think a piece to add to that is that for a very long time … what I think happens – I’ll see if I can’t summarize this – is we are tempted to turn and run.  All of our biology and our fear tempts us to turn and run, and most of our resulting psychological and emotional junk comes from that perpetual flight.

And my goal is to get us to turn and consciously fight, and that’s what I find myself … I always wanted something that I knew I could use quickly and effectively, and it feels like after this time period, I’m just about there, that there’s a quick way to stop that running and turn and fight.

Toni: Well we absolutely wish you the greatest success with this, not only professionally but personally, and also thank you tremendously for being so honest about your own experiences so that others can benefit by it.  We will provide a link as to how people can get a hold of you if they want to learn a little bit more about you and, Erik, thank you so much for a great interview today.

Erik: My pleasure.

Toni: Okay, take care.

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For more information about Erik Kieser:  www.erikcomm.com, fearmastery.wordpress.com

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