This wonderful addition to the Engagement series is by Suzanne Vara. Suzanne, in addition to being a dear friend of mine, is queen of community and founder of Kherize5 Marketing and Advertising. Suzanne blogs and tweets (@suzannevara), and I recommend you find her in both places!
Fear: a vexing emotion actuated by a perceived threat in response to some sort of stimulus. The stimulus, while generally thought of as external as in being afraid of the dark, bugs, a noise late at night, is also found in some deep seeded emotions. We are reactive to the stimuli that are happening now and proactive in a way by predict what will happen in the future, thus creating many different scenarios that are the building blocks for the fear to emerge. Fear holds us back as the perceive risk increases and it starts to overtake us, making us pause and the fear is so intense, we fail to act all together. Breaking away and rationalizing the fear is where we need to focus our efforts to avoid continuing the cycle of fear.