Remember, the flipside of your biggest fear is your greatest gift. You can’t claim the gift if you don’t know what the fear is.

Ask yourself: What are you hiding from? Everyone is hiding from something, usually many things. But you, what is your biggest fear—the one you hold dear which you think you can’t live without, and the one you are hiding behind? This is what I want to say to you. Stop hiding or else.

Or else what? Or else you will lose your life. No one will take it. You will have given it away. I want to share two different stories.

I have a friend who was married to a very powerful wealthy attorney. They had a less than intimate life. She was like his intelligent slave. Working with his every fear and whim. I love her and her amazing heart, yet she gave up her deepest desires to serve him because of her fears of abandonment. He died and left her a lot of money. But the money (surprise) didn’t relieve her of her fears. The next man she attracted was also wealthy and severely wounded. Much more of a friend, but again, needy. Her fears are many but her heart is vast. If she could choose compassion instead of empathy and sympathy, she could possibly deal with her fears instead of letting them rule her and her life, if she so chooses.

Another friend decided yesterday that she wants to be a truck driver. My reaction was, WHAT? I knew a woman who had this dream of freedom on the road and she hated it once it was a reality. There are so many other unfun parts to it. I shared that with this current person. After speaking for a few minutes, she said something very profound, “I want to try things I don’t know anything about. I want to do things that are a little scary, so I cannot be scared.” How can I argue with that?

Remember, the flipside of your biggest fear is your greatest gift and you can’t claim the gift if you don’t know what the fear is. The gift can mask the fear but the fear, once known, will blow the gift wide open.

Be fearless. Unearth your big-ass fear so it can stop terrorizing you. Otherwise, you spend your entire life working AROUND it, and, truly, for it.