Kay:

Hey there Questers and welcome back. It’s Friday, January 8th and this is episode 265. We have a Frank Sinatra quote for you today. It’s a quickie, but a goodie. He says, “Fear is the enemy of logic.”

Shi:

Now Frank Sinatra is what we like to call our holiday cheat code because you can listen to Frank Sinatra all year long and it makes you feel like you’re in that holiday mode and feeling. But Frank Sinatra, a big influence in our lives lyrically. Found his greatest hits album in high school and then I know we both just fell in love and love all of the things. Fun fact, Chad and I actually got married at the Cal Neva in Crystal Bay, Lake Tahoe, which was of course once owned by Frank Sinatra himself. So, we’re big fans and this is a great quote that we can interpret in a couple of different, cool ways.

Kay:

Yes, well, fear is the enemy of logic is present on so many levels for us as human beings. One of those levels is a biological level. In fact, just got done reading the book, “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell and in it, he talks about how police officers when in the presence of extreme fear, actually experienced temporary autism where they no longer have the ability to read a person’s facial expressions or understand the emotional context of a situation. So, an officer who is within their first year on the job who maybe hits a traffic stop and gets really afraid because they think that the assailant might have a gun is way more likely to make a mistake like potentially shooting that assailant because they temporarily lose all of their ability to have any form of facial or human, emotion logic because they’re so frigging afraid.

Shi:

There are countless examples of situations like that across social science and across motivational and personal growth and development as well. You raise to the level of your training or you lower to it.

Kay:

You fall to the level.

Shi:

Yeah. You fall to the level of your training and so you want to make your training help you get through any kind of situation that you can because when fear comes in logic goes out and Kay and I have been quantifying this lately to each other as sloppy. When you get afraid of something and you mask it with anger, maybe now you’re like, I don’t get afraid but yeah…

Kay:

Yeah. Fear just manifests in different ways.

Shi:

It manifests in different ways and so if you’re angry or if you’re fearful or you’re depressed, or you’re in despair logic goes out the window there and you’re not assessing a situation from a place of empowerment, of a place of possibility, ultimately that can be really debilitating and it can foster more fear.

Kay:

In fact, Shila and I were just on a call today and I started to feel fear creep in towards me. It was the fear of being misunderstood. Having this fear that, “Oh, this person we’re talking to doesn’t really understand what we’re doing. They don’t really understand. They clearly didn’t do their research on who we are, they don’t really understand what we’re doing.” It was this fear of being misunderstood that was manifesting this anger and it made me sloppy in the moment. Later Shyla came back in and was like, well, here are some of the contexts that I pulled out of the situation. It was context that I just was so blind to because the emotion of fear being masked as anger was highly present within my body. So much so I even expressed it as my face is hot and my heart is pounding to my associates and said, those are the two things that are physically going on with me. So, a very interesting example.

Shi:

Well, it’s been cool to watch your journey and evolution with this kind of emotional unfolding in your life and awareness. Rather than saying, I’m mad, you’re having that separation of, “I’m observing that my body is having a reaction to my emotional state which is anger.” Once we remove ourselves a little bit more, we can still experience the emotional torrent that is going to happen in your body, but you can come at it from a place of logic or at least clinging to the logic while you work through it in ways that are constructive and helpful for you. So, to remind you what Mr. “Blue Eyes” Sinatra…

Kay:

Ol’ Blue Eyes

Shi:

…tells us, “Fear is the enemy of logic.”

Kay:

Alrighty, gang, today’s a Fri-yay quest! We want you to eliminate your enemies by facing your fears this weekend. You know it! Our dear mentor, Joseph McClendon says, if he’s trying to cure somebody of a fear of dogs, then there’s a dog in his office when the person shows up.

Shi:

So put a dog in your office this weekend.

Kay:

Exactly. Maybe it’s making that phone call that you’ve been avoiding or finally getting that workout in or maybe it’s a truth that you’ve been waiting to speak to somebody. Whatever it is, we want you to slay that fear and get out into logic town. Are you ready?

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!