Is your fear reality-based, or the story you're telling yourself?

"Is your fear reality-based, or the story you're telling yourself?"

That's a question I find myself exploring often with emerging leaders.

I’ve been partnering with Patrice Claire Bayo Verosil on her leadership journey for the past 2.5 years.

I remember when she first reached out for guidance on the fears swirling in her.

I asked what she wanted help with.
She shared her ‘problems’.

I silently translated them in my head: ‘fears’.
And so I asked with a naughty wink, "Which of them has already happened?"

She got me immediately. "None!"
"Then we actually don't have a problem to work on!”

We laughed.

That was her a-ha moment: most of our fears live in our imagination, not our reality.

Over the years, our conversations became less about fear itself, and more about leading through uncertainty.

High-stakes decisions. Organisational challenges. Difficult people conversations.

Until leading from her strengths became second nature.

2.5 years on, this young leader who thought she wasn’t ‘good enough’, led her company through "real existential threats, stable enough to look forward, .... and to focus on the next stage of growth across South East Asia."

She shared about our partnership:

“My leadership has matured alongside the business. I am more decisive, more strategic, and far more grounded than when we first met.

Candice has an extraordinary ability to create clarity when the stakes are high. She consistently challenged me to think beyond survival.

This fundamentally changed how I lead."

What Patrice learned isn't unique to her:
You can move from reacting to responding.
You can separate fear from fact.
You can lead deliberately instead of desperately.

What Patrice doesn't always say loudly enough though, is this:
She did the work. She stayed in the discomfort as I deconstructed overwhelming challenges into actionable insights alongside her.

I'm gonna repeat this until every rising leader gets it: emotions are data when you've learned to use them.

Fear doesn't disappear when you become a great leader.
You just get better at using it as information instead of letting it make your decisions.

The best leaders know when to invite the right people into the room.