What is fear costing you?
I have a coworker who really likes to think about their own death. Eyebrows raised during one staff meeting when their icebreaker question was: “What do you want your obituary to say?”
Fast forward to this Monday, and their weekend highlight? Playing death charades with their family. Yes, death charades — exactly what it sounds like: regular charades, except every clue is a different way to die.
Death — whether it’s our own or that of someone we love — is understandably terrifying. But it’s also inevitable. And what my coworker reminded me is this: when we talk about death openly — even laugh at it — it loses some of its bite. It doesn’t make it less real, but it does make it feel less overpowering. When we stare our fears in the face, they start to shrink.
Beneath the shock factor, my coworker’s point is simple and profound:
When we confront our deepest fears, we take back the power they’ve stolen from us.
As changemakers, fear is everywhere. Fear that the problems we’re tackling will only get worse. Fear that funding will dry up. Fear of failure. And too often, those fears get in the way.
That’s a problem for two big reasons:
We waste time, energy, and resources trying to avoid what scares us.
We stop ourselves from taking the risks that real change requires.
So maybe death charades isn’t your thing. But it did get me thinking: What would it look like for changemakers to stare down their fears — and move forward anyway?
Fear — especially unspoken fear — has a way of quietly running the show. The more we shove it into a corner or hide it under the bed, the more power it holds. But fear is a lot like the monsters we imagined as kids: when you turn on the light, you realize there’s nothing there that you can’t handle. Shine a light on what you’re afraid of, and suddenly it starts to take shape — you can see what it’s made of, where it came from, and what it might be trying to tell you. And just like that, its grip begins to loosen.
Try these straightforward steps to bring your bed-hiding monsters into the light:
Name the fear
What really scares you? Whether it’s in your life or your changemaking work, what are you afraid of? Not the surface-level stuff, but the things that hit you in the gut. Name it, clearly and honestly.
“I’m scared this business model will never work.”
“My fear is failing to hit my fundraising goal and everything everyone said about me will be right.”
“I’m afraid that nothing I do will be enough.”
Play it out
What if the worst did happen? Not in a spiraling-anxiety way, but in a clear, curious way. “If this happened, then what?” Write the next sentence. And the next. Brainstorm all the consequences of your fear realized.
Control the controllables
Think of all the things you could do if your fear was realized. There is a lot outside of your zone of influence, but what can you control?
Use humor to take the bite out
Write your obituary. Play death charades. Imagine your biggest professional fear as a tabloid headline. It sounds silly - but that silliness is what starts to disarm the fear. If nothing else, it gives you some distance and helps you breathe.
Fear is only as big as you let it be. When you shine a light on it, you start to realize it's not so scary after all. Fear can even be useful — a lesson I learned after a movie I watched as a teenager gave me nightmares for years.
Fear isn’t always the enemy. Sometimes, it reveals what we care about most—and points to what’s not working.
When I was a teenager, I watched the satirical horror movie I Know What You Did Last Summer, and I’ve never slept the same since. Okay, I’m exaggerating… but only slightly. That movie haunted my nightmares for years. I know — ridiculous.
For a long time, I avoided even thinking about it. But eventually, I got curious: Why did that movie stick with me so deeply?
There’s one scene I’ve never forgotten.
Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character wakes up to find that while she was sleeping, someone had cut off all her hair and left it on the pillow. That one act — calculated, intimate, and deliberately cruel — shook me.
It wasn’t the gore that got to me. It was the violation of kindness. That scene revealed something important: how deeply I value compassion, and how painful it is to witness cruelty.
By shining a light on a fear that once felt absurd, I discovered something essential about myself.
That fear became a tool. It surfaced my values. And once I saw them clearly, I became a more grounded, more connected changemaker.
So… What fear do you need to shine a light on?