Podcast | Margie Warrell | Be brave with your life!

When Fear Becomes Fatal

Margie — Thu, 22 May 2025 13:37:32 +0000

In 1995, a team of five Navy SEALs embarked on a high-risk mission in Venezuela to test a relatively unproven capability at the time—navigating extreme rapids in inflatable boats. The theory was that rivers could serve as highways through rugged jungle terrain inaccessible by road. If SEALs could be parachuted into such environments in rafts, they could carry out missions that would otherwise be impossible. Their entry point: the base of the Guri Dam.

To this day, the Guri Dam releases more water per second than Niagara Falls at full flood. At the dam’s base, water is forced into a narrow chute—about 100 yards wide and over 700 feet deep—creating violent Class 5 rapids, some of the most dangerous in the world.

Four of the SEALs were experienced combat veterans. The fifth—Alex—was fresh out of training. Yet Alex brought years of experience as a professional whitewater rafting guide and had the deepest understanding of the dangers of such violent rapids.

As the team deliberated the best approach for their mission, Alex had significant concerns. Yet, as the rookie recruit, he was acutely aware that new SEALs were expected to prove themselves before offering input. He didn’t want to seem disrespectful of his rank—or worse, be seen as lacking the courage it takes to be a true SEAL. And so, he said nothing, rationalizing that if these highly trained warriors felt it was safe to proceed, who was he to question otherwise? As he later told me, “In that moment, I was more afraid of not being accepted than of the rapids themselves.”

Alex’s decision that day shows that even the bravest among us—those willing to risk their lives in the world’s most dangerous places—aren’t immune to fear. But the fear that held him back wasn’t of dying. It was the fear of losing face. Of looking weak. Of not belonging. Of being judged unworthy by those whose approval he sought.

When we’re stuck in insecurity alleviation and impression management, we surrender the very strengths we’re trying to prove. The more we chase approval, the more we abandon the courage that earns respect.

Fear of social judgment wears many faces. Rarely does it appear as overt anxiety or panic. More often, it shows up in subtler forms: perfectionism, posturing, control, or compulsive busyness. On the flip side, it can show up as excessive humility, people-pleasing, or quiet compliance disguised as being a “team player”. The irony is that when we are stuck in impression management – our fear of looking bad keeping us from speaking up or taking action – we surrender the very strengths we’re trying to prove.

Having worked with many exceptionally talented leaders—some of whom fit the mold of “insecure overachievers”—I’ve seen how fear often hides behind intellectualized emotions and a relentless need to prove oneself. Research published in Psychological Science found that status anxiety can significantly inhibit people from speaking up—especially in hierarchical environments—keeping them stuck in a cycle of insecurity alleviation. And the cost of silence in such moments can be far greater than the risk of voicing concern. Yet that “timidity tax” is rarely obvious at the time. In our efforts to secure status with others, we must be careful not to betray ourselves.

When Alex’s team launched their rafts into the river, they were immediately overwhelmed by the sheer force of the water. Their raft capsized, plunging them into a violent, raging current just upstream from its most perilous stretch. Armed only with life jackets and survival instincts, they fought for their lives to avoid being dragged under the wild and unforgiving rapids.

At the bottom of the rapids, Alex and three of the other SEALs pulled themselves out of the river—shaken, exhausted, but alive. Realizing their teammate Jason was missing, they began searching for him, eventually calling in a helicopter to assist. It would be three harrowing days before his body was found—20 miles downstream. Alex was the last person to see Jason alive. And the first to see him dead.

Alex’s story runs through The Courage Gap as a sobering reminder that courage isn’t just about laying our lives on the line (which most of us will never be asked to do). More often, it’s about laying our pride, reputation, and status on the line—risking a bruised ego or disapproval in the eyes of those we’re trying to impress. As I wrote in The Courage Gap:

When we stay silent to belong, we betray ourselves.

While Alex has since gone on to lead in other arenas, it’s the courage he’s shown far from war zones that I’ve found most inspiring: the courage to reflect deeply, to confront the self-protective story he told himself after the tragedy, and to admit hard truths. The courage to make peace with his fallibility and embrace vulnerability as his deepest source of strength.

In a powerful and raw conversation on my Live Brave podcast, Alex and I unpacked how our unfaced fears—particularly the fear of judgment and rejection—often cost us far more than we realize. While most of us won’t ever stand on the edge of roaring rapids, we’ve all stood at decision points—moments where the easier choice is silence, delay, or retreat, and the braver one is to speak up or step forward without a map or a guarantee. Fear widens the gap between what we know, deep down, we should do—and what we actually do. It takes courage to close it.

And here lies the paradox of courage:

In trying to avoid what we fear—judgment, exclusion, criticism—we often expose ourselves to worse consequences. What feels risky in the moment often prevents even greater risks in the future.

The idea that fear holds us back isn’t new. But we underestimate its reach or its cost. One study found that 76% of people at work avoid conflict while a survey by CrucialLearning found that nearly 75% of employees regularly withhold concerns—even when doing so could prevent major problems. It’s why some of the biggest problems individuals and organizations face stem not with what was said—but with what wasn’t – due to fear of how it would impact their status. As history shows, when fear governs decisions, it generally leads to worse outcomes over time.

So what’s the solution? It starts with us. Just as we are our greatest source of risk—through what we ignore or deny—we are also our greatest resource in overcoming it. That begins with being honest about where fear is pulling the strings and recommitting to the values we want to live and lead by. Every day.

When fear of judgment governs our choices, we become complicit in the very outcomes we most want to avoid.

The root of our biggest problems isn’t that we don’t know what to do. It’s that we don’t do what we know. The only way to close this courage gap—the space between knowing and doing—is to become more committed to what we want to gain for ourselves and others than to what we fear we might lose in the process, including our place in the pack. Until we are, fear of looking bad will restrict our freedom to act—and limit the good we might otherwise do. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is risk being misunderstood.

The more we practice courage—a learnable skill—the greater our capacity to take the emotional risks that bold leadership and meaningful lives require. Every time we refuse to betray our values to keep false peace or win approval and risk judgment to show up as the person (and leader) we most aspire to become, we reinforce our agency and loosen the shackles that hold us captive to others’ opinions.

At a time when the pace of change is relentless and external threats—GenAI, nuclear escalation, climate change—feel increasingly existential, the greatest danger to our future isn’t “out there.” It’s within us—in our underdeveloped courage to confront these challenges head on and to risk what feels secure today for what could build a more secure tomorrow.

As Alex’s story reminds us, when fear of judgment guides our decisions, we don’t just undermine our integrity—we gamble with the outcomes for others. History doesn’t just turn on events; it turns on the courage—or timidity—of people facing them.

So wherever you find yourself playing it safe today, ask yourself:

What would I do if I wasn’t afraid of being judged?
And what might it cost if I don’t?

Not every act of courage will change the world. But any single act of courage might shift the trajectory of your life —or that of others. Perhaps more important, it will spare you the regret of wondering, “But what if I’d tried?”

Alex knows that pain. Let his story be your call to courage.

Live bravely!

Margie

Listen to my Live Brave podcast conversation with Alex Here.

Order The Courage Gap to learn how you can make the right decisions in the moments that matter most Here.

The greatest source of risk to us… is us

Margie — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 19:28:00 +0000

In the 2000’s, the US Armed Forces introduced bulletproof body armor to protect American soldiers in deadly combat zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the armor was so heavy that it weighed soldiers down and slowed their speed. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the joint missions in Afghanistan at the time, decided that the compromise on speed and agility was not worth the protection, particularly for soldiers who had to climb the mountains of Afghanistan. “Yes, there was risk of wearing less and lighter grade armor,” he said, “but it outweighed the risk of it being too heavy.”

Managing risk is always an exercise in trade-offs.

The very dictionary definition of risk – “exposing oneself to the possibility of loss or injury” – lacks nuance and tilts the calculus toward avoiding risk, at least the most obvious and immediate. What is often not adequately factored in is how, by seeking to shore up short-term exposure, they inadvertently make themselves more vulnerable.

The greatest source of risk to us is us.

As much as we’d like to think otherwise, our decisions are formed more through emotion than logic. After a distinguished military career navigating the very real and deadly risks of combat, McChrystal concluded that the greatest source of risk are not external threats and dangers. Rather the greatest source of risk to us is us. More specifically, in how we detect, assess, respond and learn from risk.

The fact that our decisions are often directed less by logic than emotion (with fear being the most dominant) explains our tendency to over-index attention on the downside of risks right in front of us and under-prepare for bad (sometimes disastrous) events that may occur in the future. When looking back on disasters, people will often say ‘Nobody saw it coming’ when, in fact, many people saw it coming. The Covid-19 pandemic is an all too recent case in point.

Today we face an ever-changing landscape of complex and ambiguous risks. We know they exist but not all are visible. Couple this with news streams bombarding us 24/7 with reasons to feel anxious and keep a mask close by, it’s unsurprising that so many people are still wearing one.

The Covid-19 pandemic has magnified our sensitivity to potential dangers – particularly the most obvious and easy to capture our imagination. Messages to put ‘Safety First’ and ‘Better to be safe than sorry’ get embedded into our collective psyche. This is why we must be extra vigilant to discern real threats from imaginary ones and be vigilant in how we are preparing for and responding to potential risks. Failure to do so can render us vulnerable to our own biases and ‘blind spots.’

Not all risks are created equal.Reframing risk through a larger lens widens our aperture to identify less obvious paths forward.

We come hardwired with a temporal bias that discounts the distant future and channels our attention into what lies directly ahead. After lunch. Tomorrow. Quarter-end. This drives us to be over-protective in avoiding short-term at the expense of optimizing longer-term gain. Zooming up to reframe the current moment through a larger risk context – of time and space – widens our aperture to identify less obvious paths forward and then, galvanizes our courage and collective will to take them.

In business, this could be doubling down on innovation or pulling a product that’s generating cash but distracting resources better deployed elsewhere as market trends emerge. In all situations, it requires accepting that peripheral risk-taking is necessary to protect the core, advance the mission and forge new ground. As research by Korn Ferry Institute finds, leaders who operate from a ‘courage mindset’ are more effective enterprise leaders who deliver today while transforming for tomorrow.

Beware rationalizing your timidity

The term “loss aversion bias” describes our tendency to avoid loss – of power and profit; control and comfort; status and certainty. This bias explains why people (and organizations) often stay silent when they should speak up and default to cautious action over courageous action. Our tendency to avoid risk is reinforced by the fact the costs of playing safe and silent are rarely obvious or immediate. No alarms go off when no action is taken. But we should not underestimate the hidden ‘timidity tax.’ Like a car engine slowly leaking oil, it eventually breaks down.

“We hate to lose more than we love to win,” wrote Daniel Kahneman wrote in Thinking Fast and Slow. When uncertainty runs high, it triggers anxiety, turning forecasts into ‘fearcasts’ and rationalizing cautious inaction.

Beware of getting buried in a spreadsheet; indecision has its own risks

Yet often we do just that, wait until we know for sure we have the right plan with the optimal risk/reward ratio. However, given the uncertainty inherent in most situations, even massive data can’t eliminate every element of chance. Considered risk assessment is smart. Burying ourselves in spreadsheets trying to tabulate every potential danger is not. As any combat soldier can tell you, in the midst of battle, it is safer to run left or right than to stand still.

We crave predictability. But it’s when we are willing to venture out of the safe lane, particularly amid heightened unknowns, that we can yield the greatest rewards. To quote Formula One champion Ayrton Senna:

“You cannot overtake fifteen cars when it’s sunny weather, but you can when it is raining.”

Challenge your certainties

In 1946 as the first televisions hit the market, Darryl Zanuck, President of 20th Century Fox dismissed the potential competitor threat: “People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” Forty years later Steve Balmer, Microsoft CEO, declared with equal confidence “The iPhone won’t be around for long.”

Often our certainty about what we absolutely know is right is our greatest source of vulnerability. To quote Mark Twain:

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Risk = Threat x Vulnerability

McChrystal points out that it is our ability to prevent, avoid or mitigate a threat that determines to what extent it constitutes a risk.

If we aren’t vulnerable, threats don’t matter.

If there are no threats, vulnerability doesn’t matter.

But more often, we cannot reduce either to zero and so we must move forward despite both the threat and our vulnerability. ‘There are risks and costs to action,’ said President John F. Kennedy, ‘but they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.’

Counterintuitive as it is, but playing safe often makes us less secure and more vulnerable, not the other way around.

Kennedy’s words hold true both on the individual level as well as on the collective. Clearly testing the depth of water with both feet is just stupid. But being too timid to take any chance creates the greater risk of not learning, not growing, not advancing, and not discovering what lies beyond what we already know.

Not all risks are created equal. Managing it well requires being proactive in controlling every factor within our reach. As General McChrystal wrote in (which Stan elaborates on in Risk: A Users Guide:

“There is far more than lays within our control than outside of it.”

Indeed, history teaches us that no worthy endeavor is achieved without risk. Trying to bulletproof ourselves from all potential dangers puts us at risk of collapsing under the weight of our protectiveness.

Got imposter syndrome? Get over your fear of being uncovered as a fraud.

Margie — Fri, 28 Sep 2018 01:56:27 +0000

If you’ve ever worried that one of these days people are going to discover that you aren’t as smart, knowledgeable, worthy, or [fill-in-the-blank] as they think, you’re not alone. In this podcast, Margie unravels the psychology behind the Imposter Syndrome, explaining why its the domain of high-achievers and how you can stop letting your fear of being exposed hold you back and keep you from owning your value and celebrating your success.

Follow and connect with Margie: www.margiewarrell.com

Kristina Karlsson | Dare to dream the boldest vision for your life

Margie — Tue, 25 Sep 2018 01:35:12 +0000

Do you have a vision for your life that inspires you? Are you working toward goals that light you up? If yes, Margie’s conversation with Kristina Karlsson, founder of KikkiK and author of Your Dream Life Starts Here, will help you stay in action toward bringing it into reality. If no, it will help you give yourself permission to dream bigger and stop selling yourself short while providing practical strategies to get, and stay, in action. So if you’re feeling stuck or just need a reminder about why your biggest dreams matter, tune in. Your life is as big as you dare to dream it.

Find more about Kristina’s new book, Your Dream Life Starts Here, at: www.kikki-k.com

LAYNE BEACHLEY: YOU CAN NEVER BE ENOUGH WHEN YOU’RE DRIVEN BY FEAR

Margie — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 01:18:03 +0000

World champion surfer and winner of seven world titles, Layne Beachley shares how fear drove her success but robbed her ability to enjoy it.

Her courage to finally confront the truth of her life and to let go her constant striving holds a powerful lesson on living a truly brave life and redefining what it really means to succeed.

“It’s all feeling, “ she says. “When you open up your gut, your heart and your head that’s when your true life flow comes back in.”

To learn more about Layne, go to: www.laynebeachley.com

Plans derailed? Fear not. You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Margie — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 02:28:45 +0000

Life is not linear. No matter how great your plans, it’s inevitable they will sometimes take a turn that you didn’t prepare for and don’t want.

But life’s greatest gifts often emerge from our derailed plans. So if you’ve found yourself wrestling with a reality that is not what you planned on, you’ll enjoy hearing Margie’s journey of dealing with the curve balls that have come her way and how you can build your resilience to adapt faster to change and bounce back from setbacks with the mindset needed to turn every loss into a win. As Margie says, “Life doesn’t happen to you, it happens for you. Learning to lean into the curves are where you discover its gold.”

Follow and connect with Margie: www.margiewarrell.com

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar | Creating peace from the inside out

Margie — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 20:49:11 +0000

World renowned spiritual leader and humanitarian Sri Sri Ravi Shankar shares how to enjoy more peace of mind amid our busy lives and break down the psychological walls that fuel disconnection, depression, anxiety and inequality.

Founder of the Art of Living Foundation, with centers in 156 countries, Sri Sri was instrumental in brokering peace between the Columbian government and FARC militia. He shares how we can all find a pathway to peace in our lives, communities and the world. As he says, “Peace is always possible”.

Connect with Sri here: www.srisriravishankar.org and find out more about Sri Sri’s programs at www.artofliving.org

Your Playing Small Serves No-one

Margie — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 03:30:33 +0000

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. Your playing small does not serve the world.”

I was not long out of university when I first came upon these words by Marianne Williamson. Soon after, they inspired the decision I made with my newly-minted husband Andrew to take up jobs in Papua New Guinea. Marianne’s words have also guided countless decisions since – from more global adventures to writing my first book and having a fourth child (in five years) despite my fear of being inadequate for the task. On every count.

So it was such a thrill to meet her three years ago (on Necker Island with Richard Branson) and an equal delight to sit down with her in her Manhattan apartment a couple weeks ago to interview her for my Live Brave Podcast.

Marianne is many things. Fiery. Articulate. Direct. Unapologetic and political. When I pondered out loud if I’ve been cowardly or prudently cautious for steering out of political debates she said, “We cannot separate out our spiritual lives from the political reality in which we are living.”

Of course in the short term, it is always easier to avoid political conversations and stick to ‘safer topics’. But, as Marianne argues, the source of power is not in the government, it is in us. She advocates for a renewed spiritual and social consciousness that transcends religion or partisan politics and promotes a more holistic approach; one that converges spiritual wisdom with individual political responsibility.

Marianne Williamson, who made an unsuccessful bid for the US Congress back in 2014, is on a mission to wake people up to the gravity of the problems facing America and the planet. During our conversation she made an impassioned call for action to address the problems that are creating so much suffering – with more love, less fear; with deeper compassion, less complacency; with greater personal responsibility, less complaining, bickering and blaming.

“I feel that in the deepest part of us we want to play the big game,” she said. “But you can’t play the big game in life unless you are taking the big responsibility of life.” While we cannot always choose the circumstances of our lives, we always have the power to choose how we will respond to them. If we aren’t actively choosing to be part of the solution in addressing the problems we see around us then we become, by default, complicit in perpetuating them. What we don’t do in life has no less an impact than on what we do.

Of course, given the scale of negativity consuming our airwaves, it’s easy to buy into the belief that each of us, on our own, is powerless to make a meaningful difference. Yet believing that we are powerless is an unconscious way of avoiding the responsibility for using our power. “In advanced democracies, nobody has the right to say ‘I can’t make a difference’,”, Marianne said. “If you are on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, you have an influence.”

Clearly little is served by doing more of what already is not working – vilifying, deriding and dehumanizing those who hold different opinions, justifying immorality or excusing incivility, much less adding to it.

If you’re unsure where or how to begin, make time to sit down with someone who holds different political viewpoint to you. Then, without any intention of trying to change their mind, ask them to help you understand why they see things as they do. Step into their shoes and speak only to clarify your understanding, not to argue why they’ve got it all wrong.

By taking the time to genuinely see through the eyes of another, it helps people feel heard, defuse defensiveness, and, over time, can make them more willing to try to understand you. No one responds well to being told they are wrong or stupid. We all respond better when we sense that others are genuinely trying to understand how we might even be right. And everyone is better off when we can find a mutual middle ground upon which to step forward, together.

We will only address the big problems in the world when we decide to look within ourselves to see where we are failing to act with the courage, compassion and character that we want to see in those who are charged with leading us. Change will not happen from the top. It never does. It happens from the bottom – across the dinner table, at the cafe, on the bleachers, in the park – and every one of us, regardless of our positional power or social strata, holds the power to step up to the plate in our own lives and communities and to be a source of empathy, inspiration, understanding, and encouragement for those around us.

If there is one thing the recent outpouring of tributes to John McCain revealed, beyond the kind of man he was, it’s that the world is hungry for people who have the power to step up and use it well. If you have the ability to listen, to speak, to cast a vote, to share a post, or to write a note, then you are one of them. After all, how else can those who have no vote and received no education, ever enjoy the opportunity, equality and basic human rights that we all too often take for granted?

You ask yourself, “Who am I to be a change maker, a leader, a force for good and champion for change?”

Who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world.

Listen to the Live Brave Podcast

Overthinking it but afraid to just wing it? Why ‘doing’ beats planning every time with Emma Isaacs

Margie — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 02:58:43 +0000

Are you an over-thinker? Ever get stuck planning, preparing and procrastinating until you’re sure you can’t fail? Many do. “Stop thinking, start doing,” says Emma Isaacs a trail blazing entrepreneur, mother of five and founding CEO of Business Chicks. Down-to-earth and keepin’ it real, Emma shares why action beats planning every single time and how to find the courage to jump in and bounce back stronger when you don’t land on your feet.

Too often we think we need to have some brilliant, well thought out plan before taking on a challenge that is far bigger than us; that we must absolutely have all the answers before we start out. Not so! And definitely not how Emma has achieved all that she has.

Emma will inspire you to stop overthinking it, to wing it and give yourself permission to learn as you go

Check out Emma’s new book Winging it at: www.businesschicks.com/wingingit

Is our quest for happiness making us unhappy? with Professor Tal Ben-Shahar

Margie — Tue, 11 Sep 2018 02:57:06 +0000

Creator of the most popular class in Harvard University’s history, bestselling author and positive psychology expert Tal Ben-Shahar unpacks the science of happiness to reveal the keys to a happier life and why expecting to be happy sets us up to suffer.

In this episode, we explore the importance of cultivating daily rituals, practicing gratitude and embracing the tough emotions to build resilience and harness our gifts to enjoy more of what brings us meaning, fulfillment and connection. We talk about the simple things that enable all of us to bounce back faster from our setbacks so that we can do more of what works in our work, relationships, leadership and life.

Listen in to learn some practical ways to create the life you want to live.

Tal’s books have been reprinted in over 25 languages. To learn more and follow his work visit:www.talbenshahar.com