This menagerie - it was part of my being repented - to show up places where I might have been afraid, like the zoo or a marriage.

It's uncomfortable to stand up in front of strangers. It's uncomfortable to propose an idea that might fail. It's uncomfortable to challenge the status quo. It's uncomfortable to resist the urge to settle. When you identify the discomfort, you've found the place where a leader is needed.

The challenge is to focus on the work, not on the fear that comes from doing the work.

The connected economy of ideas demands that we contribute initiative. And yet we resist, because our lizard brain, the one that lives in fear, relentlessly exaggerates the cost of being wrong.

If you seek to become indispensable, a similar question is worth asking: "Where do you put the fear?" What separates a linchpin from an ordinary person is the answer to this question.

Most of our lives in public are spent papering over, rationalizing, and otherwise denying our fear. We go to war because we're afraid, and we often go to spiritual events for the very same reason.

Those who fear risk also begin to fear movement of any kind.

When you learn to listen to your fear, you've found a compass that can show you what matters.

students today are educated collecting dots. Almost none of it spent teaching them the skills necessary to connect dots. The magic of connecting dots is that once you learn the techniques, the dots can change but you'll still be good at connecting them.

The old stories of what happened to Joe or Bob or Sue thirty years ago are told over and over. We use them to stoke our fear, to rationalize our desire to hide.

My friend Jon likes it when an airplane hits heavy turbulence. His insight is worth sharing. "The odds of a plane crashing from turbulence are essentially zero, so I sit and enjoy it. It's like a ride at an amusement park.

If we believe we are loved, we will live loved. If we believe we are strong in the power of God, we will live strong. If we believe Christ is with us in our fear, we will be brave. If we believe that Christ is with us in the mornings of life, He will be there at midnight too.