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Kinder Mind
Kinder Mind
Exploring Fear: Conquering Overthinking and Embracing Change with Dennis Bullock
Discover how to conquer your fears and embrace change with our guest, life coach Dennis Bullock, in this enlightening episode of the Kinder Mind podcast. Learn why fear often arises from overthinking and how it both protects and limits us. Through Dennis's practical advice and personal stories you'll understand the importance of re-framing fear to uncover new opportunities for growth. Change your perspective on fear and see how it can be a stepping stone rather than a stumbling block in your life.
We also dive into the importance of acknowledging both the positive and negative possibilities that come with change. Dennis shares strategies to balance these possibilities while fostering a realistic outlook. Get inspired by his experiences with constant relocation and career transitions, which illustrate the power of stepping out of your comfort zone. Embrace failure as a learning opportunity, maintain a growth mindset, and take those leaps of faith toward self-improvement. Tune in to gain valuable guidance on navigating life's transitions and keep growing with us. For more personalized advice, connect with Dennis at https://kindermindcoaching.com/coaches/dennis-bullock
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Thanks so much to our listeners for joining us on today's episode of the Kinder Mind podcast, where we're exploring letting go of fear and embracing change with Dennis Bullock, life coach. Dennis, thanks so much for joining us today.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Dr Barlow is an honor and a privilege.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:Thank you, sir. This topic fascinates me because I think we can all recall times in our life where we have experienced fear and dread, and that can definitely be one of those negative emotions that is a part of being a human that we can get stuck in. What does letting go of fear mean to you?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Yes, as I was preparing, I had multiple thoughts A lot of times. You would probably think about these particular things, the unknown, but I really look at. When you talk about letting go of fear is really letting go of how you view it. It's like this I know this might be a horrible analogy, but like trying sometimes trying to throw them out every now and then. But it's like driving a car with insurance versus not having insurance.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Now, if you didn't have insurance on a nice vehicle, my goodness, you're going to probably be in fear all the time, because fears a lot of times comes in when you're overthinking a lot of stuff and I'm really speaking about myself most of the time that we're going to answer these questions, because I have tendencies to overthink a lot of times.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:But when fear comes in, oh my gosh, it's like almost sweeping water uphill. And so when I get into those mindsets that I have with fear, it's more overthinking. And when I get over to overthinking what about this and what about that, fear comes in and magnifies it. And so letting go of fear is letting go of how you view it, because sometimes fear actually is not necessarily a bad thing. It could be a warning, it could be something that's letting you know I'm feeling a particular way right now. And then this is for me to ask myself this question why am I feeling this way? And a lot of times we don't do that, we don't sit back and ask ourselves those questions because we're just overthinking. So letting go of fear is really letting go of how you view it, and that's what I wanted to say for that particular question.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:Thank you so much for sharing that. That makes so much sense. And while you were speaking, I was thinking about fear and how it really shapes our thoughts and can get us stuck, but then also how, like you mentioned, it can help to protect us and guide us. And so why do you think fear often prevents people from embracing change?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:I really feel like 95% of us live in this particular area. Let me explain these three words comfort, convenience and control. A lot of times, man, when fear shows up or when change happens or we're about to go through a transition, a lot of times we find ourselves it's messing with our convenience in life. How's this going to affect some of the, maybe even the leisures, or just the things that I have gotten comfortable with? Or this big one. Control I want to control the outcome, and when we can't control the outcome which a lot of times we can't we freak out. And I feel like those three C's. When I start to even deal with some of my clients, I start to ask them some. There's some things you just can't control. You can't control how you're going to feel in this transition. You can't control when a career happens, a career change happens or a layoff happens and you were so.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Your identity was attached to that paycheck and now I'm not getting no money coming in. The fear arises. But it's really attached to. Am I going to lose control? Or I'm going to lose the comfort of what that paycheck brought for me, or the convenience? I was getting a steady paycheck coming in and now I've changed to being an entrepreneur and I might not get the paycheck this week, I might not get a paycheck this month or next couple months, and so that really riles you up and I really feel like a lot of times it's attached to those particular three C's that I talk about, but the verses of that is really the sacrifice, the surrendering, and the really with the other one I can't think of right now is really surrendering to the process of change, embracing that change, because there's a growth that comes with that change.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:I could not agree more. Back to a time, I think I was the most afraid when it came to everything that you mentioned about career. I knew that I wanted to start my own group therapy practice and I was absolutely terrified to the point to where it stifled me from taking any action at all. And it was absolutely there's three C's that you mentioned and I couldn't do it. I couldn't take the next step. I knew everything that I needed to do to take the next step, but I was terrified of losing that guaranteed paycheck. I was terrified that I wasn't going to make it. I was terrified that I wasn't going to be able to pay my bills and provide for my family, and it took my partner telling me we will be fine, go do this to get me motivated and to actually do the scary thing. So I'm curious if you could share a personal or even a professional experience where you had to let go of fear to embrace a significant change.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:I've gone through many changes in my life. It first started out just being a military brat. Both my parents were in the military and so moving for us we seem like we moved around the fall season. October seems like the month that we was always moving. I didn't know if it was a trick or a treat, but at the end of the day it was tough dealing with those types of transitions. But professionally I have to go all the way back, because this is the first time I had to really make a decision, because I was unhappy.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:When I came out of college I was working for a particular automotive company. I'm from Michigan and so the automotive plants were big time and if you got a job in those particular companies, you were doing fairly well. And when I came out of college it was my first job that I got and I was making very good money at 23 years old and I was enjoying the check. But I wasn't enjoying working in a plant. I had an easy job at first and then I moved around and so during that seven year period of working for that company it got worse and worse. I knew that I did not want to be here. I wanted something else. I wanted to be more expressive. I want to have more opportunities to plan and develop. And I was working in a plant. Again, the paycheck was awesome, but I just didn't want to be there. Again, the paycheck was awesome, but I just didn't want to be there. And so I found myself making the decision do I want to stay here for the next seven years or do I need to bail out and leave and quit? And so during that process, it was the toughest thing, because you're going from making this type of money that you have never made before. Imagine going from a college student making an hourly wage to where you're making a salary and you're getting paid tons of money for what you're doing in a plant. And I had to make a courageous step, and it was tough. It was so tough back then. What do I do? What do I transition into?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:And so, for me, the easiest thing that I can think of was leaving and going into teaching, and I didn't have a teaching certificate, and so what I had to do was go in, and I was looking at these different types of ads and they had substitute teaching. I was like, oh my gosh, I don't want to be going from school to school. So all the overthinking, all the fears, all the things that were happening in my mind was almost keeping me stuck. But I had to take a leap, and when I took that leap it was tough because I did take several thousands I said tens of thousands of dollars paycheck. I went from making this amount of money to going to being a substitute teacher, where I wasn't making that much money.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:But let me tell you this I enjoyed when I jumped. The landing was pretty, pretty soft. It wasn't as what I thought it was going to be. Now, yes, I lost money by making the transition, but I found myself enjoying what I was doing, and so that was one of the first experience I can think of coming out of college, and that experience really helped me transition from when I got married and me and my wife had to move from Michigan to Arizona, and so I was excited about it. I was excited about it because I've done this before and I know what it's like to leave a job and move into the next opportunity, and so that was the first, really the first time I can think of that. I really it was a struggle because it was several months, it wasn't something like a couple of weeks, a couple of days. It was several months before I actually took that leap of faith into leaving my job.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:I love that personal story. Thank you so much for sharing that and it's really great in how you illustrate that. The motivator of financial gain was a real one and it was a great one. And then you felt like you were I'm paraphrasing here it sounds like you felt like you were losing yourself in just mundane kind of job and you really wanted to be able to, like you mentioned, express yourself and really feel your value and your worth, and that was so important to you that you didn't tie that to a paycheck so that you made that transition over to happiness and joy and fulfillment and that was more of a priority than the financial aspect.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Yes.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:So, thinking about the clients that you work with, what are some of the common fears that people have that you've heard, when facing change?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Yes, the biggest one, and this is also for me, and coaching really helped me navigate this particular fear, and it's the fear of failure, something that actually, if you use it the right way or have the right relationship with it, it can really be something that really helps you think through and take a self-inventory of where you're at. And that's the process that I've used. But fear of failure has been something that I hear a lot of my clients. They don't want to launch out, they going back to those three C's, they're comfortable and sometimes, where they're at, even their mice. I'm like you need to launch out, you need to do something different, you need to grow. Have you explored these particular areas? And it's but and now we're going back to those three C's Is it, is this convenient this job? Is it convenient in knowing that you've got this steady income coming in? Or is it just convenient because maybe your spouse don't want you to leave or you don't have that support? And so a fear of failure. You come up with so many excuses and all these different types of things, and so that's probably been the most common one the areas of counseling. Sometimes it's just I'm feeling I'm losing myself. I think you had said that I'm losing my identity, I'm losing who I am. I've been attached to this for so long and I don't know who I am anymore, and so we have to go back a little bit and really discover where did that come from? What type of stuff did you deal with as a child? But then, when we get into coaching, how can we move you forward and not let this fear be something where you're stuck but you're coming out of it and seeing that, hey, this can be something that will help me grow through this change that I'm experiencing? I can't even say it for myself even now, or I don't.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:When I left my teaching job over the summer and launched my coaching business, it was at first. It was tough. I can hear myself having a negative self-talk, a negative mindset about certain things, but then I came out of it. I knew, okay, make me go back to my I am statements, and one of the I am statements I used to say, uh, I was myself over the summer was I am attractive not by my looks, but I stand out. And and as I kept on saying that, I got more opportunities, I got people talking to me about certain things, people ask me questions, and then I started to really embrace. Wow, this is not a place that I have to stay in. I reminded myself I'm here. And then now it becomes something that becomes another encouragement for somebody else, especially for my clients. I got one particular client and he's making a transition into the business arena and I got some words that I've been giving to him. He's been really encouraged by it and I got some words that I've been given to him.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:He's been really encouraged because by behind it. Thank you for sharing that. I it's so interesting to hear how fear can play a different role in kind of everybody's experience, and how we all have to try to use tools to grow beyond it. Like you mentioned, and I think when I was working with clients, oftentimes one of the I'd say one of the primary concerns I would frequently hear is I'm worried about this, or they would use statements like I know I shouldn't worry, and my response was always what do you mean? You shouldn't worry, you should absolutely worry.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:Worry is something that helps you to think about all of these potential negative consequences. So if you're putting on this positive mindset and what's one of those buzzwords If you're not allowing yourself to go into the negative, you're going to completely fall apart should that negative arise, and so I would always use the analogy for my clients it's a lot shorter fall from a hill than it is from a mountaintop. So if you're churching yourself up and you are just like singing your song and you're the greatest in the world, nothing bad can happen because it's positive vibes. Only when those bad things happen, you're falling from a mountaintop. If you go ahead and develop the mindset of yes, good is possible, but negative is also possible, and you have those thoughts and you allow yourself to. And another word I would hear from clients is I don't want to go down this rabbit hole. Go down the rabbit hole. Let's fully map out this rabbit hole. Go down the rabbit hole. Let's fully map out this rabbit hole and understand what it looks like and let's develop some pathways that we can take should these negative things come true. So I completely get, I want to put positivity out there and will that into existence and absolutely do that.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:But don't put on those rose-colored sunglasses and only see the rosy side of things, because now you are limiting your protection system and you're limiting yourself from planning, for these things is rational or irrational is where we would get into these conversations, because an irrational fear is something that has never happened to you before and it just so happens to pop in your head and now you're worried about it and you're allowing that to really take over and limit your possibilities. And those are the ones that we really want to call out and try to identify. Okay, what's going on here, like why are you having this fear? Has this ever happened before? What's making you think that this could happen. And then those rational fears are the boogers Like those are the ones that have been proven to you that, yeah, they can happen and they can come true Losing your job.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:If you've been fired before, you can lose your job, so now that's not an irrational fear. So then how do we work through that? We go ahead and we allow ourselves the worry and we map out what are our options. You get fired tomorrow. What are you going to do? Okay, that doesn't work out, what's that next thing? You're going to try, and we develop this plan, and I think that's another reason I love this conversation we're having so much and the fact that there's coaching involved, because it's very much about looking to the future and planning for the future, and that doesn't always have to be a positive thing. That can be. Let's plan for the worst. Let's go and allow ourselves to go there and think about what that could look like. And can we always avoid the worst? No, but can we go ahead and think of some strategies to maybe negate it from being quite so intense? Absolutely, we can do that. Let's see. Let me think about which is the next question I would ask. So how can embracing change really lead to personal growth in your opinion?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Yeah, I think you did a good job of talking about that. I think, again, going back to those three C's comfort when you really start to open yourself to change and seeing the opportunities what change can provide, it does push you out of your comfort. I used to and this is probably a common phrase, but I know I said, I used to say it back back in the day for myself and when I was at this particular organization and I used to say, man, I can't even get comfortable. I'm like one one minute. I'm here and we're changing and we're comfortable in being uncomfortable. And so change pushes you out and it helps you explore again how I'm feeling about myself, how am I feeling with my wife, my kids Because they're part of that process too. For those who are married and or just family members, it pushes you out of your comfort zone. But then the awesome part about that is that now you're really you're forced to do something different, you're forced to think differently, you're forced to make a decision. I got to make a decision on this one. I was dealing with some clients on Tuesday and I said I can't really help you. I'm here to give you perspective, but you ultimately got to make a decision, that you got to say yes to this or you got to say no to this, and challenge them directly. I let them know how much I love him. I want him to do his best, but I'm challenging you. You got to make a decision and change forces you to do that. It's like renovation You're going into a house and you're taking out certain things, whether it's a room or whether it's the whole house, and you get to reimagine what the space looks like. But it looked like this before, and so you almost have to. When change, you've got to visualize something different. What could this be? What could this change look like for me? What could this change look like for my marriage? What can this change look like for my relationship? What can this change look like for whatever that is? It's really getting into a new space, and that's what change does.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Change changes the way you think, the way things, even yourself. I think self-awareness is probably a big piece of that is that you become so self-aware of who I am and how I've grown from, how I used to be. Fear, failure used to grip me, and I can remember all the way back from high school. I felt like I was a pretty good student in high school. I had aspiration, I had ambition. But when I moved over to college and I little more different than what I did in high school and when I made my first F or I flunked my first class in my freshman year, the fear of failure gripped me and I didn't know what to do.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:But when you get around a community of people that helps you change, or you get around people who are forcing you and pushing you out of your comfort zone, you begin to see, okay, I can do this, I can. There's opportunities. That's going to come out of this if I just look at it a different way and I come out of my comfort zone. So that's. I think that's probably one of the biggest things when you're embracing change. It's really pushing you out some zones that you need to get out of. You need to get out of that space. You need to get out of comfort and move to something that's going to challenge you and I think that's the biggest thing I can really can answer in that question.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:And I love how you mention community, because community is so important. Our environment is so important for shaping how we behave and our outlook and how we're feeling. So how can support systems like brands or professionals help individuals through change and like on their journey?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Let me speak for coaching, especially under the kinder mind platform Coaches. When I had my first coach, I really felt like I had somebody that was on my team. Now, thank God for an awesome wife, thank God for a wonderful family support. Sometimes they can talk and say things to you. They love you and they're just really trying to encourage you to move out to whatever area you're in. But a coach man, they're able to say some things to you and it's coming from a place of this person don't even know me, but this coach is for you and as you go through the process of asking questions, trying to get to know each other and where you want to go and all those types of things, a coach really helps you see further than what you would see for yourself. Or a coach will help you see things that you possibly I didn't see, that I didn't see how fear is actually working with me. I haven't changed my relationship. A coach helps you not necessarily practice until you're perfect, but you're getting to a place where I do this on a regular basis till I just can't get it wrong, because I'm in the space of living this, living it out, and that's what I like about the platform that you're providing is that not only do we need people who need counseling yes, we need people to. Definitely we need to go back and deal with some past traumas that are hindering you from moving forward. But what I like about coaching now that you are getting healed in this area how can we move you forward? What are some of the things that you need to set for yourself?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:And I love that with a coach, that's what I love doing for people is really helping them see the potential that they had, because a lot of times, it's just the potential. You have an idea, you have something that you want to do. That's great potential. That's great. That's great that you're there. But how are we going to get you there? What is the next steps that you need to make? And a lot of times, people don't think through those particular things. They see the finish line, they see themselves winning in life, and that's a great visualization of having that. But what's the process in between? And a lot of us don't like the process. The process is I got to get up early in the morning, I have these particular rituals, or I got to exercise, or I got to go out there and market and learn this different type of tool in order to increase man, that process. That is challenging, but it's worth it.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:What advice would you give to someone standing at the edge of a significant change in their life?
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Man, I would say jump Now, depending on the situation. Again, all situations are unique but it's repelling. I was in ROTC back in the day and I had to repel off a wall and of course they give you all the equipment, give you ropes and stuff like that. They put you on the edge and literally you have somebody that's looking at you. The first attempt that I had was off of a 50-foot wall and then, if you did successfully, did that, then you can start repelling off the mountain.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:A lot of people don't make it to the mountain because they're so afraid of that 50-foot wall and they just don't want to jump. Their legs are shaking, their body's telling them no, don't do it. Fear is gripping them and they don't know what to do. They just stay stuck, they stay up there and a lot of the time the coach is saying just jump, just jump. We got you, we got you the ropes, the training that you've done. It's not going to help, it's not going to make you, you're not going to fall, you're going to be okay. But sometimes we don't see it, but what we're hearing.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:I'm trying to say to people who are in that place go ahead and jump, just experience it, because fear and failure, if it depends on how you look, it can actually work for you instead of against you. If you try something, you fall down, pick yourself back up If it's not life threatening. Of course, we're not talking about nothing life threatening here, but we're talking about going to your next level. You might fall, you might fail, but that's OK. There's nothing wrong with that, and I think sometimes our comforts, our conveniences, the things that we think that we're trying to control, sometimes we just can't control it.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:So just jump. You're not going to be able to control if you don't get no business the first few months or the first year, but keep going, jump, experience, see what it's like and then, if it don't work well, transition to something else and learn something new. But you learned about yourself. I think John Maxwell says this it's not failure, it's learning. Well, you're learning something new. You're growing still, though, and that's what's so awesome about that. So I tell people just go ahead and jump. Go ahead and experience what it's like.
Dr. Elizabeth Barlow:I love that so much. Keep growing, keep transitioning, keep jumping. Thank you so much for joining us today, dennis, and providing your valuable insight and experience around this topic. If anyone would like to book a time to meet with dennis, they can go check out dennis's profile at kindermindcoachingcom and get started on growing and transitioning and making that jump today. Thank you again for your time, dennis.
Dennis Bullock, Life Coach:Thank you so much, Dr Barlow.