#37 - The tipping point of fear
When the cost of keeping it exceeds the cost of facing it
In my last article (#36 - Your Minimum Viable Exposure) I shared a method for learning how to manage your fear, in order to accelerate your growth. One reader, Athena, asked me a very pertinent question:
“omg I have a phobia of snakes and reading this gave me palpitations! I was nodding along to everything and liked the idea of MVE but then when confronted with the idea of looking at snake pictures I was like, “er no”. Maybe there is something you can develop further in the idea, which is about what can initiate that appetite to get over the fear in the first place?”
Athena has put her finger on a problem. I gave you a method, but I didn't answer the more fundamental question: why would you actually use it?
Unless she’s planning on moving to Australia, or some other place where encounters with snakes are common, it’s probably not worth the investment to overcome her fear. Holding this fear isn’t currently costing her anything: it’s not blocking a goal she wants to achieve, it’s not preventing her from becoming who she really wants to be. So why would she voluntarily expose herself to something that gives her palpitations?
However, there are some fears we hold that negatively impact what we do care about — particularly when it comes to career advancement. The fear of speaking up in meetings with execs. The fear someone will ask you a question you don’t know the answer to, and you’ll look like you don’t know what you’re doing. The fear that this will lead to someone thinking you don’t deserve to be in your role. These fears are different because they are actively costing you something you want: challenge, reward and recognition in your career.
So let’s explore more on how those fears come to arise (the triggers) and how we evaluate whether it’s worth working on them (the motivation). This will help you decide which fears you should work on, and which you can accept.
What triggers fear?
Fear is an instinctive reaction to a perceived threat in our environment. It arises automatically through interaction between us and our physical, social and temporal contexts:
The open plan office
A new leadership team
A quarterly business review
These factors by and of themselves are not necessarily fear-inducing — they’re just events or situations that exist. What generates the fear is the meaning we give to these, which comes from how we relate to them.
Take the open plan office as one example. Our fictional CEO Alice loves them because she can see everybody at once, and she gets a buzz from overhearing conversations and jumping in when she can to add her thoughts. She believes this helps her team make faster progress and feel more connected.
However, our fictional employee Zoe hates the open plan office. She’s trying to get her head down on a product launch that has a critical deadline coming up, and it’s hard to concentrate with the noise — she’s stressed whether she will deliver on time. What’s worse is that Alice will just appear at her desk and start asking questions about what she’s working on. She feels put on the spot and scared she’ll fumble the response and look stupid in front of the CEO.
It’s the same physical environment, but different experiences of the perceived threat based on an individual’s role and status within it (two of the social scaffolds as per Belief OS™).
In addition, some threats are acute: a single event or situation is enough to trigger intense fear, such as being asked to present to the Board at short notice. Others are brewing in the background before spilling over into our consciousness, like watching your peers speak up in every meeting for six months and then realising you’ve become invisible.
Identifying the trigger/s is an integral step in developing awareness of your fear. You’re scared of x and that’s because y has happened. You’re scared of snakes and that’s because as a kid you watched a nature documentary of a python killing a child.
Or perhaps like Zoe you’re scared of not having the information to answer the CEO’s question when put on the spot? That might be because — as my friend Carrie said this week — “the thing is there is always that ONE time where not knowing something crucial has caught us out in a painful way (this has brought down many a politician!)”
This is where fear gets interesting. Carrie's observation points to something important: these beliefs are not always irrational distortions we've conjured from nowhere. Sometimes they are well-founded conclusions drawn from real evidence. You were caught out once, and it was painful. The problem is that past experience doesn't guarantee future outcome, but humans are terrible at tolerating uncertainty. Our brains are like Bayesian prediction machines1 — using past data to forecast what is likely to happen next. So we fill the gap with beliefs that feel like facts: "I was caught out before" becomes "I will definitely be caught out again." The belief bridges the uncertainty between what happened (past) and what might happen (future).
The motivation to overcome fear
At this point you have identified that you feel fear and understood the triggers, but it does not necessarily follow that you are motivated to overcome it. This is where a cost-benefit analysis becomes salient: is the cost of keeping this fear higher than the cost of confronting it?
If you are unlikely to encounter the thing that provokes your fear, such as the earlier snake example, the costs may outweigh the benefits. You can simply avoid putting yourself in those situations where it is likely to happen — don’t go to zoos or pet shops, don’t watch nature programmes, don’t visit countries with large snake populations in the wild.
However, many of our professional fears are unavoidable, particularly if we want to progress. This is the tension that so many wrestle with: you want the promotion, the impact, the leadership role. But the things that come with it, such as more visibility, public speaking and scrutiny of your decisions, trigger exactly the fears you've been managing by staying where you are. So what do you do?
One way to evaluate whether confronting the fear is worth it is to examine what you actually gain. Self Determination Theory, a psychological theory of motivation defined by Deci and Ryan2, offers insight into this evaluation. They posit that motivation arises through three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness3. Applying this to career progression we want:
More control over what work we do, how and when we do it, and who we do it with.
To develop a deep understanding of our domain of knowledge — becoming an ‘expert’ is crucial to our sense of self and identity.
To feel like we belong in a group with others we like and trust.
These three needs pull you towards your career goals. Where those needs go unmet, a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction builds. That feeling often becomes more unbearable than the fear itself, prompting action. Promotion brings more visibility (fear), but it also gives you more autonomy (need). Speaking up risks you being challenged (fear), but demonstrates your competence (need). As a leader your decisions will receive more scrutiny and challenge (fear), but will give you belonging in a higher status group (need).
Yet research shows a motivator even more powerful than pursuing what we want: avoiding what we're already losing.
What you’re already losing
The pull of unmet needs is only half the story. Research on loss aversion by Kahneman and Tversky4 shows that we’re typically more motivated to avoid losses than to pursue equivalent gains. The pain of losing £100 feels roughly twice as intense as the pleasure of gaining £100. This isn’t irrational — it’s how our brains are wired.
Applied to your career, this means the question isn’t just “what could I gain by confronting this fear?” but “what am I already losing by keeping it?”
Consider Zoe again. By avoiding Alice’s questions, she’s not just missing out on future opportunities for visibility, she’s actively losing ground right now. Every meeting where she stays silent, someone else’s ideas shape the strategy. Every time she dodges a conversation with Alice, she becomes less visible as a leader on the product launch she’s meant to be leading. The promotion she wants next year is being undermined by the invisibility she’s creating today.
The fear feels protective, as it’s keeping you safe from being challenged, from looking stupid, from being exposed. But it’s not neutral. It’s costing you influence while trying to avoid criticism. You’re losing opportunities to demonstrate competence while trying to avoid being tested. And you’re losing your place in the group by trying to avoid rejection.
At some point, the accumulated losses become unbearable — and that’s when the cost-benefit analysis tips: the cost of keeping the fear finally exceeds the cost of confronting it.
And that’s your tipping point — when you’re ready for Minimum Viable Exposure.
So to return to Athena’s earlier question: not all fears are worth confronting. But when keeping one costs you more than facing it, that's your signal to act.
Bottemanne, H. (2025) ‘Bayesian brain theory: Computational neuroscience of belief’. Neuroscience, Vol 566, pp.198-204
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). ‘Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being’. American Psychologist, Vol 55(1), pp.68-78.
You may be familiar with Daniel Pink's reframing of self-determination theory as autonomy, mastery and purpose. Pink's substitution of purpose for relatedness reflects American individualistic values, whereas relatedness — our need for connection and belonging within groups — is more communal and, I argue, more relevant to understanding professional fears about fitting in and being accepted.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). ‘Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk’. Econometrica, 47(2), 263-291.