How Real are Your Fears?

Do you know the roots of and reasons for your fears?

Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon, has spent decades studying how we decide what’s risky and what isn’t.

His studies have shown that how risky something actually is has almost nothing to do with how risky we think it is.

Slovic has demonstrated that people think skiing is safer than flying on a commercial aircraft, that smoking is less dangerous than being around handguns, that nuclear power plants are riskier than cars.

Think about these questions: Do more Americans die of suicide or homicide? Which is more lethal, kidney disease or AIDS?

According to the U.S. Government, in the year 2000 nearly twice as many people killed themselves as were murdered, and kidney diseases caused nearly three times as many deaths as AIDS.

Although Americans consistently rate nuclear power as one of the most dangerous of all technologies, it’s actually safer by any objective measure than most other forms of power.

And two of the deadliest things in America are cigarettes and cars; auto accidents alone kill an average of 115 Americans every day.

When we’re subject to fear our judgment is severely clouded and we make unwise decisions. Overcome fear through a commitment to continual education and persisting in courageous actions.

*****************************

Stephen Palmer is a book writer for mission-driven leaders, a small business lead generation website design architect and persuasive website copywriter, a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership, and the author of Uncommon Sense: A Common Citizen’s Guide to Rebuilding America.

He co-authored the New York Times bestseller Killing Sacred Cows: Overcoming the Financial Myths that are Destroying Your Prosperity, as well as Hub Mentality: Shifting from Business Transactions to Community Interaction.

He is a liberal-arts graduate of George Wythe University and a graduate and faculty member of the “non-traditional business school” Wizard Academy.

Stephen resides in Round Rock, Texas with his gorgeous wife Karina, awesome son Alex, and princess daughters Libby, Avery, and Laela.

Subscribe to Stephen’s blog and contact him at stephen [at] leadershipwriter [dot] com.