I recently gave a talk to a company that’s about a year into a big acquisition it made. After a lot of work, they’re finally launching an integration that brings a bunch of functionality from the company they acquired into their original core product. And people are scared.

The Tech/Engineering team is nervous because they’re wondering whether the integration will work. Sales is anxious because while they’re experts in the old stuff, they have far less expertise in some of the new stuff. And the customer success team is worried about supporting clients on a new kind of journey from where all the CX experience is.

Worried. Nervous. Anxious. All these words that describe how we’re feeling about this new integration are variations of a core human emotion: Fear.


We fear uncertainty. We fear the unknown. And with good reason, by the way! 

Fear keeps us safe. At least, fear certainly kept us safe when we were all hunter-gatherers with limited access to shelter. If you heard a growl out in the woods, you needed to run, hide, or fight. That fear served you. It was your brain warning you that immediate action was needed.

The challenge is, our brains perceive fear the same way whether it’s physical peril or mental duress. Whether it’s maybe a hiding grizzly bear or it’s a big new technical integration, the brain feels fear the same way.


Maybe you fear getting on the phone with a challenging client or a difficult customer. You see that customer call on your calendar, and maybe you get a general sense of dread, or a knot of fear in your stomach, or your heart starts racing. All of these are physical fear responses. But there’s no growling bear this time — there’s just this impending call with a challenging client.

So the question to ask is: Why are our brains and bodies responding this way?What are we afraid of? 

This isn’t just a thought exercise. It’s the crux of this post.

I absolutely believe that we can make fear work for us, but that’s only remotely possible if we first understand our fear. 

This really matters, because fear is really good at holding us back. Here’s a super low-stakes example that’s probably also really relatable:  

You’re attending a talk, and the speaker asks the audience if there are any questions… and is met with dead silence. And it’s awkward. For the speaker and for the attendees alike. 

And now the speaker maybe gets nervous too, by the way, and they start making things MORE awkward for everybody. “Really, no questions? Nothing? Don’t be shy…”  

But the speaker asks for questions, and no one has any. Is it simply because the speaker a brilliant genius who eliminated the possibility of questions by virtue of sharing their insights and ideas so perfectly? Probably not. What’s really happening is… Nobody wants to raise a hand because of what happens when we do: Every head in the room turns to look at us. All eyes — including the speaker’s eyes — are on us. We are suddenly the center of attention.

And now we actually have to ask whatever our question is, while everyone’s staring at us. Maybe we’ll stumble over our words. Maybe our question is stupid. Maybe it won’t make sense. Maybe the speaker already answered our question so we’ll feel dumb because we missed it.

Maybe there’s an obvious answer and literally everyone else already knows it, so I’ll look like a fool. One of my own fears is always that my question just won’t make any sense and the speaker will stare at me like I’m an idiot.

All of these fears — of looking foolish, or feeling foolish, of having all those eyes on us — they limit MANY of us from raising our hand when the speaker asks for questions. So most of us don’t raise our hands.  

So this is a big issue with fear: It holds us back. This fear of embarrassment or shame or looking silly prevents us from asking a question. And that’s really not great! We might learn something from our question. We might inspire a whole new line of information from the speaker. We might be posing a question that others in the room share our curiosity about. Our asking a question might unlock fear for other people, so they feel comfortable asking their questions, which could lead to more of these potential positive impacts.

That’s the problem with letting fear stop us. It limits us.

So what we need to do in these situations is investigate our fear. To interrogate our fear. It’s a self-reflective, introspective process. We have to look inside and ask ourselves what exactly is it that we’re afraid of — and why? 

And the trick here isn’t just asking yourself why once. You need to channel your inner four year old. You need to ask why repeatedly, as many times as it takes, until you realize you’ve hit the root. 

So: back to this difficult customer, and the way we can sometimes feel nervous or fearful when we’re about to get on a call with them. Or when the call starts. We have to ask ourselves why are we nervous?!

Maybe the answer is, I’m nervous about getting on a call with this difficult customer, because I’m afraid that the challenging customer might be rude. 

Okay. Fair. But channel that inner four-year-old. Ask why again. WHY am I afraid that the customer might be rude — so what? Because they might yell at me.

Okay. Why again. Why am I afraid of that? Why am I afraid of getting yelled at? 

Because it’s embarrassing to get yelled at. Or because it feels bad to be yelled at. Or it’s triggering. All true, and it does stink to feel those things, so I get it. 

Or maybe I’m afraid of getting yelled at because an angry customer might demand to speak to my boss. Or I’m afraid of the possibility that an angry customer might choose to cancel their contract.

If I plumb enough why’s, if I really push into why why why, I realize that a big part of my fear of talking to that difficult customer might be… I don’t want to get in trouble. Or I don’t want to cost the company a customer who gets so angry with me that they threaten to cancel their business relationship entirely.


If this particular fear deep dive resonates with you, your job isn’t to figure out how not to feel fear; fear is human, and you can’t eliminate it. Instead, your job is to understand the fear, and if it’s this specific fear journey — that a difficult customer could potentially complain about you, or even cancel — it’s worth talking to your boss. I’m willing to wager that at most companies, you are more important than a one-off difficult customer.

It’s also worth noting that sometimes, your difficult customer may be acting the way they do because of their own fears — which could be about looking foolish to you, or displeasing their own boss, etc.

Understanding your own fear — and remembering that fear can be driving other folks you interact with — can be both calming and empowering.

Don’t try to swallow or vanquish your fear. Instead, try to explore it better understand where it’s coming from.

[Paying subscribers: Don’t miss today’s other post about practicing fear responses.]