The rewards of boldness
Sometimes, it's the things that frighten us the most that are the most rewarding
Gary Bloomer | SHAKING THE TREE # 241
I’m not a fearlessness guru.
I do though think that fear can be a compass rather than an anchor.
I don’t leap from skyscrapers for fun, and you won’t find me wrestling alligators to “feel the burn” or anything dramatic like that.
But boldness is important and the sort of boldness I’m talking about isn’t about the absence of fear: it’s about something far more powerful, and far more accessible: the art of listening to it.
For the longest time I used to see fear as a stop sign. As a sort of big, red, flashing light that meant “ABORT MISSION.” Fear was the gut-clench before a difficult conversation, the dry mouth before a big pitch, the soul-deep anxiety before committing to a path that veered wildly from the safe and expected one.
My operating principle was simple: if it scares you, avoid it. Safety first.
And you know what that philosophy built? A very comfortable cage.
The bars were made of “what ifs” and the lock was forged from “someday.”
It was a cage of my own design, and the most insidious part was that I didn’t even know I was in it. I just thought I was being prudent, you know, and responsible, smart.
Then, through a series of events that included being offered a job in the United States and moving 3,500 miles from everything I knew and that was safe and familiar, the result was less like a wake-up call and more like a bucket of ice water to the face, I realized I had it all backwards. The fear wasn’t the stop sign. It was the compass.
Think about it. What are you truly afraid of?
You’re not afraid of sending that email to a potential client; you’re afraid of the rejection that might follow.
You’re not afraid of starting that new project; you’re afraid of the monumental effort required and the possibility of public failure. Been there, Done that.
You’re not afraid of setting a boundary; you’re afraid of the short-term conflict it might create.
Oddly enough and as strange as this might sound, the fear points—with terrifying accuracy I might add—directly at the thing you must do to grow. The fear highlights the precise spot where your current comfort zone ends and where your future expansion begins.
The reward for boldness, then, is never just the external outcome—the new client, the successful project, the respected boundary. The real, lasting, life-altering reward is internal.
It’s the profound and quiet knowledge that you are more capable than you believed.
It’s the deposit of self-trust you make into your own psychological bank account every time you choose action over avoidance.
This compound interest is what builds unshakable confidence. Not the loud, chest-thumping kind of confidence mind you, but the quiet, deep-down knowing that you can handle what comes next.
I’ve come to see it as a simple, non-negotiable equation:
Discomfort → action → growth → reward.
You cannot skip a step. The discomfort, the fear, is the mandatory admission price for a ticket to a more expansive life.
So, how do we practice this? We don’t start by wrestling the alligator. We start by naming it.
Identify the real fear: Sit with the feeling. Ask yourself what you’re fearful of and then write it down. The more you can stand to shine a light on the boogeyman, the more likely it is that the monster under the bed shrinks under scrutiny.
Embrace the worst-case scenario: OK, so the worst happens. The client says no. The project flops. The person gets upset. Then what? You’ll survive. You’ll adapt. You’ll learn. Playing this out robs the fear of its ultimate power—the illusion of catastrophe.
Focus on the prize of integrity: The ultimate reward is looking yourself in the mirror and knowing you didn’t let your own apprehensions dictate the direction and outcome of your life. That prize is available every single day, on every single small decision.
The things that frighten us most are the most rewarding precisely because they are the most formative.
They are the forge in which our stronger, more capable selves are hammered into being.
Your fear is not your enemy. It is your most honest advisor, pointing directly toward your next great leap. If that leap is creating great content, take that leap: write that article, shoot that video, record that podcast and get it out there.
The bar really isn’t set that high and the cage door is much more open than you believe it to be.
Walk toward the thing that scares you.
That’s where your future is waiting.
As always, thanks for reading.
—Gary
Feel free to follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn
P.S. If you found this useful, share it with another creator who needs an ego check (in a nice way). Want more unfiltered takes on content creation? Join my newsletter. No fluff, just the stuff that works.
Next time on Shaking the Tree: The power of process
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Originally from the U.K., Gary Bloomer is a writer, branding advocate, marketing specialist, and an award-winning graphic designer.
His design work has been included in Creative Review (one of the UK’s largest design magazines). Since 2009, he has answered over 5,000 marketing and business questions in the Know-How Exchange of MarketingProfs.com, placing him among the top 3% of contributors. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.