MAXOUT Your Mind Masterclass Ep. 3 | Fear Is the Real Enemy

Faith Over Fear: Turning Your Butterflies Into Breakthroughs Have you ever wondered how much your fears are truly costing you? In this week’s episode of the MAXOUT Your Mind Masterclass, I’m getting real about one of the most powerful forces in your life, fear, and how it quietly keeps you from becoming the person you were born to be. I used to live afraid. Afraid I wasn’t good enough, afraid of what people thought, afraid to lose people who didn’t even want the best for me. But what I’ve learned is that fear isn’t your enemy, it’s your invitation. Every great thing in your life is waiting for you on the other side of it. In this episode, I walk you through how to stop letting fear define your decisions and start using it as fuel for your growth. You’ll learn how to reframe fear as what I call “butterfly moments," those powerful times when fear and excitement mix together just before something incredible happens. From overcoming my fear of public speaking to watching my daughter face her own fears, I’ve learned that you don’t need to eliminate fear to move forward, you just need to get to 51% courage. I also share a set of real tools that have helped me and countless others dance with fear instead of running from it. You’ll learn how to use breathing techniques, visualization, humor, and even “trigger words” to shift your emotional state in seconds. Fear and excitement create the same chemistry in your body... the difference is what you name it. Once you learn to rename your fear as anticipation, everything changes. If you’ve been living with invisible anchors holding you down: old stories, toxic relationships, and self-doubt, this is your moment to let go. The goal isn’t to become fearless; it’s to fear less and act more. Because when you do, you’ll finally meet the version of you that’s been waiting on the other side. And that version? That’s the one who was born to do something great. Key Takeaways: Fear and excitement are biochemically identical, it’s all about how you interpret them How to reframe fear as a “butterfly moment” that signals growth is near Why you only need 51% courage to take action The power of trigger words and visualization to change your emotional state instantly How to turn your fears into fuel for confidence, connection, and calling You don’t have to kill your fear. You just have to rename it. Because every time you face it, you earn your wings. Also don’t miss out on MAXOUT2026: Once a year, I open my home for an intimate one-day experience unlike anything else I do. This year, I’m making it even smaller, just 12 to 15 people. Together, we’ll dive deep into the exact strategies I use to plan, visualize, and design the best year of my life and yours. If you’re ready to Max Out your future, join me at Maxout2026.com for a life-changing day you’ll never forget. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6 p.m. and my third day, 6 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's

• 0:42Ed Mylett?

  favorite small business lender and for good reason. Over 20 years in business, over 12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff, borrow better.

• 1:03Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an Ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  This is the admired show.

• 1:39Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to the show. So you're gonna see a change in the show between now and the end of the year. You know, it's been no secret that I've had a few health issues the last couple of years. Heck, I haven't even posted on social media in a few years. But we've been coming strong with three podcasts a week, even during that time. Well, between now and the end of the year, I'm gonna scale it down a little bit, but give more value. So what I'm gonna do is I've created a masterclass that's gonna come out on Tuesdays, and you'll still get your Saturday episodes. We're gonna take a pause on Thursdays. But every Tuesday, you're gonna get a masterclass from me that I've created to help you finish 2025 strong and go into 2026 and make it The best year of your life. I'm calling this masterclass Max Out Your Mind Faith Focus and Fire. Mastering your internal world so you can navigate your external world. It's going to come out every single Tuesday. I think you're going to love it.

• 2:21Ed Mylett?

  Also, just wanted to let you know with that in mind, I'm not doing as much traveling. And so every year at the end of the year, I do an event in my home with just a handful of people. And it sells out very quickly. Here's what this is. It's a chance to come spend a day with me in my home. Only 12 to 15 people just with me, an entire day. And I'm going to take you through all of my planning and strategies that I use to plan out my own life and my business. In addition to that, I'm going to cover all my mental rehearsal techniques that I cover with just my one-on-one coaching clients in a one-day event with me with just 12 to 15 other people. You can go to maxout2026.com to check that out. If you're so inclined, it's not cheap. If you can't afford it, please don't do it. You know, most all my content is free. But once a year, I do do something in my home with a very small group of people.

• 3:06Ed Mylett?

  And it's a life-changing event. You'll never forget it. So if you're inclined to want to come spend a day with me in my home, I invite you to join me. You just go to the website maxout2026.com and get the details. Maxout2026.com. God bless you. Enjoy the episode. So good to have you with me here today, and I'm honored to spend this brief time with you. I think I have something important to ask you about and for us to visit about today. So let's get right into it. What are your fears costing you? I think it's time to evaluate that. Like you and I right now. What are your fears costing you? You know, we have these weights that weigh us down in our life, these burdens, these fears that we have. You know, people ask me all the time.

• 3:49Ed Mylett?

  Ed, is making your dreams come true, the work you put in, the sacrifices you made, the people that let you down, all the dark times in your life, all the times you went broke, both financially and emotionally. Is it worth it? It's a very interesting question because they always phrase it that way. Is it worth it? Yet in our lives, we spend most of our times evaluating and contemplating what it's going to cost us. You know, I don't think God gave you another day in your life because you needed it. I think he added another day to your life because somebody needed you. But here's the thing, they need the real you, the authentic you. The one who's playing all out in their life and pursuing their dreams. I can tell you, the answer to that question is,

• 4:34Ed Mylett?

  as good as you think it'll be to make your dreams come true, and dreams that you can't even imagine right now, visions of your life, but maybe even more importantly, as good as you think it would feel to meet the real you, the one you were born to be, and remember this, you were born to do something great with your life. But to finally get introduced, or reacquainted, or reintroduced to that person, maybe years ago, knew them very well, that version of you. But things have happened, these anchors, these fears, these toxic relationships, whatever they might be, these disappointments in our life. We've moved so far away from that person that we're capable of becoming that we don't even recognize them anymore. As good as you think it'll be to meet that person, for the first time or once again, it's a million times better. You gotta stop thinking like a poor person, and I'm talking to me as much as I am you. Let me tell you what I mean by poor.

• 5:20Ed Mylett?

  Poor in spirit, poor in emotion, and poor financially. See, when I was broke financially, when I would go into a store and I wanted something, I wouldn't get what I wanted. I would get what I could afford.

• 5:33Ed Mylett?

  And I would evaluate what it would cost me. Not what it was worth. And so oftentimes in life, people ask me, Ed, was it worth it? But in their life, they spend most of the time contemplating the cost. It'll cost me time, it'll cost me my hobby that I like spending so much time in. It'll cost me pain and emotion and whatever. It'll cost me, I'd have to let go of my fears, I have to let go of my patterns. And these invisible things that weigh us down in our life,

• 6:00Ed Mylett?

  they kill us. And so there's a lot of walking dead in the world. There's this old saying that, they say it about men, but it's people. Most people die 75 or 80 years old, but they really stopped living at 21 or 22 or 23 years old. We just don't put them into the ground until they're older. Too many people are walking around like this and maybe you relate to it. Maybe you relate to a percentage of it. These fears, these relationships, these things we worry about, these invisible boogeymen. What are people going to be thinking about me? Do you want to get to the end of your life? And if someone asks you honestly, how did you live your life? Do you want to answer truthfully scared? I lived afraid, afraid I wasn't good enough, afraid I wasn't worth it, afraid of what other people would think about me.

• 6:43Ed Mylett?

  Afraid to lose people around me that didn't even love me or care about me or want me to be my best. I lived my life afraid. Or at the end, you want to say, man, I maxed out my life. I got all the emotions, all the memories, all the achievements. All the richness in every area out of my life, I maxed out my life. Well, I could tell you this, if you hold on to these anchors much longer, it's going to keep costing you. And the longer you do it, even these things, sometimes what holds us back is feeling bad about things we've done in the past that we're not proud of. And we use these memories as weapons against ourselves. We stab ourselves with it over and over, or someone who's cheated on us or made a mistake. We use them as weapons against ourselves. That's what you need to be asking yourself whether it's worth it. Is it worth it to make your dreams come true? Is it worth it to change?

• 7:28Ed Mylett?

  Is it worth it to grow? You bet it is a million times better. Cause when you make your original dreams come true, you don't understand the ripple effects of all these other things. You can't even think about right now that happened. When you meet the real you, it's spectacular. Everyone here, man and woman, macho man, and every single buddy, listen to this. Okay, you can't love yourself if you don't even know yourself. And you can't know yourself if you're not truly being yourself. And these anchors cause us not to be us. Cause once I got wealthy and I was rich and I went into a store, I didn't look at price tags anymore. I looked at whether it was worth it and I got what I wanted. And our lives are a perfect metaphor of that. We're constantly evaluating the cost.

• 8:13Ed Mylett?

  Instead of whether or not it's worth it. Cost versus worth is a subtle difference. Is it worth it to change? Is it worth it to let go of these memories? Is it worth it to drop your fears? You will never meet you otherwise. Some of us are held back by crappy programming our parents installed in us when we were young. Remember this, most things in life are caught, not taught. We catch a way of thinking, we catch a way of having emotions. And we have to ungo, we have to unleash ourselves and let go of those things in our life. So what's the thing for you? What's the thing? Is it a person you need to let go of? Is it a fear you need to let go of? Is it an operating pattern? Is it a memory as a weapon you're using against yourself? Is it just, you're just not sure? You gotta remember who the hell you are. And if you've never met them, you need to get introduced. And you need to get acquainted.

• 8:57Ed Mylett?

  And so I have to tell you something, you have to start, you have to start to make a bold move in your life. Because you're worth it. Your family's worth it. And the world needs you. You were born for a reason. You were born to do something great in small ways. And in big ways in your life. And oftentimes in our lives would hold us back sometimes is the stories we tell ourselves. See, it's not the events of our lives, circumstances that define us. It's the meaning we take away from those events. And those meanings create an emotion. And that emotion drives our behavior, that emotion of fear, that emotion of anxiety, that emotion of sadness.

• 9:38Ed Mylett?

  Or it could be an emotion of bliss, of confidence, of increase. Of belief, of being guided, of being protected. But you have to ask yourself that question. See, it's not the event, it's the stories we tell ourselves. And listen to me. An emotion cannot exist long term without a story attached to it. You've had a lot of things happen in your life that were emotional. But the story didn't stick, or you didn't take away the wrong meaning. So that emotion doesn't stay. If you're feeling one of those emotions, it's attached to a story. Story is just the meaning you took from the event. So sometimes the story you're telling yourself is, I don't want to be alone, so I'm hanging on to this person that still weighs me down. Or where I'm at is good enough because I don't want to risk what I've got.

• 10:23Ed Mylett?

  And that's a story. Or I've made this mistake before, or someone hurt me and what it meant was X, Y, Z, and you have a feeling about it. These anchors are actually lies we tell ourselves that are anchored in a story that doesn't serve us, that causes an emotion that sticks. So if we change the story, either we take a different meaning from an event and say, could it have meant this? See, when I was a young man with my dad's drinking. I thought this means our family's less than and we're dysfunctional and the meaning I attached to that story that was happening. And then at one point I realized, no, what was actually happening was God was using that to teach me how to learn to be present with people and read people and be empathetic with people and believe in people.

• 11:08Ed Mylett?

  And that God was using that story for me. When I got injured, I remember thinking. Man, this is my only dream in my entire life. Right? God doesn't answer prayers, right? This was my prayer to do this. Right? The meaning of this is I just was never good enough. The meaning from it was it just wasn't meant to be. I wasn't meant to be somebody. I wasn't meant to do something great with my life. And I attached all these meanings to what was a pretty traumatic event. But I could have attached the meaning of that time that God's got something bigger in store for me. That there's something bigger and bolder for me and that Ed Mylett I thought I was was not going to be a baseball player. But the Ed Mylett I thought I was could be this other person who contributes to millions of people's lives. So I want to challenge you today, evaluate this thought. Evaluate what are your fears costing you? What are these anchors costing you?

• 11:53Ed Mylett?

  I want you to really pray about it, really think about if you're on a walk right now, you're driving in your car, just what's it costing me? And what would my life look like? Potentially, it's going to be so much bigger, so much more beautiful, so many small things that are going to happen along the way of you meeting you. And by the way, what's great is you continue to meet new versions of you. See, when you start to live your life without all these fears, without all these people anchoring you down with all these patterns and stories. What's great about it is there's a new you that shows up every couple of years. And there's this new version of you, an improved version of you every year. One of the things I'm excited about is to meet the 55 year old me. Cause I didn't die at 21 or 22 like most people. Getting around to bury me at eighty-five or ninety. I'm reborn all the time.

• 12:39Ed Mylett?

  I can't wait to make the fifty-five-year-old me. I'm chasing that guy. When I get there, I can't wait to meet the sixty-year-old me. Too many people are exactly the same person they were two or three years ago. And that's what it's really costing you, isn't it? And the reason you're not happy, or as happy as you could be, is you know this isn't you. You know this isn't you. You know there's more in you. Deep down in your heart and your soul and your spirit, the reason you're not happy isn't these other people. Isn't your boss, isn't your job, isn't your body, isn't your lack of money, isn't any of it. And it's time you meet him. It's time you meet her. It's time at least you get reacquainted if you once knew them. I want to challenge you to do that today.

• 13:20Ed Mylett?

  I want to challenge you to step out and drop whatever that anchor is, or multiple anchors of these weapons you're using, these mistakes you've made, these choices that you regret, blah, blah, blah. Stop it. That's not who you are. Your destiny is now, it's in the future, it's moving forward. And there's something great waiting for you. And is the price worth it? Absolutely. Is the cost worth it? A thousand percent. Because eventually you start getting what you want, not just what you can afford in your life. Hey, guys, it's Ed. I rarely do this. As you know, ninety-nine point nine percent of my content is free. But once a year, I do something where I gather a very small group of people in my house. I've done it for two years in a row now, and I'm going to do it again this year.

• 14:01Ed Mylett?

  If you go to maxout2026.com, I'm going to do an experience in my home where I'm going to take you through how to make twenty twenty-six the best year of your life. All of the tactics and strategies that I use to plan and organize my own life in detail. Same time, all of the mental rehearsal and visualization techniques that people pay me hundreds of millions of dollars a year to teach them. I will be teaching that day as well. And the other years I've done it, I've had groups of about twenty-five or thirty. I've decided this year I want to shrink the size of the group so that I can get more one-on-one time with each of you. I'm going to keep the groups to twelve or fifteen. It's a chance to spend the day with me in my home, lunch, one-on-one time, and group time. And it's not cheap. So if it's something you can't afford, please don't get yourself in any financial trouble or debt doing so. But if it's something you can afford to do, go to maxout2026.

• 14:43Ed Mylett?

  And I'm looking forward to having you in my home with me very soon for an amazing day, a life-changing day. God bless you. This episode is sponsored by Ro. A lot of people assume GLP-1's cost a fortune, and that assumption keeps them from even looking into treatment. Ro helps people find a more affordable path to FDA-approved GLP-1 treatment. Ro wants to help people lose weight. That's why they have more affordable GLP-1 options, whether you're paying with insurance or cash. Ro's free insurance checker makes it easy to see if you're covered for GLP-1 injections. Just submit your insurance card and Ro handles the rest. No paperwork, no waiting on hold, no confusing phone calls. And if insurance doesn't cover treatment,

• 15:22Ed Mylett?

  there are still options. Ro offers the lowest-cost, cash-pay FDA-approved GLP-1s, such as daily pills and multi-dose pens. I use products by Ro, and you should too. Go to ro.co/milet to see if you qualify. That's R-O dot C-O slash my let to get started on Ro. For side effects of GLP-1 medications, including boxed warning, go to ro.co/safety. R-O dot C-O slash safety. So when I end up buying the island, we had to do all of our outdoor decorating, and I spent a fortune in the first half of the place. And I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore, but I want the best stuff. And that's where Wayfair came in. My wife wanted to get this new garden bed, and Wayfair was the place that offered the perfect solution.

• 16:04Ed Mylett?

  Wayfair also helps you create a home that stands up to real life with quality products, great value, and trusted reviews. Wayfair verified products are hand-vetted by product specialists. They use a 10-point quality inspection system. Here's what I can tell you. The stuff has lasted over time. It looks great, and I get compliments on it. Shop thousands of products across every style and budget, whether you're trying to refresh your space for fall or transform your space for Halloween. Use filters, custom photos, and reviews to find the right fit for your home. More than 20 million verified five-star reviews, 20 million. So transform your space with the pieces that hold up to real life. Join Wayfair Rewards today and get 5% back on every purchase. Head to wayfair.com or shop the Wayfair app for all things home. That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R dot com.

• 16:54Ed Mylett?

  So the question is, what do we do with fear when it rears its head? What is it? How does it work? My fighters, my UFC fighters that I work with, my boxers, people ask them all the time, "Do you get scared before you come into the octagon?" People think all the time, "These men and women are bulletproof. They're just different than us. They're never scared." You know what most of them say? And by the way, 100% of the honest ones? "Yes, I'm scared." And if they weren't scared, they wouldn't perform as well. Now, here's the good news. Fear and excitement are cousins. They're related. What actually goes on in your body when you're enthusiastic, you're excited, call it even anxious, you're pumped up, right? In your body, from a biochemistry standpoint,

• 17:38Ed Mylett?

  is almost identical to fear. The difference is what you're thinking and what you're processing and your ability to process information. But your body really moves the same way. Here's the misnomer, and this is why most people never take action. They think, "If I can't eliminate fear altogether, I can't start that business. I can't get up there and do public speaking. I can't go overcome my fear of heights. I can't ask that person out on a date. I can't write my book." They think, "I have to eradicate all fear." Right? It's actually not true. You have to get to 51%. That's all it is. 51% excitement and enthusiasm, when 49% of it's fear, you can take action in that state.

• 18:21Ed Mylett?

  This notion that you have to have this threshold of you've eliminated your fears, you're gonna live a long time before all of those are gone. People ask me all the time, before I speak in public, they'll say to me, "You know, I speak 80 nights a year. Do you get scared? Are you afraid?" My answer is always, "Yeah, I do have fear. I'm afraid I won't serve to the level that I can. Maybe I'll forget a story or something I want to cover. I don't want to let people down. I don't want to embarrass myself." My biggest fear of my life when I was young in college as a dramatic introvert is public speaking and now it's one of the things I do 80 times a year and I'm in front of a camera probably a hundred more times a year, probably 200 more times a year. It became something that

• 19:04Ed Mylett?

  could cripple me if I didn't learn to face it, if I didn't learn to dance with it. But it's really a matter of changing some of our thoughts. And by the way, that's not easy to do either, but I'm going to show you some of the ways how. You ever have somebody say, hey, calm down, calm down. Does that help you calm down? You know, hey, man, just think positively, think positively. I'm afraid of heights and we're up here in the mountains. You think positively, right? So what ends up happening is your physiology overrides your thinking. So thoughts can impact physiology, right, and action, but physiology can override a thought most times, not all the time, but most of the time. Physiology will be the driver. Okay, so we got to change what we think, but we probably need to do a few things deeper than that as well.

• 19:48Ed Mylett?

  So calm down doesn't work. Think positive doesn't work. These are not things that work. So really what fear is, it's an alert to your nervous system. You know what I say? Let's listen to our fears all the way to the end of the story. You know, when I was a little boy, I was always afraid there was a boogeyman in the house. Now, it wasn't a completely unfounded fear. I mean, someone could do that. But I remember my dad would come in and he'd open my closet, go, Eddie, look. But then he said something more important than that. He said, and if there was daddy will handle him. Daddy will handle him. And that gave me some comfort. What he did is he reframed the story. So the first thing is we did a little BS check. Is this a real fear?

• 20:28Ed Mylett?

  And a lot of times the boogeyman you're afraid of isn't real. But he could be, or they could be, or it could be. But then he took me to the end of the story, basically saying, everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. It's not that bad. And when you begin to stare the boogeymen of your life in the face, almost every single time, you will find out it's not as bad as you think. And that's how you learn to shift to excitement. Anticipation. See, I call it that Friday night feeling before I speak now, before I do anything I'm afraid of. I call them butterfly moments. I wrote about butterflies in my first book called Max Out. And I've learned after 50 plus years on this planet, that all great

• 21:12Ed Mylett?

  things in my life have been preceded by butterfly moments. You know those butterflies you get? Like when you're dropping down in a roller coaster, you get the butterflies? That's your chemistry changing, your biochemistry changing, your neurobiology changing. And what that is, is it's fear. It's fear. But it's a lot different when you don't call fear, fear, and you reframe it and name it a butterfly moment. A butterfly moment, and by the way, think about your own life. All of the butterfly moments of your life, all the great moments of your life, were preceded by the butterflies. That beautiful first date, your wedding day, the birth of a child, right? The starting of your business, even things that didn't work

• 21:54Ed Mylett?

  out. The best memories of your life were preceded by butterflies, which means they were preceded by what you call fear. But butterflies, I believe, are that beautiful mix of fear, anxiousness, excitement, and enthusiasm as one package reframed. Not eliminating fear, dancing with it, facing it, knowing that without fear, without fear, there's no great moments of our life. Almost none of the great moments of our life didn't come with some kind of butterfly moment. The more it's reframed into a butterfly moment as opposed to terror, complete fear. And I'm going to show you how to make it a butterfly in your life, where it's excitement and enthusiasm. It's basically just slightly different thinking with the same chemistry going

• 22:39Ed Mylett?

  on in your body. And it's not a trick. Doesn't mean the fear isn't real. All these things that are fears. What I'm saying to you is, it's the entire juice of life. So you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing like on repeat all the time? That sweater that kind of just goes with everything, or these perfect pair of pants? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy, and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high-quality wardrobe staples with premium materials, like 100% Mongolian

• 23:06Ed Mylett?

  Organic cotton. The styles are timeless, versatile, and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for every day. It's what I'm wearing right now. They give you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the price tag. Quince also makes premium pants, fitted tees and polos, and breathable activewear. Quality basics designed to work with your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. I love their cotton tees. I'm wearing one now and I get a ton of compliments when I wear them on the podcast and when I speak. So find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash ed. So you know, I've been trying to take my health and my morning routine to the next

• 23:51Ed Mylett?

  level. And I used to do a whole bunch of different stuff, tons of different supplements. And then I found all in one in a drink with IM8. IM8 is the way to simplify your supplement routine, finally, once and for all. 16 supplements replaced 90 ingredients across nine major organ systems in one drink. You can have all these supplements for $2.61 a day. I've changed my mornings. The whole IM8 routine has changed my mornings. I feel great and I bring energy to the entire day. Go to im8health.com/ed10 right now, or click the link in the description and use code ED10 for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, plus 10% off your order.

• 24:32Ed Mylett?

  That's code ED10 at im8health.com/ed10. Code ED10 at im8health.com/ed10. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. The other thing I will say to you, I want you to write this down, is I think fear is a weapon of the adversary. If you're a person of faith like I am, it's the devil's work most of the time. But sometimes it's God protecting you, saying, be careful. I was riding one of my horses the other day. And I felt some fear because there was construction going on around us. And you know what? It was a great alert to get off my horse because about four minutes later, my horse freaked out and took off running.

• 25:18Ed Mylett?

  He'd have thrown me off of him had I been on him. That fear alerted me to make a smart decision. But it didn't cripple my thinking. What if that fear would have caused me not to think because all that blood's running away from my heart? And best decisions are made when we're in our heart. So here, how do we change that stuff? Number one, I want to recommend something to you. Take your fears all the way to their logical conclusion. Just run them all the way out to the end of the story. Here's what I think you're gonna find. It's not as bad as you think. People say, don't look at your fears, right? Yeah, look at them.

• 25:51Ed Mylett?

  Let's say I went out and bombed that speech. Am I still alive? Am I still breathing? Do I still have another day to fight on? Could I maybe learned a lesson? Yeah. What if you ask that person out on the date and they said, no, is that really the end of your life? Are they going to talk about it forever? No. Most people aren't thinking about you. They're thinking about what you're thinking about them. So I say, listen to your fears all the way to the story. I think you'll find that when you shine more and more light on that boogeyman, the more they get exposed for being much smaller, even if they truly exist than you think they are. Shine light on it. Take it all the way to the end. You know, it's the beginning of the story that creates the fear.

• 26:34Ed Mylett?

  But usually if we ride it all the way to its conclusion, the boogeyman may be real, but maybe not quite as bad as you think. And remember, all you gotta do is get to 5149. Not 100% no fear. And that's kind of our challenge. We think to have to eradicate fear completely, but I think we need to do is learn to talk to it. Dance with it a little bit. Pull it out of the closet a little bit and say, let's just look at this thing. And I'm gonna give you some. Real strategies here in a minute. Because the physiology is very, very similar to enthusiasm, or excitement, or anxiousness, or anticipation. If we can shift the way we think about what's going on in our body, we can leverage it. So it's just starting to look at the terminology, number one, of these fears. Now, here's what happens.

• 27:17Ed Mylett?

  You start breathing faster, the blood flows, like I said, to your extremities, and it can change things. But there's all kinds of stories of fighters, athletes, smart people, who have leveraged those fears into being a catalyst for them. So fear can actually become pleasure pretty quickly, and that's why the butterflies matter. You know, like, for example, here's something that you probably have never heard this term of, but have you ever heard of an excitement transfer process? It's really interesting. What that means is that when you ride a roller coaster, or you go to like a haunted house or something like that, and it's a scary experience, and then it's over, believe it or not, that experience carries over. You stay aroused, you get more dopamine for several hours, sometimes, after the experience.

• 28:01Ed Mylett?

  So the cool part about overcoming a fear, the haunted house of your life, the roller coaster of your life, you don't just get the dopamine in the moment, but you get an arousal for hours afterwards when you overcome it. And every time you overcome a fear, the boogeyman gets smaller and smaller and smaller. It goes from forty, fifty-one, forty-nine, to sixty, forty, to seventy, thirty, as I've said. Even during a staged fear experience, where you just make it up in your mind, your brain will produce more of a chemical called dopamine, which is really a pleasure chemical in your mind, even when you just staged your fears. So I was on a flight not too long ago, but I end up sitting down, and I'm on the aisle, and there's a young man next to me, nice young man, and a lady next to him, and they've

• 28:44Ed Mylett?

  got their headphones on, and I'm watching this young man, he was okay when we were on the ground. And as they said, hey, basically, get your feet, seatbelt fastened, we're gonna be taking off, I watched him become terrorized. Not a normal fear that I've seen in a lot of people, and to the point where I have headphones on, so I'm kinda looking straight ahead, this young man starts shaking, and I mean, uncontrollably shaking. He starts hitting himself in the face, and I'm thinking, maybe something's really wrong with this guy, I don't know if this airplane should take off, right? And I get up, I literally get up, and I go tell the flight attendant, hey, I'm gonna keep an eye on this guy, but I want you to know, something's wrong with this guy. I thought something was actually really wrong with him mentally.

• 29:27Ed Mylett?

  He's kind of hitting himself. And so I sat back down. I said, hey, man, are you okay? And he goes, I'm not. I'm so afraid of flying. I said, have you ever flown before? He goes, only one other time. And it was a bad flight and I'm really scared. He kept shaking. And now we're in the air, so we're going. And I said, listen, the worst thing you can do when someone's scared is calm down, calm down, calm down. I said, let's try a couple of things, brother. Number one, what are you really afraid of? Let's just look at it. And he goes, well, I guess I'm afraid the plane's gonna crash. And I said, okay, you know, the odds of that happening? He goes, I know it's not likely. And I said, so do you really think this plane's gonna crash? I said, you know, we're not going over water, so we're gonna go over a bunch of smaller airports, brother, that if the plane had a mechanical issue, this is also a small airplane.

• 30:12Ed Mylett?

  We could land at smaller airports, even if we needed to. This plane could also glide if it had to, brother. Right? It's got multiple engines. You got two pilots up front. By the way, that guy right over there, he's another pilot. He's on the airplane. So we got a bonus pilot because he's flying probably to do his next flight. He goes, okay. I said, so brother, that's probably not gonna happen. I said, by the way, I'm just curious, you person of faith, and it turns out his dad's a pastor. I said, so if the plane did crash, just curious, like, where do you go? He goes, oh, I know I'm going to heaven. And I said, okay. And then he seemed pretty calm for about an hour. Then I saw him getting agitated again. And I said, you're safe. You're safe. Everything's okay. And I kind of touched him. And I said, everything's okay, brother. I promise. Promise. Borrow some of my faith.

• 30:59Ed Mylett?

  And then I said, would you do something crazy with me? I said, because you're acting crazy. And we laughed. Use humor. And I said, so we know we're not crashing. If we do, we're going to heaven. And we know this is kind of crazy. So we're laughing now, pulling out every arsenal I got. I said, hey, man, let's control our breathing. Let's just change our breathing. Right? Let's get some blood back into our heart. And out of these extremities. No, he doesn't know that. That's what I'm thinking. So I taught him a breathing technique. I said, breathe in. Through your nose to a count of four. And he goes, okay. And I said, when I get there, I go, give me one more. Like that. And I said, then.

• 31:44Ed Mylett?

  Blow it out through your mouth. Back in, four count through your nose. Hold it, one more. Back in, just a quick second.

• 31:54Ed Mylett?

  Now the lady next to him is breathing, then the lady on the row over here, then her little girl who's about five years old, then the dad. So now we got a whole row of us breathing. Into the nose for four count, little cheat breaths, one more in the nose and then out.

• 32:12Ed Mylett?

  And we did that. And all of a sudden, I watched him begin to calm down. Really calm down. And he goes,

• 32:22Ed Mylett?

  and I said, here's the kicker, man. What a story you're gonna have. This test will be your testimony. And if you don't go through this, through this butterfly moment, I told him about the butterflies. I said, you don't have a story to tell. I said, bro, all the great stories of your life are gonna come from moments like this. You're gonna have a great story to tell about this. It's gonna be funny. You're gonna be laughing that you sat next to me of all people, right? And you were hitting yourself in the damn head, looking like a crazy man over a plane that's not crashing, that's going over land only, over about a hundred airports we could land at. Pretty damn funny. And he laughed. And then you're going to heaven anyway. And then he had his breathing under control. And then we talked about it being a story someday. And I said, what you should, bro, if you could,

• 33:08Ed Mylett?

  just start telling yourself right now, I'm excited. I'm fired up. I'm fired up. I said, bro, you're fired up. You're fired up. What he did is he started to rename the chemistry happening in his body. And candidly, the last two hours, he was fine. We had a little bit of a issue when we were descending, we went back to our breathing, and he was back to normal again.

• 33:29Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 33:57Ed Mylett?

  So why do I tell you that story? I tell you that story because there's multiple strategies that you could give to yourself. Number one, dance with it, take it to its conclusion. The boogeyman won't be as bad as you think. Number two, this is a big one, okay? Reframe it and recall it something new. Call it, you're fired up. My daughter, when she was a little girl, we lived on this lake. There was this big rock thing that all the kids would jump off of into the lake. And every time Bella would go up there, the fear would happen. Her chemistry would change. You know how this works, right? She's afraid to jump. She could hit the rocks in the way down, all the things you worry about. Maybe I'll drown, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Bella Boo, jump, Bella Boo, jump. Now everyone's yelling on their boats, jump Bella, jump Bella. And the first time she walked right back down the rocks again, which is probably more dangerous than jumping. And we went back a few weeks later, jump Bella Boo.

• 34:41Ed Mylett?

  All the pressure of everybody, the fears got worse and she'd lean over and lean over. It's like a half hour now where everyone's getting in front. Go Bella, and she almost go and then she couldn't go. She'd almost jumped and she couldn't jump. And so finally I said, Bella Boo, do you know what a story this is gonna be someday? I said, Bella, you're fired up. I said, you're fired up. She goes, what daddy? I said, you're fired up. I said, say you're fired up. She goes, I'm fired up. I said, you know what? Say it again. I'm fired up. I'm fired up. I'm fired up. And she started to rename this feeling in her body because it's identical to fear. Excitement, enthusiasm, anxiousness, anticipation. But butterflies is the exact same chemistry in your body as fear. Name it Bella, I'm fired up, I'm fired up, I'm fired.

• 35:26Ed Mylett?

  She goes, I'm fired up daddy. And we got her to 51. We didn't get her completely out of 100 to zero where she had no fear. I got her to fifth, no, she got her to 51 by the phraseology. I said, Bella, this is gonna be a story. Well, guess what? I was right. Here I am 15 years later, still telling the story. And guess what? Every time the rest of Bella's life, she's been afraid. I said, Bella, you're fired up, just like jumping off those rocks. You're fired up to give that speech in class. You're fired up for that test. You're fired up about this game. And she's like, daddy, I'm fired up, I'm fired up. And she's got this trigger word. It's called a trigger word.

• 36:10Ed Mylett?

  That she uses now to name this feeling in her body. And all you gotta do is have it happen one time where you name it. You got a new trigger. It's fired up. Yours will be whatever you want it to be. So you could take that fear all the way. Okay. You can look at it, run it to its conclusion, it won't be as bad as you think. Number two. You can name it. Name what's going on. So this fear can become a pleasure in your body. We just had to get her to 51. We reframed what that feeling in her body felt like. Does that work every time? No, I'm never gonna tell you everything's gonna, so I'm throwing a bunch of things at you. But once you've overcome one. I can tell you. When I'm backstage, I'm fired up. And I have a physical trigger. You're hearing me snap my fingers.

• 36:54Ed Mylett?

  Created a physical trigger as well. I've got an auditory verbal thing I say and a physical trigger. I'm fired up. So when I feel this thing you call fear, that I now call enthusiasm, I call anticipation. I call excitement. I've renamed it. And that renaming, that reframing gives me a shot to take action. And every time I take that action, it goes from 51% excitement to 60 to 70 to 80 to it may go away altogether. I actually don't want it to go all the way up, but I'd like to be at about 95.5 on most things in my life. Cause fear focuses, but you're damn right, it's real. Next thing you can do, if that doesn't work for you, okay? I want you to create a highlight reel of your mind of the one or two or three things in your life that were fearful of yours that you've overcome. Whatever that was.

• 37:38Ed Mylett?

  And you begin to run that picture in your mind, that visualization of I was afraid of speaking and I gave that speech and now it's kinda gone again. I was afraid of going on my first date and I did that. I was afraid of writing that term paper. I was afraid of applying for that job. I was afraid of that job interview, was afraid of walking in that room. You have a little highlight reel of one or two other things you do. And then you visualize the next thing, which is this, your subconscious mind, your unconscious mind does not know the difference between what has already happened. And what is about to happen. People will tell you that doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's not real. That's debatable to me, but I know this, when I show my mind, something I've already done once or twice, and then I feed it the next image, I'm likely to step into that image and be excited and less fearful. If none of that works, write it down.

• 38:25Ed Mylett?

  Write down your fears. There's something different between getting out of your head and your words into writing. And when you begin to write this boogeyman down, let me tell you what happens. It loses a lot of its power over you. Somehow seeing it for what it is, it gets you out of it. Right now, you're in your fear. When you write it down, you're above it and out of it, looking at it from a different perspective. The written word on the page, it separates you from the emotion and you can begin to reframe it. If that doesn't work, I'm gonna give you another one. Take yourself mentally to a place of peace. Just change the scenery, a person, a place, or a thing. It's usually I picture me walking on the beach with Jesus.

• 39:11Ed Mylett?

  The beach, the water, Jesus. It gives me peace. And for whatever reason, I'll just say this publicly. Spending time with my daughter. Of all the people, something about little Bella Boo being with me causes me peace.

• 39:29Ed Mylett?

  And so if you could take yourself to a peaceful place, it'll change your perspective. And then I think about who'd be proud of me if I did this, and it's usually that same person or place. And then if that doesn't work, try this one. Picture what it'll look like when you do it and take yourself to that peaceful place. One of the things I did with this young man is I said, "Where are you going?" And he said, "I'm going to see my dad at his new church." And I said, "Just picture yourself in church with him on Sunday, bro." Take yourself to a different destination related to what you need to do. Oftentimes, I'll picture the end of the speech and the crowd emotional and cheering, or I'll picture the message that I get a month later from the person saying, "Thank you for changing my life." And it takes me to that peaceful place, and now I have to do it.

• 40:15Ed Mylett?

  Even if I don't want to, I have to. It's the highlight reel, the writing it down, the facing it and right where it needs to be. And then just remember this, that it's real. It's okay that it's real, but what's not okay is to stand still. What's not okay is to create a pattern in your life where you give in to these butterflies. These butterflies are beautiful. They're disguised most times as something really bad, but they're not. You were born to fly and I'm not giving a corny analogy, but you weren't born to be a caterpillar. You weren't born to be a caterpillar. You were born to be a butterfly. And the fact of the matter is, the only way you're going to get those wings is by dancing with these butterfly feelings when you get them and identifying them as such.

• 41:00Ed Mylett?

  Now, if there's a fear in your life that's real, you can address it. But most of the time, when you run into its conclusion, it's not. When you realize this test will be my testimony, you're fired up. When you create a trigger word or a trigger move in your body, it will change it. By the way, humor is a huge one. The last thing I'll do is I will actually take my fear and I will close my eyes and watch it happen. Me bombing on stage and I'll watch it in slow motion. And then I'll put funny music over it.

• 41:29Ed Mylett?

  Like a circus song, right? And I'll just watch me making a complete fool of myself and I'll laugh. And then I don't take myself too seriously. And when you just make funny yourself, when you just realize if I make, I've actually not given good speeches before, and it's actually pretty damn funny. And don't take yourself so damn seriously. Now, if all of this stuff I've thrown at you, if you can't pick one of these things, and if anything you get out of it, which is to tell you that your fear is real. And also to tell you, it's a cousin of anticipation. It's a cousin of excitement. Listen, all the great things in your life have come from butterfly moments and most fears are butterflies. They are. And so embrace them as such.

• 42:11Ed Mylett?

  Take the laundry list of stuff I've given you here and realize that one of these will work for you. And here's all we're trying to do in our life. It's not have fear, never affect us again. That's a crazy standard. We want it to affect us less, less predominantly and less often. You're still going to have moments in your life where you give into your fears. If someone tells you that's not true, they're just wrong.

• 42:37Ed Mylett?

  What we want is it to happen as infrequently as possible. What we want is to address, is this something I should really be afraid of? Or is this a damn butterfly moment? Is this really fear or is this actually anticipation? If I could reframe this, rethink this, re-strategize this, my life might look different.

• 42:57Ed Mylett?

  So people will say to me, what if it's a quick pressure situation? So let me give you this one thing. I have a trigger word that I use that's a pattern interrupt because fear is a pattern. It begins to stack. So if I need something quickly, I have a word or a move I make fired up, fired up. But I actually have a word that takes me out of that state, but it works for me. And you come up with your word. My word is bonsai, bonsai. And what bonsai means is we're going. Here we go, jumping off the rocks. Right here we go, walking down the side, bonsai. And what it does is it changes my state and it puts me in a state of I'm going and I'm going to take whatever comes with it. It shifts your state. I actually smile when I say it, but I have that word bonsai.

• 43:38Ed Mylett?

  It's almost like I'm bombing my way into this thing and whatever happens, happens. And that word creates a state for me. That's powerful that I'll just, I'll use that word in that moment, which by the way, for years I didn't. I got room service everywhere I went for about 20 years. True story.

• 43:59Ed Mylett?

  True story. If I weren't going out with a group of people I knew, I wasn't going out. Ask anyone who knows me, ask anyone who's asked me to speak at an event, will you come to the dinner? But I don't know anybody, it's hard to get me there. And so my biggest fear is walking in somewhere I don't know anyone. The people will be looking at me and the more well-known I've become, the more that fear in my mind was justified. And so I have that trigger word now bonsai. And the more I've done it, I've gone to 55. I'd say right now at about 65, I'm certainly not at 95.5. Where I'm not afraid of it anymore. Don't let anybody tell you that's false evidence appearing real. It was real to me. All of this stuff is in our minds. All of it.

• 44:39Ed Mylett?

  Your fear of 20,000 people, my fear of walking in a restaurant, his fear on the airplane, Bella's fear of jumping off the rocks. For another person, they're like, I get to jump off the rocks. This is awesome. It's all real to us.

• 44:52Ed Mylett?

  But you know what the most important part of that is? I'm proud of me for doing that. I'm proud of me. I'm 53 years old. I just started doing this this year, this year. And I've used all these strategies that I've listed for you. I've done the breathing. I've written down how ridiculous it is. I've done the funny movie in my mind. I've taken it all the way to the end. It looked at the boogeyman and it's not as bad. I've had a trigger word. I've got a trigger move. I've done everything I've listed for you here. And those butterflies are still there, but I'm dancing with them. So that helps me. And so it's okay to have fear. Some of them are real. Some of them you just need to push through. And the way we push through is we write them down. We take them to their conclusion. We take ourselves to a peaceful place. We reframe it.

• 45:35Ed Mylett?

  We re-trigger it with words or phrases or moves. There's a thing called exposure therapy, everybody, which a therapist actually guides a client gradually and repeatedly through the source of their fear in a really safe environment. And it kind of helps strip away all the BS associated with it. All we want to do is strip this sucker down to where we can get to 51% excitement. And then we can take action. We don't have to get it to zero. That's the fallacy of telling everybody, you can overcome all your fears. Fears are fake. Fears aren't real, false. It's not true. We just need to get to 51, not 100 to zero. And you can do that with the stuff that I've thrown at you today. All the great stuff in our life is on the other side of this thing we're calling fear.

• 46:19Ed Mylett?

  And when we get to that other side, we've got a test that we've now turned into a testimony. We've got a story to tell people. We can inspire others. We've got a lesson, a gift, a friend, a relationship, money, whatever it is that comes on the other side of it, an insight. But our life is better on the other side of this thing. And so that's how you get to the other side as many times as you can, as often as you can. It's the struggle of life. And we're struggling in this together. And that's why I'm here. Gave you some of my best stuff today to help you with this. If any of it helped you, or you think it can help anybody else, please share it with anybody that you care about.

• 46:53Speaker 02

  This is the Ed Miliband Show.