Hilary Gallo [Gallo - Fear Hack

Dear Reader,

The book you are holding came about in a rather different way to most others. It was funded directly by readers through a new website: Unbound.

Unbound is the creation of three writers. We started the company because we believed there had to be a better deal for both writers and readers. On the Unbound website, authors share the ideas for the books they want to write directly with readers. If enough of you support the book by pledging for it in advance, we produce a beautifully bound special subscribers edition and distribute a regular edition and e-book wherever books are sold, in shops and online.

This new way of publishing is actually a very old idea (Samuel Johnson funded his dictionary this way). Were just using the internet to build each writer a network of patrons. Here, at the back of this book, youll find the names of all the people who made it happen.

Publishing in this way means readers are no longer just passive consumers of the books they buy, and authors are free to write the books they really want. They get a much fairer return too half the profits their books generate, rather than a tiny percentage of the cover price.

If youre not yet a subscriber, we hope that youll want to join our publishing revolution and have your name listed in one of our books in the future. To get you started, here is a 5 discount on your first pledge. Just visit unbound.com, make your pledge and type FEAR18 in the promo code box when you check out.

Thank you for your support,

Dan, Justin and John
Founders, Unbound

Susan Angoy
Richard Arron
Dave Birss
Anne Bowers
Julie Brettell
Mathew Clayton
Justine Clement
Chris Dale
Nick Defty
Guy Dinwiddy
Jodi Earwicker
Ben Emmens
Rosemary Gallo
Ina Gallo
Hilary Gallo
Alex Gallo
Paul Gilbert
Paul Goodison
Kate Hammer
Mat Hayes
David Hieatt
Sarah Inman
David Johnston
Jon Khoo
Dan Kieran
Kirsty Lewis
K.M.
Sophie Mackley
Jane Middlemiss
John Mitchinson
Steve Murray
Justin Pollard
Nadya Powell
Wyn Roberts
Fiona Roper
Ian Roper
Jonathan Royle Hypnotist
Lizzy Rudd
Robert Shooter
Jonathan Smith
Eleanor Sturdy
David Thomlinson
Justin Verderber
Jim Walsh
Simon White

Why are you wearing that stupid bunny suit?

Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?

Donnie Darko (2001)

Most of this book is based on stuff that has happened. Generally, I tell the story of what I remember, from my perspective. I have changed some names and allowed a few animals in. Please dont take the animals, in particular, too seriously. No species, including us, has yet worked out a perfect example of how to live. Sometimes it just helps to use paint to make a picture. It doesnt mean that the paint is there to be licked.

The first thing I do when I talk about fear is explain why Im here in the first place and why fear interests me. Over time, this has become a series of admissions, as the truth has slowly crept its way in. The biggest of these truths is that I dont feel that I ever really chose fear at all. It was more that it kept coming up. It chose me. Id slowly noticed that a ghostly character lurked in the wings of the stage. It seemed that no one, including me, ever wanted to admit that it was there. This indistinct and frankly rather annoying presence somehow managed to influence all the action, without ever having been given a part in the play.

My first book was about negotiation and I noticed that, whenever I talked about it after it came out, the topic that kept coming up was fear. On the negotiation stage, fear made people positional. It made them defensive of the ground they had taken for themselves, and once they were there, it held them there. Again and again, I noticed how it was fear of one sort or another that tended to lock us all up. This wasnt a fear of anything that would cause us actual harm. It was more of a desire to avoid uncertainty or to fit in. This was social rather than physical. People didnt do the thing they truly wanted to do because they feared doing so would expose them to a risk. Often these risks were small or irrational, yet they consistently felt bigger than they had any rational right to be. Were not going to be killed or threatened with death by asking for the salary we so badly need or speaking out in the meeting weve been passionate enough to attend, but it can feel as if we are.

Faced with the unwelcome visitor of fear, our natural reaction is to pick up our weapons to fight it. In this frame of mind, Id find myself issuing a stream of daily exhortations to myself and others in my work to be open, to embrace change or to take a stand. There are plenty of people ready to tell us what to do, and I was standing firmly in this stream. As a writer and a speaker, I was full of advice about what one should do. The problem with this is that most of the time we already know what we need to do to be better. I realised that it wasnt a lack of knowing the clear thing to do that was the problem. The problem was not understanding the more shadowy thing that stops us.