The Baggage We All Carry...

We were having a conversation in the office yesterday about the challenges we all face when it comes to making changes in our businesses and our lives.

So we started thinking about what prevents change, why we stop just short of real breakthroughs, and why we avoid facing the root cause of problems. The one word answer?

Fear.

The problem with that one word answer is that we arrive at our fears through the environment we are raised in, the environment we currently live in and the people with whom we choose to associate. In other words, our fears are a result and culmination of our baggage; our baggage makes up the many layers upon which the fear is built.

My good friend Jerry told a group of us on Sunday about a Veggie Tales video he and his son were watching in which one of the characters learns about how others impact his self-esteem and how those negative thoughts load up his 'backpack' - what we call our suitcase or baggage. We all have baggage and we will never get rid of all of the bad stuff. We're human, we're fallible and imperfect. But that doesn't mean that we can't work to get rid of some of the things in our suitcase that create our fears. If we're really going to make good and lasting change we must first decide to determine what makes us fearful.

So here's your challenge today: Think about your fears - not just things like fear of heights, fear of spiders, and so on. But those Fears with a capital "F" that keep you up at night, that make your heart race, that - when you are face-to-face with them - make you jump into "avoidance" mode and get really busy with something that will take your mind off the Fear and enable you to avoid dealing with it.

Be honest with yourself and be ready to deal with some interesting issues. The benefit? You'll realize that your thinking has been shaped by a lifetime during which - like the Veggie Tales character - you have been carrying around some rotten stuff in your backpack. And that old way of thinking prevents you from looking at business - and life - in a new and refreshing way.

Or, as Jerry tells me all the time, we begin to understand the true meaning of "cause and effect."

Will you make this a "fear-less" day?