#138 How to face your fears with Susana Serrano-Davey, Grow CFO Mentor and Bestselling Author

GrowCFO mentor Susana Serrano-Davey joins Kevin Appleby to discuss fear. Fear often holds you back from achieving your potential and can limit your career development. Fear is almost entirely self-generated and is therefore completely within your control. But how do you face your fears and take that control?

In this episode, Susana and Kevin discuss facing fears, including common workplace fears such as fear of being fired, fear of making mistakes, and fear of ridicule. Susana shared her personal experience of overcoming her fear of scuba diving and how facing fears can unlock opportunities. Kevin and Susana conclude the episode by providing strategies to help you face your fears.

Susana and Kevin discussed the common fears that hold people back in their careers, such as:

• the fear of ridicule,
• the fear of making mistakes and
• the fear of losing one’s job.

They emphasized the importance of facing and challenging these fears to grow as a leader. You must acknowledge and overcome these fears to reach your full potential.

As a finance leader, you may feel the pressure to have all the answers. When you are new to a role you might suffer from a lack of confidence and impostor syndrome. In each case, it is essential you reframe these fears and acknowledge that it’s okay to not have all the answers and that failure is a natural part of the learning process.

Kevin and Susana concluded by discussing strategies for overcoming fear, including managing internal dialogue and supporting oneself.

Links

• Susana’s Book “I Wish I Had Known” is available at Amazon UK and Amazon US
• Find your next role on the GrowCFO job board
• Mentoring at GrowCFO with Susana Serrano-Davey
• Susana Serrano-Davey on LinkedIn
• Kevin Appleby on LinkedIn

Timestamps

Today’s topic: face your fears. (0:12)

What does fear have to do with finance? (3:33)

The fear of ridicule and the fear of presenting. (8:06)

The fear of losing your job and how to overcome it. (13:02)

The fear of making mistakes is a game-changer. (19:18)

The more senior you are, the greater the pressure is to have to produce the answer. (26:03)

There’s one single strategy that works with fear. (30:54)

The fear of ridicule and volunteering. (35:12)

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