Finance with Don Fraser Fraser Farm Finance

At the risk of repeating myself, fear is one of the dominant ‘feelings’ that most people have. 

For myself, I am known as ‘Fearless Fraser’ because fear is something I do not have much of. 

Successive seminars and a lot of personal development have given me very little fear these days but that is not to say it was prevalent when I was much younger.  I have since learnt to control it.

After the pandemic, and not to mention the Ukraine debacle, fear has become more prevalent in our thinking and our society.

The current government has used fear to control us as a nation and this is not good.

In our own small community there are many people, some of them living on their own, where fear has pervaded their thinking and they are scared to do anything, let alone go out their front door or meet people.

Fear explains why millions of people accomplish little and enjoy nothing.  Fear is a very powerful force.  Fear wears down our physical vitality, it makes people sick, shortens their life and closes their mouth when they want to speak!  On that last point, Toastmasters is a great venue to get over your fear to speak.

We see a lot of fear in younger people.  Everything is negative and they fear all sorts of things, not to mention ‘stranger danger’ and don’t say hello to people you don’t know.  Parents seem to dump their own fear on their children.

So, you can go on and on about fear which is well documented and known by psychologists and medical people alike. 

There are some very positive things you can do get over fear.

1. Isolate your fear, pin it down, determine exactly what you are afraid of. 
2. Then act.  Remember, hesitation and inaction only enlarge and magnifies fear.  Be decisive and take some action and step over your fear.

Lack of self-confidence is traced to what you are telling yourself and what is jammed in your memory bank.  Your brain is like a bank.  What is it that you are depositing in your mind bank?

Are you filling it with self-defeating thoughts?  Are you telling yourself you are a failure, have no confidence and don’t want to speak out?  Or, are you careful about what goes in and then comes out.

After all it is your mind bank, and nobody else’s.

So, to manage your mind bank better

1. Deposit only positive thoughts in it
2. Withdraw only positive thoughts from it.
3. Insist that you only want to talk of positive things and not about the war, our poor economy or lack of performance by this government.
4. As they say, continual talk of negative things will ‘do your head in!’

In summary, I don’t think we have ever been surrounded by so much stuff to make us fearful.  It is frightening really.

We need to realise it is underlying fear that is making us feel unhappy.  We need to be very careful what we are telling ourselves.  We need to steer our thoughts and conversations to only happy things and our fear and anxiety will start to subside.

Disclaimer – These are the opinions of Don Fraser (an old fart).  Any decisions made should not be based on this article alone and appropriate professional assistance should be sought.

Don Fraser is the retired Principal of Fraser Farm Finance and was a consultant to the farming industry for many decades.  You can still contact him on 021 777 675