Robert Maurer - Mastering Fear: Harnessing Emotion to Achieve Excellence in Work, Health and Relationships

MASTERING FEAR

Harness Emotion to Achieve Excellence in Health, Work, and Relationships

ROBERT MAURER, PH D

WITH MICHELLE GIFFORD, MA

Copyright 2016 by Robert Maurer, PhD
and Michelle Gifford, MA

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

MASTERING FEAR

EDITED BY ROGER SHEETY

TYPESET BY KRISTIN GOBLE

Cover design by Rob Johnson

Cover image by alexemanuel/iStock

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F or my friend, Steve Albert, whose courage, humor, passion, and compassion has inspired me to write this book and whose love and caring has given me strength and comfort.

I am deeply grateful to the clients, the individuals, families, and organizations that have entrusted me with their confidence, reached to me for help, and given me the gift of contributing to their lives. Special thanks to my cowriter, Michelle Gifford, who has put words to my thoughts, added her wisdom and clarity, and who made this book possible. We are indebted to our agent, Sharon Bowers, who saw the potential of this material, and gave us support and guidance throughout this journey. For my wife Dia, and our cat Spot, who were both a source of energy and much needed distraction from the rigors of writing. To our publisher, Adam Grant, and our editor at Career Press, Kirsten Dalley, who have worked to bring this project to fruition and provided their insights and encouragement.

Bob Maurer

F or Mike and Jacob, who have steadfastly and with great heart supported every dream Ive chosen to pursuepractical or not; and for Grandma, Aunt Karen, Connie, and my sisters, who have each provided me inspiration as this book came to life and who respond unfailingly every time I reach. With gratitude to Robert Maurer, my friend and mentor in this topic, who invited me to take part in this worthy adventure. In this time together, he has taught me more than hell ever know and those I love.

Michelle Gifford

The success of humanity hinges on learning the laws of nature .

Buckminster Fuller

W e all strive for success. We work hard to achieve competence, recognition, and rewards in our work. We dream of finding the perfect mate and feeling the joy of giving and receiving love. We endeavor to eat right, exercise, and maintain good physical health. Yet for many of us, the success we yearn for remains elusive; and maintaining success seems impossible. Why do some people seem to have such a hard time succeeding in the three key areas of life: work, health, and relationships? And why do certain people achieve success only to destroy the very accomplishments theyve worked so hard to attain?

These are questions I have struggled with for many years in my work as a business consultant and clinical psychologist. Ive wondered why some very disciplined, successful people persistently fight weight gain, smoking, alcohol, and drugs; why individuals who desire romantic bliss repeatedly choose partners unsuitable for commitment and intimacy; and why stress disorders, which underlie so many other challenges, seem to be getting worse despite all of the research and experts out there to help.

Consider these all-too-familiar scenarios:

A hard-working, dedicated employee is promoted to a leadership position. He has trouble delegating and becomes increasingly ineffective, difficult to get along with, and aloof .

A romantic relationship begins with great optimism and excitement, then one partner becomes steadily more critical and distant, and finally disappears .

An individual achieves a dramatic improvement in health, changing lifelong patterns of drinking, smoking, or overeating; then a stressful event occurs and s/he resumes the habits so painstakingly changed .

Each person was devastated as their dreams slipped away.

As a professional working to help people at all stages and in all walks of life, situations like these confounded me for years and I wanted to know why . It seemed pointless to be helping people pursue and accomplish their life goals if I could not also help them master the skills necessary to sustain them once achieved.

But where would I look for the answers? Fortunately, the answers came looking for me. For most of my career to that by William McNeill. The cover intrigued me, so I sat down and began to read. From that moment on, my professional life would never be the same. The book described how the whole course of human history has been radically influenced by diseases such as smallpox, malaria, and yellow fever. What fascinated me most, however, was not the illnesses themselves, nor even the devastation they caused. Instead, I was captivated by how these plagues were cured .

Prior to my visit to the library that day, I had assumed, as perhaps you do, that the way we remedy disease is by studying people who are ill and, from there, brilliant researchers in top-notch laboratories develop the miracle drugs needed for a cure. This is not, however, how the majority of these horrible maladies were tamed. Take smallpox for instance. This great killer had been around for thousands of years, taking the lives of an estimated 500 million people. Yet, the cure for this dreaded illness was not discovered through scientific experiments on the disease itself. Instead, it came about when someone began looking closely at who wasnt getting sick and then tried to figure out why.

In the midst of the smallpox epidemic in 18th century Britain, a country physician named Edward Jenner became intrigued by a common folktale claiming that milkmaids who had previously been sickened by cowpox would never get smallpox. Without knowing how the immune system works, Dr. Jenner developed a bold, creative experiment. He injected an 8-year-old boy first with the cowpox virus, then with a very small dose of smallpox. The boy developed resistance to the deadly disease and the use of this vaccination was thought to have saved more lives than any other invention in history.

Studying those who have stayed healthy in the presence of grave illness and discovering what was different about them has pointed the way to success in curing other diseases as well. Building the Panama Canal was perilous work, primarily due to the mosquito-borne infectious disease malaria. Many lives were spared, however, when an inquisitive physician by the name of Dr. William Crawford Gorgas began asking himself why the sailors aboard ships never became ill, whereas the people digging on land were so tragically susceptible. The difference, he cleverly surmised, was that the mosquitoes were drawn to the still water near the canal, whereas the sailors were steadily surrounded by ocean currents. Preventing this illness, he discovered, could be achieved by