Going All In On Your Fear List
Turn your biggest fears into superpowers by attacking them one at a time
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 83%
Howes' method treats fear as an inventory problem. You write a literal fear list — public speaking, dancing, whatever creates social humiliation — then go all in on each one, one at a time, choosing the most intimidating version to accelerate growth. The mechanism is exposure plus skill acquisition: by repeatedly entering the feared situation and getting real reps, the fear converts into a skill, which produces authentic confidence rather than a borrowed affirmation. A key accelerant is that taking visible action attracts mentors and coaches who volunteer guidance, which you then act on. The frame that unlocks it is realizing others rarely watch or judge you, so the humiliation you dread is mostly imagined.
Origin
Extracted from Modern Wisdom: Howes built his fear list at 23-24 while broke and injured, then spent years going all in on public speaking, salsa dancing, and learning to read and write as an adult.
Core principles
- 01What you resist has power over you; facing it transfers the power back
- 02A fear overcome becomes a new skill and a new source of real confidence
- 03The thing that scares you most is usually the fastest path to growth
- 04Mentors appear when you put yourself in the arena and take action
- 05Judgment fear collapses once you notice how little others actually watch you
How to run it
- 1
Write the full fear list
Catalogue every fear honestly, including the ones that feel trivial or embarrassing. Naming them is what stops them consuming energy in the background.
Pro tip Include social and emotional-humiliation fears, not just physical ones — those are usually the real blockers.
- 2
Pick one and choose the hardest version
Select a single fear to attack and deliberately choose the setting that scares you most. Howes joined the Toastmasters club full of paid professionals precisely because it pushed him farthest.
Pro tip When several options exist, pick the one you least want to be in.
Watch out Spreading across all fears at once dilutes the exposure and stalls progress.
- 3
Find a mentor in the arena
Taking action puts you in rooms with people who've mastered the thing. Ask the best person present for the path and let them coach you.
Pro tip Then actually do what they say — mentors invest in people who act on their advice and report a result.
- 4
Rack up reps until fear becomes skill
Repeatedly enter the feared situation and take real reps until competence and confidence replace the fear. Then move to the next fear on the list.
Pro tip Notice mid-rep how little anyone is actually watching you — that observation dissolves the judgment fear.
In the wild
Terrified of dancing, Howes spent three months sitting in the corner of a salsa club before a woman finally pulled him onto the floor. Sweating and stepping on her feet, he stared at the ground until she lifted his chin and told him to look around. He saw nobody was watching him — and got hooked, going out four times a week and taking lessons.
→ Within six months he was fluent enough to walk into top salsa clubs worldwide for the next 17 years.
A professional speaker told Howes to visit several Toastmasters clubs and join the one that scared him the most. He picked the room full of suited, paid professionals where he felt he least belonged, showed up in a backwards cap and arm cast, and met a mentor there who bought him lunch and coached him for a year.
→ That mentor helped him write his first book and gave him the confidence to keep taking action.
Common mistakes
Choosing the comfortable version
Picking the easy room instead of the intimidating one blunts the exposure and delivers far less growth.
Asking for advice you never act on
Picking a mentor's brain and then doing nothing wastes the relationship; coaches invest in people who take action and report a result.
Is it for you?
Best for
Someone with a stack of avoidances who wants to convert fear into concrete new skills and confidence.
Not ideal for
Someone whose distress needs clinical treatment rather than exposure-and-skill-building.
From the transcript
“I created a fear list and it was a long list but one by one I started going all in on these fears and making…”
“join the one that scares you the most that's going to push you the farthest”
From the episode
How To Defeat Your Self Doubt - Lewis Howes - #597
Lewis Howes