Ep. 209 - Questioning Fear

[00:00:00] How to handle the fear of the unknown this week on The Thinking Effect, and five minutes

[00:00:18] or less I'm your host, Tommy Danger. Thank you so much for listening please like, subscribe

[00:00:23] and share. I was having a conversation with my grandmother this morning, it's pretty cold

[00:00:29] here in New York, and we have an oil burning, oil is very expensive, but I was asking her

[00:00:40] about when I was a kid, we used to have coal, right? We had a coal furnace, so imagine almost

[00:00:49] like the briquettes that you put on the barbecue grill, but not like that, but just for illustration

[00:00:54] purposes. Like we had coal, like we had a coal furnace and I remember it was like this gray

[00:01:02] metal like monstrosity in it had like a gate to the front of it, and it was just this now

[00:01:14] that I think back about it, it was this beautiful yellow and orange glow that came out of that

[00:01:24] furnace from burning coal in the wintertime, and I was asking her like when you know because she's

[00:01:33] 90 years old my grandmother, sort of ask her things is pretty awesome, but the furnace was in

[00:01:40] the basement, and as a kid my responsibility was to about say eight or nine years old I had to

[00:01:52] put coal into that furnace. And I was asking I was like grandma how much did it cost to you know

[00:02:04] order coal, I think she said we ordered two or three tons and she was like it was like 20 bucks,

[00:02:08] now imagine I can't even imagine like what year it is, so we going back to like early 80s maybe 82, 83 something like that.

[00:02:18] So and that will last about two weeks, so my granddad would you know put I guess four or five shovels of coal on at night

[00:02:34] and then he would do what he called like bank it off, so banking it off would be like you put the coal in

[00:02:41] but then you don't set it so where the coal's were burned really quickly see like leave the door cracked a little bit

[00:02:49] so it could like have a little air somehow like burn slowly with burn as quickly. So when I would come home

[00:02:55] from school I would have to put two or three shovels on the into the furnace and I remember going into

[00:03:06] the basement just flicking on the light at the top of the stairs it would scare the crap out of me just this you know

[00:03:15] first it was dark before you turn on the light and going down the stairs and opening the door and you

[00:03:22] know it's just junk everywhere and teeks and now you have this big monstrosity that was like a dragon right

[00:03:30] and it was hot and you had to open the door with like this metal hook so you wouldn't burn yourself

[00:03:36] and now the distance to shovel the coal was almost like man I would say the length of like two houses

[00:03:47] like it was it was a nice distance from the front of the house to the back of the house to shovel the

[00:03:52] coal so I would get the smallest shovel and I would scoop a shovel of the coal and I would be struggling

[00:03:59] to bring it to the furnace and I throw it in there but have the coal would fall off the shovel before

[00:04:06] I would even reach it so I have to go back again and scoop it and that was a time in my life when I

[00:04:15] was really scared of going in the basement because I just thought like what if the lights went out

[00:04:23] what if the boogeyman got me what if you know just I don't know what if I saw my old something

[00:04:31] just kid thoughts you know what if what if I can't get the burner the furnace open like all these

[00:04:41] things would go to my mind because mind you when I came home everyone was still at work and I had

[00:04:45] a responsibility as a kid it was that was my job to make sure that for us to stay warm you know I put

[00:04:51] the coal into the furnace and as I reflect back on it as an adult I had to ask myself like what

[00:05:04] was I really afraid of was it just the fact that it was dark was it the fact that you know it

[00:05:16] was a like visually it didn't look the way that I expected for it to look was it that I was actually

[00:05:25] going to get burned if I didn't pay attention

[00:05:27] and I say these things to ask you because someone asked me recently when I talked about being an

[00:05:34] entrepreneur that you have to embrace the fear of the unknown like question yourself what are

[00:05:43] you really afraid of? In the first thing or one of the things that most of us come down mine is

[00:05:50] like oh my god I'm not going to be able to provide for myself now being totally transparent there was a

[00:05:55] time when I had to eat out of food pantry you know in between jobs took the leap didn't have

[00:06:03] money family still got to eat swallow my pride rest my cousin's soul she ran a food pantry would

[00:06:13] allow my wife not to come there and pick up food on the weekly basis right but beyond that fear

[00:06:23] here you really have to ask yourself what are you afraid of and if you are afraid of it what is the

[00:06:31] worst thing that could happen? Excuse me Alexa stop

[00:06:39] what is the worst thing that could happen and what can you do to change it

[00:06:46] and when you really start to think about it that way the look of the fear changes I know you know

[00:07:00] sometimes you may be afraid to even think about change what the fear right we would just stick

[00:07:07] to the word fear fear fear of the unknown but when you really start to unpack it and you have

[00:07:14] to find your way of unpacking it right sometimes it's journaling sometimes it's talking to a

[00:07:18] therapist sometimes it's talking to yourself sometimes it's speaking to other mentors who've been

[00:07:24] through the thing that you're trying to experience but really unpack it and ask yourself

[00:07:33] what about the unknown and my afraid of? This is the thinking effect will we help you do

[00:07:40] you're daily best if you have any comments or if you'd like a guest to appear in a show please hit

[00:07:48] me up via email TommyDanger at gmail.com or hit us up at the thinkin effect dot net thank you