To My Scared Son

Dad, I’m scared. What should I do?

Of course you’re scared, son, ever man gets scared. I’ve been scared more times in my life than I could ever remember and I still am often. When you come to me with a serious question and you have that inquisitive look in your eyes and you look to me for help, that scares me. I don’t know if I’ll have the right answer of it I’ll do my best to answer your question. But I know one thing — I have to just try my best. I do it even though I’m afraid. I do it, because I love you and you are very important to me.

Son, everyone gets scared. Famous people, athletes, celebrities, — even people who do extremes sports. You know those crazy guys who climb on buildings an do crazy stuff like parquer? (Don’t ever do that by the way). They gets scared too. They might not look like it in the video you see on YouTube, but they are definitely scared and they were probably even more scared the first few times they did it.

Even the most experience actors, performers and athletes and all successful people get scared when they do their thing. Fear is a normal part of being a man. You’re going get scared sometimes. You are going to have times where doing something terrifies you so much that you just want to run away and go do something else, go to bed, play video games or whatever else you can find to keep you from having to do that thing.

But here is the thing that separates the successful men from the rest. Successful men are just as afraid, maybe even more. But successful men:

DO IT ANYWAY.

We do the thing we are afraid of even though we are scared. That’s called courage. Courage is doing it even though you are scared.

My son is courageous. My son knows how to push through his fear. You, son, are courageous.

You, my son, have got this.

You have everything you need to go do what scares you — even though you are scared.

Remember son, you are going to do a lot of things in your life. And many of those things are going to scare you very much. Part of doing a lot of stuff is making a lot of mistakes. Some of the things you are afraid of are not going to work. Sometimes you will fall. Sometimes you will get embarrassed, sometimes you will not succeed at things you try very hard at.

And I really hate to tell you this, but that is an important part of this game (called life) were all here on this earth playing. You’re going make lots of mistakes and many things are not going to go your way. But the good news is that you are in good company. Me, you and every successful man who ever lived have made tons of mistakes, fallen down, been embarrassed, been rejected, been hurt, broke, and on and on and on.

Ok son, go do what scares you! when you’re done, I’ll be here to give you a hug and tell you I love you and I’m proud of you. And guess what, I’m going to do that whether it goes perfectly or if it doesn’t go how you want.

If it goes perfectly, great!

If not, that’s cool too. It just means you are learning how to be a successful man.

You got this, son.

Photo by Lisa Wall on Unsplash