 Hey tribe of journeymen and women So today I have a very special episode for you, which I recorded actually before COVID-19 It was a project which took some days and it's about Overcoming your fears actually more specifically pressure testing your fears and I'll give you a quick glimpse and intro of what this video is going to be about So it's a practice that I personally did for a long time now and it has made a huge impact on my life and specifically why it really Works to say that it's pressure testing fears. I hope this wind is not too bad for the audio, but hope so Because a lot of the fears we have we and that includes myself I experienced that numerous times We believe them to be true. We think like I know why am I afraid of this? This is the thing to be afraid of definitely and fear is a strong word. Maybe sometimes it's You know, there's levels of fear. Maybe sometimes it's like you're dreading to do something or maybe sometimes you're just hesitant So when I say fear don't think I'm thinking I'm only talking about like hardcore fear, but but like a kind of a fear for example to go and ask a lady out For coffee, you know or fear to look stupid kind of those fears And it could be anything and so we believe in those fears because we're certain that there's a good reason for it But what I noticed in my life and obviously applies to everyone is when sometimes when you Take you have the courage and you decide that you know what? Fuck it I'm still gonna do it. I know I'm afraid to do it. But and probably this is gonna fail and suck miserably, but I'll still do it Despite that and what's interesting in my experience most of times shadow dogs attacking us most of the times Turns out that you were wrong And I was wrong. I thought like oh if I do this Definitely everybody's gonna hate me this is gonna suck but it turns out it didn't And it turns out that fear There was no reason to be afraid and sometimes yes, there is a good reason But often more often than not When you pressure test your fear and you allow yourself to courageously See if you're right or not if it's a thing to be afraid of my dog just pulled me so I would make a free 60 turn You learned that that fear was actually false and that liberates A lot of energy that liberates a lot of your mental capacity because realize That limitation that you set yourself up for was never meant to be there. It was just a limitation which wasn't true and Yeah, it's it's an awesome feeling to overcome that. So I don't want to make this video too long Sorry, I mean this intro so What I will do I will Dog spooping. I'll finish while my dog is spooping And I'll let you see a documentation For a few weeks in a row. I was documenting every time I bumped into a fear Or I realized I'm not doing something because I'm afraid of I I did it Nevertheless, I pressure tested my fear to see if my assumption that I shouldn't do this is right or not and I documented how it turned out After I did what I was afraid of despite that so Good luck watching video and I'll talk to you again at the end of it So I noticed that one of my fears is connected to people that I respect So if I am at odd someone if I have high respect for someone I have a more difficult time especially when with these people I have to ask for favors or ask some question which is more driven towards what I need and One of these cases just popped up now And I want to ask Coach John Kavanaugh the famous MMA coach If his brother who is also well known Across the social platforms if he would be open to talk to me On record the next time I visit Dublin and the interesting thing is the easiest way would be to just not ask You know, this is not necessary I don't have to do it and I feel that there's a bit of a fear in me like I know John is busy and I don't want to bother him with my stuff and Now this is kind of asking a favor and and putting it on his shoulders and and and and there's so much discomfort here And the easy way would be just not to ask just skip it But if we are pressure testing our fears unless I try unless I will ask I will never know Would he agree? Would he be upset? Which actually kind of sounds ridiculous now that I say but you know, maybe Maybe it's not as Big of a deal as I think or or maybe it is and I will find out So as I'm going to go on a bus just in a minute I'm going to write that message despite my fear and we'll see what's gonna happen. So On to pressure testing our fears So I have really good news John has brought me back and James is open for the talk And we're already connecting up about the details. I'm super excited about that And once more this is not the first time it happens to me where I'm afraid to do something But I have a long way self to do it and that usually leads to some amazing things Which would have never happened if I didn't so I'm excited to share this with you And yeah, this is going to become a talk Which you will be able to even see later on just because we pressure tested the fear So let's see and find out what the next fear is going to be So I just realized that I bumped into a situation which is a fear decision situation and It's related to Brazilian jujitsu. I haven't been training Brazilian jujitsu in Lithuania for a couple months I made a break and now I thought that it's a good time to come back But before I did it, I started to feel that fear or two different things And one of the things is you might know that I tried to introduce a new direction that I wanted to go to by also wearing this unique uniform unique outfit and Kind of vaguely discussing and expressing what I want to do and a lot of people thought that I am going crazy And the guys in the gym, a lot of them know me as the youtube guy They follow my journey and it is uncomfortable to think about the fact that I will go there and some of them may Look at me and think ah, did you guys go crazy or even ask me about this? It's such an uncomfortable feeling but I realized I can't stop my life and wait until I will prove that this works And not do anything until then but I have to Overcome this and own it and go there despite the controversy that is happening right now And the other level is it's difficult to Go to a regular class that you attended for a while and then you stop because you come back after a while and And again, you're expecting that people might judge you and then think and say like so, where were you? Why did you not come and and nobody wants to go through that feeling including me? But again, I realized that's a fear and I can't let my fear guide me I have to pressure test this fear and see am I right? Am I wrong? Maybe I'm just making this step up. Maybe nothing like that is going to happen or it's going to happen It's not going to be as bad as I think or maybe it's going to happen. So we'll see and uh, so yeah I'm right now ready next to the brzezinski Place and I will go there and pressure test my fear and let you know how it happened So I just came back out from the jujitsu training and I have to say it was awesome I mean people were very welcoming the coach was happy to see me and nobody complained about me coming back And even some people Came to me after class and said, oh, you know, I'm watching your youtube and and they didn't they weren't hard about the new direction I was just kind of humble and saying yeah, yeah, you know, I'm trying this new thing and they're like, oh, yeah Yeah, we saw it's it's cool. It's cool. And it felt great I had some good roles and I had some good partners and I actually feel very energized Obviously tired broken down but but I'm so happy I did it and this is not the first and obviously not the last time where I thought about doing something and the fear of being uncomfortable Was saying, you know, don't do it do it later find a better time And I still did it. I pressure testing my fear despite that and it worked out as a wonder and The same can be said about the previous examples. So it makes you think and uh, probably the next Example will be the last month for this episode because we want to keep this episode short enough, but we'll see what happens next so this is pressure testing fears number three and I'm in a bus and the funny thing is that I started to realize most of my fears are social fears. It's something that I am uncomfortable of doing Which includes other people and in particular in this case what I'm pressure testing as I feel right now is I'm on the bus. It's 8 a.m. And there's some people sleeping here and what I what bugs me is I don't want to be the guy who You know kind of disturbs the peace makes people feel uncomfortable. You know, maybe that's uh Maybe that's a cultural conditioning that I have. I think it's part of me being Lithuanian It's kind of our part of our cultural conditioning And also too it kind of limits my self expression and not to say that I should run around the bus and scream and do whatever crap but but also it's still if I'm Conscious of not being a nuisance to others. I'm not shouting out loud If I still limit myself from let's see recording this video on a bus Because I'm afraid I will make someone feel uncomfortable by the fact that I'm doing this It still limits my life. It still limits my self expression. It still limits my abilities to Do something that I need to do do something that is important So that's the reason exactly when doing this right now and we'll see how Good or bad this will end up being I'll let you know after Oh, actually. So the thing is I'm going to record and planning to record A vlog here for at least 10 20 minutes So that's definitely a challenge for me, but I'm going to do it to pressure test my fear and see how the results will go And I will let you know how all things went afterwards I wouldn't do this otherwise because of my fear. I've already spoke before If you're afraid of something You have to do it So I'm taking the bus home and actually it's a different bus now after a few hours. I filmed the video and guess what? guess How did my pressure testing of this year went? I gave you a couple seconds to think And the answer is It was great. Nobody cared. I didn't even wake up the people around me. There's there a bunch of guys A few rows ahead who are sleeping. I checked it out after I filmed They were still sleeping. So yet again, the fear was all in my head. It wasn't really realistic and I was the only one who really cared about it. So once again a pressure test proved that I was fearing for nothing and now I'm making this video after a while and I feel much better about doing it because I tried out living out my fear And seems there's nothing to fear about so I can continue living on without living myself In filming at buses. Of course not being too obnoxious Oh I almost fell flat on my feet, but I didn't it's scary man. It's some scary stuff Let's find an uphill and try there While I was intimidated to do it initially at the end of it though I felt like we were two cowboys successfully riding into the sunset after a big victory The feeling was awesome So as you saw in the video, I think he's facing his fears now Grinchy Give us some This is all gonna pass. Usually he doesn't I think he's probably He was emotionally hurt probably the the black dog sets. I mean back to him So coming back to fears um as you see those were just four examples, but Yeah, I've done that a lot of times I'm cursed by dogs in this neighborhood So I've done that a lot of times in the past if you are aware of my Biggest youtube yet youtube video yet, which has over three million views called like kiddo versus mma That was like that. That was an example of it where I was afraid to do it I was hesitant to do it But despite my fears I still did it and that turned out to be a life changing revolutionary video again, as I said got three million views and It changed my life and it opened up the eyes of many people and it got me on the journey of martial arts journey And yeah, if I wouldn't if I would have given to that fear if I wouldn't have done that video none of that would have happened and I have numerous so many examples where I felt the fear and I realized you know what? I am not doing this not because I don't want to but I'm not doing this because I'm afraid of That's the main reason and then I would make the decision to do it And that's kind of what pressure testing is about is Pressure testing fear Is finding those moments where you realize and catch yourself you're not doing something primarily because you're afraid of Not for any other reason and when I had those moments That was like a very active practice for me for like a year or two years Every time I caught myself Not doing something primarily because I was afraid of I would force myself to do it I would go and talk to that unknown person. I would go and you know Jump into cold water and obviously there are some limitations always like to set them up and to say that you shouldn't Pressure test fears which may lead to permanent damage Like you know, you get your arm cut off Or you lose an eye or something Don't pressure test fears there. There are plenty of safe ways to pressure test your fears Like you know, if you're going to ask a girl out, maybe it's going to be like a psychological trauma for you Or you know a boy or whatever But But that's not deadly like you know, it's not really permanent damage so we can do it Also, don't get yourself into jail You know, don't pressure test your fears like I'm afraid to rob a bank. That's stupid That may end up getting you in jail. Don't do that. But there's a lot. Trust me. There's a lot of fears which are safe enough to Pressure test and to see if there if there's actually a good reason to be afraid of them or not So I am I'm not necessarily challenging you, but I'm encouraging you to try that method out Every time you catch yourself There's actually a cat here Which walks around and he smells it and now you see he's kind of in his hunting mood Looking for the cat. It's funny Look at him So yeah, so find those moments Where You are where you find yourself nodding something because you're primarily afraid of it And realize that And try it out do it and see what the results will be and As you saw in this video, sometimes they may be life changing And for the very last moment the very last bit I wanted to just quickly share is Yeah Most of the things we are afraid of it's just a mental construct Maybe I'll make a video sharing a lot of stories of how I embrace my fears and discovered most of them were foolish and realized that Fear is a huge limitation That so we do we don't do so many things because of fear not because of any other good reason And that limits our life dramatically That We don't do so many things because of fear Although some of them we want to do or some of them would be good for us but the question is Do we want to limit our life Do we want to be limited by our fears? Or do we want fears to be the pointers to our growth? So I won't go forever blabbling blabbling blabbling But I'll probably talk about fears more specifically in another video But I hope you found this inspiring enough to pressure test some of your fears Thank you for watching and as always keep questioning bro