What Fear Does to You, and the Exercises That Work on It

I sweat. Not a little: when I’m afraid, the armpits go before the brain does, and it doesn’t matter how cold the room is. I’ve watched some people start pacing. Some talk too fast, say things they don’t mean, and then spend the next ten minutes defending the thing they didn’t mean. My dad, who sings with his brothers, loses his breath and you can hear him choke it back and come in again. None of that is weakness. It’s biology, and the whole point of this episode is that you can’t work with a thing you won’t name.

This was the second morning of the second season, January 2021, with Brian and Joey on the mic and a room full of people who were, that week, more afraid than usual. It’s the episode I’d hand to anyone who has ever frozen in front of a room.

What does fear actually do to you, and how do you work with it?

Fear is a biological response, and it has a signature that is yours. Sweating, pacing, talking too fast, losing your breath, going quiet, getting loud. The first move is to know your own signature well enough to say, out loud, that’s it, that’s fear, not the truth. The second move is to stop waiting for it to pass and walk toward it on purpose, in small doses you choose: a stand-up set in a class, a trip you plan and pay for yourself, a hello to a stranger in a museum. Fear doesn’t respond to logic, so you don’t argue with it. You rehearse in front of it until the light switches.

Prefer audio? Listen to the episode, or find it wherever you get podcasts.

What is in the episode

• 01:13 · Fear not. Brian opens the show with Isaiah 41:10, which is where this one starts and where it ends. We get to God in every episode; this morning he was the point.
• 06:43 · Turn inward and upward. When the whole world feels like it’s shaking, the only ground is the present moment and the one you’re trusting with it.
• 13:41 · Coming to terms with your own reaction. If you don’t know, or you’re not willing to admit, what fear does to you, it will keep doing it. My sweat. Other people’s pacing. The talking-too-fast that turns into pride.
• 19:26 · Five of twenty. A class of twenty, all of whom had prepared a stand-up set. I asked who had theirs ready and five hands went up. After the first five went, five more. After those, the rest. Astrid’s two words before she stood: big breath. Fear needs a demonstration before it lets you walk into it.
• 24:18 · Create your own obstacles. If you’re honest with yourself, when you’re comfortable you don’t feel good, and the danger is that you’ll go looking for fear in the wrong place at the wrong moment. So choose it. The week I lived in my car to find out I could. Renting a car for the first time. A trip on a budget, alone, with a museum and a hello to a stranger at the end of it.
• 37:00 · Good fear. If you’re not in the present, your mind goes to the anxiety. The exercise is to stay curious and ask what you’re being called to do, then do the next small scary thing, on purpose, with your eyes open.

Why an acting studio teaches this

Every actor stands in front of strangers with their heart racing and has to be honest anyway. That is the job, and it is also a description of a sales call, a hard conversation at home, and the first day of anything. We rehearse it in the room on purpose, in small doses, week after week, until the body learns that the racing heart is a signal and not a verdict. Fear is primal, so it doesn’t answer to your logic. It answers to reps. There are no shortcuts to that, and there’s no ceiling on it either.

The full conversation is on the recording above. The written version here is the teaching; part of what was said that morning was personal to the people in the room, and it stays theirs.