“Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
Marianne Williamson

People are scared. Especially people with big ideas and vision, who are doing great work. They are scared of doing the wrong thing, of making a misstep. Scared of being invisible and frightened their idea might not work. They’re afraid your design may not tell their whole story, or draw customers in. They’re worried about losing money and terrified of looking stupid.

Maybe their fear is partly what brought them to you in the first place?

Once they’ve paid for the coaching program, the copy, the intangible you probably sell, they worry that they won’t get a return on their investment, they fret that you won’t have the answer. This has little to do with trusting you, your expertise or your art, and a lot to do with expressing a tiny bit of self doubt about the place where they are on their own entrepreneurial journey.

Your job is not to get rid of the fear. Fear is normal. Fear has it’s place and you can’t make it go away.

Fear was the fuel for every great idea that ever was.

Your job is to recongnise it and show your people that you understand their anxiety. Your job is not to buy into it. Your role is definitely not to be afraid alongside them. As their expert, their mentor or their creative genius, your job is not to allow their fear to stall them right when they are at the threshold about to push past it.

Your job is to understand where your client is at, acknowledge that, then go ahead and deliver anyway.

*Update* new from Seth Godin today 2/7/11;
“Fear is the lone barrier almost every product and service has to overcome in order to succeed.”
I’d love to hear about your experiences of dealing with client fear, or how you acknowledge this in yourself sometimes on your entrepreneurial journey. I’ll share alongside you.

Image Paolo Margari.