Most men have never experienced an extended period of genuinely fearless living. Here is an honest account of what that state produces, in relationships, work, and the quality of daily experience.
Most men have had moments of fearlessness: the adrenaline state of performing something difficult and succeeding at it, the brief liberation of having made a bold decision and acted on it. These moments are recognizable precisely because they are rare. The default state for most men is not fearless. It is a managed, mostly comfortable life within the territory that fear has defined as acceptable.
Extended fearless living, the state of consistently operating at the edge of your comfort and capacity rather than within the boundary of what fear permits, is an unfamiliar experience for most men. The honest account of what it produces is worth examining because the difference between life in the fear-permitted territory and life in the expanded territory is substantially larger than most men who have not experienced it would guess.
The man living without significant fear makes professional decisions based on what he genuinely believes is right and valuable, not on what feels safest. He takes on the projects with the highest genuine upside rather than the lowest downside. He makes requests at his actual level rather than at a level below it. He has the difficult conversations with colleagues and superiors when those conversations are needed.
The consequence of sustained operation at this level is an accelerating professional trajectory. Not every decision succeeds, but the size of the decisions being made and the rate at which high-quality opportunities present themselves are both substantially higher than the fear-managed alternative produces.
The fearless man's relationships are more genuine than the fear-managed man's because they are built on honest rather than managed presentation. He is actually known by the people he is close to, which is the foundation of genuine intimacy rather than comfortable familiarity.
He also selects relationships differently. Without the fear of being alone that drives men to accept inadequate relationships, he can afford to wait for and maintain relationships that genuinely serve both people. His standards are based on what actually works rather than on what is available and sufficient to prevent loneliness.
The quality differential between the relationships available from fear-managed self-selection and fearless self-selection is significant and compounding over time.
This dimension is the most surprising to men who have not experienced extended fearless living: the daily experience of life is qualitatively richer.
The constant low-level vigilance that fear produces is exhausting in a way that is only visible when it is removed. The man who has been living in managed fear does not realize how much cognitive and emotional energy the management is consuming until the management is no longer necessary. The removal of this load produces a specific quality of lightness and presence that is startlingly different from the managed state.
This is the most personal and least describable return on the fearlessness development work. It is also, for the men who have experienced it, one of the most significant.
See also: The Compound Effect of Living Courageously for One Year
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