Hey everyone. It’s Alexander Seery, founder of Shifts to Success, helping police officers break out, make the change, and live their lives! And today, I wanna give you some mindset shifts when it comes to fear. Now, I have some good news and I have some bad news. The bad news is that fear will be with you and me for the majority of our lives. The good news is that you have a choice to let that fear control your life or not. Fear is an emotional safety mechanism that the mind creates to keep us safe from harm. It’s our subconscious mind’s attempt to shield us from risky and harmful situations, including situations that may affect our egos.

Now, our minds look at things such as business, and going after your goals, dreams, and ambitions, and even asking the hot girl or guy out for a date as a fearful thing to do. And that’s why the majority of people never live a life they truly want. Now maybe you truly want to be a police officer until you retire in your fifties or sixties, or maybe you have just retired and you want to live off your pension until the day you peacefully pass away. Well, my guess is that if you’re still watching this far into the video, you certainly do want that little bit more out of life.

Starting any type of business can always seem scary at the beginning because as a beginner you cannot really precisely know the amount of risk involved. You’ll always amplify the potential risk of failures that haven’t even happened. Then, you’ll wrap yourself with the emotions that go along with that if they were to happen for real. You’ll read statistics and here from people who haven’t even been in business that the majority of businesses fail. And you’ll automatically think of yourself of being in that majority. This is normal. And everyone has doubts about their abilities including myself. However, fear is not real. It only exists in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination cause us to fear things that do not currently exist, and in fact, may not ever exist, which is pretty fucking crazy.

The ironic thing about fear is that it’s imprisoning you. You, as a police officer, it’s imprisoning you from living an extraordinary life far away from mediocrity. And what’s, even more, mess about that is that you’re allowing it to do so. Remember, it’s all a choice. It’s keeping you from living up to your full potential. Keeping you from being really happy. It’s keeping you from having a sense of adventure and excitement, and keeping you from having 100 percent control of your life, not dictated by the job. Now, you have two choices. You can live your fears, or you can live your life. What you fear most is usually what you should do. And once you face your fear, you’ll start to realise that it was all in your head in the first place as an illusion.

And I’m not saying you can’t have fears because as I’ve already mentioned, it’s really impossible. And, as a matter of fact, it’s always gonna be there with you on your entrepreneurial journey. However, I am saying don’t surrender your life to them and wonder how different your life would be if you didn’t surrender to them because time is something you’ll never get back. Personally, I love fear because I know the power it can give an individual when they face it. And when they do, they take that one step closer to the person they truly want to become, whilst also priming their mindset to seek out what else they are capable of achieving and what else they are capable of overcoming.

You see, if you listen to your fears and surrender to them, you are not living. Now, you’re certainly alive, but you’re definitely not living. And you’ll always find that the day’s running you instead of you running your days. Fear is the most subtle, and yet most destructive feeling a human can have. It kills dreams, and goals, and paralyses people from taking the first step. And when I first started my business, I wanted things to go perfect and smooth as you do. But I came to realise that this was never gonna happen. And I made some mistakes along the way, which I’m pretty sure you’re gonna make too. And in the back of your mind, you know there’s some other great work for you to do in the world. And, best of all, you get to pick what that is that will ultimately break away the handcuffs from a mediocre life to live a life of freedom, of flexibility, as an entrepreneur.

Now there are three types of pain that we fear in our lives. And once we understand each of them, we can then better prepare ourselves in dissolving those fears that have been holding you down for so long. The first one is called “Loss Pain”, where, for example, when you decide to change your life you get fearful of experiencing some kind of loss … meaning you’re scared of losing something in your life. Examples of this could be fear of losing your job, fear of losing your spouse, fear of losing your relationship with the kids, or it may be some sort of benefit that you may be afraid of losing.

As a police officer, you may be fearful of losing the feeling of security of having a job. You may be fearful of losing a steady wage coming in each month. You may be fearful of losing the predictability of the progression as a career path in the police force. You may be fearful of losing your supervisors to consult with when you seek guidance. You may be fearful of losing your fellow colleagues, and the comradery and the banter that comes along with it. You may be even fearful of losing your identity of being known as a police officer.

Now, a way to shift this mindset is instead of focusing on the fear of loss is to focus on things you’re going to gain. For example, you may lose the feeling of security, but you’ll gain more freedom in your life. You may lose the steady wage coming in each month, but you may gain an income that is truly rewarding that doesn’t require you to work 40 hours of your life each week. You may lose the predictability of your career path, but you’ll gain your own company structure that you’re 100 percent in control of. You may lose your fellow colleagues, but you may gain a team that you get to pick. And you may lose the ability to pay into a pension each month, but you may gain an income of six or seven figures that far exceeds your pension. You may even lose the identity of being known as a police officer, but you may gain the reputation of being a successful entrepreneur that helps and supports people throughout the world.

By focussing on what you can gain rather than what you can lose will really help break down those fearful barriers that stop you from taking action on that first step.

The second type of fear is called “Growing Pain” meaning the fear of change and doing something that will be challenging and hard. For example, when I started my business, I was afraid it was going to be too hard for me to handle. I was afraid I didn’t have any skills or knowledge in the area of business I wanted to succeed in. I was afraid that I was going to have to work very hard every single day of every single hour and that I wasn’t gonna get any support, which would make the whole process of working on my business even more difficult. Now, as a police officer, you may fear these same things, which will keep you in the police force until the day you do retire.

A way to shift your mindset from being fearful of how hard the change you make will be, is to come to terms with the fact that life, in general, will be challenging and hard. And for you to grow to new heights in your life, your finances, your business, your health and fitness, your relationships you’ll always go through challenging times. Facing difficulties is what develops us as humans. And when you realise this, you can push by, whatever particular challenging time you’re going through. So instead of looking at those challenges as a negative and playing victim saying … say, “Why’s this happened to me again?” Look at it as an opportunity to grow your mindset. Tony Robbins always says, “Life doesn’t happen to us, it happens for us.”

Life is a gift, and that includes the challenging times that come with it. I don’t know if I would be the person I am today and the success I have if I didn’t go through depression at an early age. And, at the time, it certainly didn’t look like an opportunity as it was the lowest point of my life. But now I know that hardship I went through was an opportunity. And thankfully, I used that adversity to my advantage.

The third type of fear is called “Results Pain” meaning that … what if you go through all the struggle, all the shit, working hard, what if you lose all these things in making the changes for your life, and then still that grass isn’t greener on the other side, meaning that the outcome isn’t any better than what it was in the beginning. Now, by watching my other videos, you should get the idea that becoming your own boss, becoming a successful entrepreneur and owning your own business far outweighs being a police officer, in my personal opinion, especially if you’ve lost the love for the job. However, you may have fears of not making it, and not reaching the result you want for your life. And that is normal. But remember, I wouldn’t advise on quitting your job to make the transition into entrepreneurship and business.

And, in fact, I do advise on making the transition whilst you’re still working full time in the police force, just like I did. So if you do decide to quit on your goals and dreams in business, then you still have your job available to you. You may also be thinking about your own lack of experience, expertise, or ability in business. And you may ask yourself silly things, such as why would anyone listen to me? Why would anyone help me? Why would anyone pay me? Or simply that you’re not good enough. However, the truth is, you don’t need to be an expert with years of experience to start turning your skills and ideas into money. You just need to be willing to learn to take action. Another powerful shift you can make is to give attention to your imagination in developing and thinking of a business, or a life where the grass is greener.

I firmly believe that thoughts become things, and if you think of a lifestyle and business that would give you the happiness and fulfillment that you want, then your mind will get to work on producing those actual things as long as you take action about your work. If you look back on all three of these fears, you’ll notice that they’re all ‘what ifs’. And the more you focus on them, the more your mindset will become fixed, which will, in turn, keep you from taking any action. You will be truly living your fears, as they’ll keep you handcuffed to a job that you may have lost love for.

Because, as human beings, we are unbelievably driven to avoid pain. And when you realise this, you can stop allowing that fear from rotting your mind from all the ‘what if’, painful experiences that you might experience from doing the very things that will improve your life!

I hope this video served you well and provided you with a few mindset shifts on fear. And if you’re a police officer thinking about going into business one day in the future, then go and take the police officer’s scorecard quiz by clicking the link in the description.

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