If you think success, happiness and love are going to happen without learning through mistakes along way you are mistaken.

Our brains are wired to learn from our own experiences as well as those of others. Without experience how are you going to learn anything?

Let me give you an example. At my local bank a number of weeks ago I attempted to make small talk with cashier and she completely ignored me.

Last week I was in bank and tried my small talk routine again, and again I failed. She ignored me again!

There are a number of ways to view this situation:

1 My communication strategy is not working 2 I need to change my approach 3 I will learn from this experience and become better

A number of years ago I would have given this situation a different analysis:

1 She is rude and ignorant. She thinks I am a moron 2 I feel crushed by this blatant rejection 3 My confidence depends on this person liking me

Notice difference. My old outlook sets me up for pain and frustration and puts ball in court of other person. My confidence depends on how other person responds.

I read it many years ago and I was disappointed by content of this book that has helped a lot of people take control of their fears. Why? Because I believe we all have power to go far beyond feeling fear.

And I really think it is important to learn how to transform fear into courage by learning how to use more of your mind and how to take charge of your emotions.

There are two ways to take fear and transform it into a different emotional state:

- Release fear by letting go of it.

- Change way you represent experience so that it no longer makes you feel fearful.

Today I want to look at changing how you represent experiences to yourself.

1 Pick a person you deal with on a regular basis who you find intimidating. Get started by choosing someone who causes you to feel mild fear.

2 Ask yourself -- what does it get me feeling fear around this person?

Typically you will answer that fear causes you to be more alert and careful. However irony is that when you feel fear you are less capable of responding well to challenges of situation.

Let me give you an example. When I lived corporate sales life a number of years ago I had a crazy boss.

He would scream down phone at me, thump desk with his fist in meetings and threaten to fire me if certain goals were not achieved. I never took this personally because he treated other people in same way. Still I did feel fear when dealing with him.

What did I get by feeling fear?

It meant I was careful to say right thing and to do my job to best of my abilities to ensure he had no reason to have another go at me.

Nevertheless it was not an ideal situation!

3 If you cannot influence behavior of intimidator change how you feel.

In case of my boss I matched his behavior to get rapport. When he shouted at me I raised my voice to speak back. When he slammed desk I became more animated in how I talked and I used my hands more when expressing myself.

This pacing will help. However it is not enough you also need to change how you feel.

Before you start working with following approach make sure you are feeling energetic and resourceful otherwise you could get dragged back into fear itself.