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There are two parts to everyone being scared.

The second is my favorite because it has the potential of making you feel better than you ever have before. At my work, I have evaluated applications from students that have put in more than 2,000 hours of community service over a span of four years. But when I think of the second part of fear, I can’t help but realize that more empowering results can be created by talking to someone for two minutes.

Online example

Despite Twitter’s popularity, it’s far from perfect. In fact, I gave their ads a try and was revolted. They gave me $50 to start running ads and I quit before it was spent.

They also required you to have a debit/credit card on file before they gave you the money. Once I quit my ads, I wanted to delete my debit card information. I could not find any place to do this. So, I emailed them.

Within a day I received an email saying that the feature I requested was not available and that they would work on it – in the mean time I would basically have to deal with it.

Since then, a few weeks have passed. The other day, I opened my email to find this:

There is always room for improvement

Whether the person, company, or client you’re talking to follows through with your suggestion – or in Twitter’s case, takes your unfulfillable request and turns it into something real – it’s still your responsibility to make that suggestion.

Out of the millions of Twitter users, I have no clue how many will be happy that they can delete their card from their account. I have no clue how many employees it took, how much red tape it had to go through, or how successful their actions really were. What I do know is that they took a request, an idea, and made it happen. And for that – although I still can’t stand the ads, – I will stick by Twitter’s side.

Personal examples

An old friend of mine wanted to start a blog about teen dads. I gave him roughly five lines of hard encouragement. I told him exactly what he needed to do. He never did. I didn’t let fear get to him, he did.

Another friend of mine was applying to law school and asked if I would review his personal statement. I gave him a few suggestions but explained more about human personalities and how those reviewing the application are real people. He understood, realizing that there was fear that the person reviewing his application might misjudge him. Because of fear, he wrote a safe statement. Once I called him out on it, he made some changes and while he has yet to hear back, I’m sure he will get in.

I shared a speech I wrote with a respectable entrepreneur. She critiqued the staleness and boredom out of it. Because of her, my speech became more remarkable. I also gave the original draft to a friend who said it was good, providing a couple grammatical corrections. You can guess which one had more of an impact.

Criticism is tough work

So is encouragement, accountability, and inspiration – all of which are required to back up another’s dance with fear. I’ve always thought that doing your own work is easy, well, maybe not easy, but always easier than helping someone else do their own work.

I suppose that’s why I love giving people feedback. Maybe, just maybe, they will see how valuable it is to them, that they give feedback to someone else.

 

Stay Positive & Let Others Know What You Think And Feel

Garth E. Beyer