In this episode of Gnaw on This, Ben and Syya explore the challenges of change, personal growth, and pursuing aspirations despite fear. They dive into how fear of failure, rejection, and the unknown can hold us back, and the power of recognizing opportunities to move forward. The conversation also tackles conflict, communication, and the internal barriers that often stand in the way of achieving dreams.

Listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own aspirations, confront what’s holding them back, and embrace change as a path to growth and new opportunities.

Key Takeaways:

• People often have hidden aspirations waiting to be pursued
• Fear of failure and rejection is a common barrier
• Conflict can be destructive but also a puzzle to solve
• Awareness of opportunities is essential for personal growth
• Identifying what holds you back can spark breakthroughs
• Change requires courage and commitment
• Fear of missing out can motivate action
• Embracing change opens doors to new opportunities
• Self-awareness is key to overcoming internal barriers
• We are often our own biggest obstacles

📌 Tune in, laugh a little, and #GnawOnThis every week with us!

#communication #fear #overcomingfear

Learn more about Ben Baker at IamBenBaker.com

Chat it up with Syya and the team at BrilliantBeamMedia.com

If there's one thing we've learned about business and life is that people are the X

factor.

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They constantly surprise us both in amazing ways and not so much.

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We're Ben and Sia and welcome to the Nod On This Business Bites podcast.

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This show is all about real life things we all deal with every day, how they relate to

business and how to make some sense out of our daily chaos.

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Welcome to the show.

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And welcome back to another episode of non this business bites.

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I'm Ben and this is Sia.

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And here's the question for you.

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What do you aspire to do and what's holding you back?

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Now I, if given my druthers, if, I had a blank slate and that I could start all over

again, I'd spend my life blowing stuff up.

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I truly would.

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I would be the guy that would be in Vegas, imploding buildings.

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I would love to fly around the world and just be the guy that puts the dynamite in the

right place to watch these buildings just implode amongst themselves.

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To me, that would be a cool life.

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But you know what?

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I came across this too late in my life.

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I understand the amount of training and the amount of effort and...

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how much school in terms of chemistry and everything that goes along with it would need to

be absorbed before I could, it's the same thing if you wanted to do fireworks displays,

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which I think would be another really cool thing.

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Be the guy that works at Disneyland and actually designs and blows up the, what do call

it?

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The fireworks displays every night.

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I think that would be a cool life too.

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Each one of this, everybody in this audience has something in the back of their mind that

sits there goes, okay, if I could start all over again, if I knew what I knew now, if I

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could go back and tell my 20 year old self or 15 year old self or whatever, this is going

to be a cool life.

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Go do what you need to do to do it.

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What would that be?

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I want to see this in the notes and what held you back because see it.

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Let's nod this.

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Man alive.

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You know, I think it's I think it's a fast and easy obvious answers.

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Fear, fear, failure, fear, fear of rejection, fear of.

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Realizing you don't have the skill for something, right?

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Fear of quitting.

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You know what I mean?

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Fear of judgment, fear of fear itself.

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Fear.

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Okay.

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But yeah, I think I think these types of questions always like really mess my brain up a

little bit, Ben, because I'm the personality type that will jump off a cliff and build my

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parachute on the way down because I don't have fear in that context.

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But I do think there is everyone has fear, something.

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And you're making me really true and non this because I think I fear for me.

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conflict right like I I I Hate conflict and though I'm very assertive personality and you

know, I've been told aggressive personality in my work life I have to be assertive and you

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know, I have been called many a words over time, right?

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But that's because you have to get things done in business and not everyone can be

besties, you know all the time and I understand that um But man alive

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That conflict, it's so destructive and it's so not serving.

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It has its roots on communication and being open to the communication and man alive.

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think that's the, again, it's like, it's never just one thing, Ben.

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That's why it's also messing me up because they all touch each other.

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They're very, like I'm fiddling with this.

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just spirals that just keep touching each other like a chain, right?

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So um that's that's yeah, you really making me think hey guys that are hey good morning

for those are here and those aren't team replay like I would love to hear what your first

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thoughts are on this like so for me was fear Ben what about you?

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What's your first like mmm that pops up?

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Well, I mean, for me, was not knowing that something actually exists.

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Like not even realizing it's an opportunity.

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You know, it's the unknown.

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Like when I was 20 years old, I didn't even know that was a job.

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When I was at that stage of my life where I could have, you know, turned left instead of

turned right and actually moved with it, I didn't even know that was an opportunity.

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I was told you're going to university.

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and you're studying X, Y, or Z.

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That's it.

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Those were the choices that were given to me.

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And I dutifully went and I went to university and I did my degree.

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And that degree led me down certain paths.

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But once you go down a certain path, you blind yourself either purposely or just because

you're uh

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You see certain things and you don't see others and you lose those opportunities because

you don't even you don't even realize they exist.

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You know, it's like I look at I look at it like the social media posts where 98 % of the

social media posts on LinkedIn I never see.

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Maybe 99.

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You know, and there's probably some really interesting discussions out there.

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There's probably some really insightful things.

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and new concepts and new ideas and all sorts of things.

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But because the way the algorithm works, I see my buddies.

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see my, going back a couple of weeks, I see my tribe and it becomes this loop and it

becomes this group thing and it becomes echo chamber.

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that's the challenge.

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So I find that that is a real challenge.

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I I love

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challenges in communication.

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I love conflict.

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love helping organizations through conflict.

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Nothing makes me sure.

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I love when excuses when the poop hits the fan and sit there and say, okay, how are we

going to work our way through this?

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How are we going to fix this?

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How are we going to, you know, build the brand or rebuild the brand and rebuild the

communication and align people and re re

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Re-figure out goals, etc, etc, etc And I love all that and I love the protracted You know

time that it takes in order to do that effectively.

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I think all that is really cool But most people hate it Most people most people look at

this and go.

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Oh my god.

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That's a ton of work And I don't even I don't even want to look at this Me I look at it

and say yeah, it's a ton of work.

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But look what we could do on the

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results could be.

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you just said, Ben, I'm sorry to cut you off.

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It just sounds like to me, it's like the common theme is though I personally hate

conflict, I do love the other challenges of things, but it's like solving puzzles.

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And I think if I can in my brain get away from saying I hate conflict to, you know,

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resolving a conflict is a puzzle to solve.

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Exactly.

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I think that's where I think you kind of gave me a light bulb moment.

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Although I've already, I've, I've said this before in past shows, but, it's a, it's a,

it's work in progress, right?

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Yes.

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No one can flip a switch and go automatically to first, you know, first or fifth gear or

whatever like that.

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Right.

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You got to build up to it you got to be consistent because sometimes you got to drop back

to, you know, third to second to go back to third.

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Right.

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So,

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Yeah, no, I, interesting.

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I really would be intrigued for those that are watching to comment and let us know what

you're seeing because I think the things that hold us back are usually just simply in our

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heads.

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Absolutely.

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You know what I mean?

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Like when you hear that question of like, what's holding you back?

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Well, depends.

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If I'm mad at my boyfriend, someone told me back.

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I'm kidding.

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I'm kidding.

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Someone's restraining me.

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No.

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Um, but I think,

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If you can identify what that is, the odds are high you are succeeding at whatever it is

that you're trying to do.

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And if you're feeling blocked, you probably should be asking yourself why am I not

progressing?

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What's going on?

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What's really at root?

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It's like asking your whys to yourself, right?

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Or as I like to say, like with all my other clients, it's like why are you doing

something?

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Keep saying your answer and keep asking why until you start crying and then you'll get to

the root of your why right there, right?

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I'm afraid of abandonment, Ben.

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You're gonna leave me.

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I won't leave you.

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will still be friends and we will still have laughs together.

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But I mean, there's two questions I always ask clients.

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It says, okay, when you climb the mountain, what can you see on the other side and what

can you do on the other side that you can't do today?

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And the other question is, if you don't climb the mountain, what are you giving up?

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Mmm.

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And I think it's a combination of the two.

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It's a combination of the aspiration and inspiration and you know, w and the FOMO.

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And I think that that, you know, whether you call it FOMO or not, whether it's the fear of

missing out or not, it is the psychological thing.

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says, what am I missing?

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If I don't risk, if I don't, if I don't take that first step, what am I missing out on?

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Yeah.

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And I think that we all need to sit there and say, OK, you know what you know, what do we

do?

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We really want to do this enough.

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Do you truly really want to do this enough?

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Or is this just a fantasy inside your head?

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If it's if you really want to do it, very little is going to stop you.

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If it means no.

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Making a quick dark left or the right and sit there and say, OK, I gotta go back to

school.

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I gotta go back to school to do this, because I can't do this or you know.

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What I did, I shut down my company in December because I decided, you know what?

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It's time to do something different.

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It's time to go back and work within a corporation where I can drive change, I can create

impact, can make alignments, and I can coach, mentor, and lead the next generation.

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And I want to be part of something larger, impactful, and national and international

basis.

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And for companies to take me seriously.

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It meant me shutting down a company that I ran successfully for 17 years because I was

ready for something different.

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And, you know, that was scary.

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That was extremely scary.

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it's, you know, being able to, what it's enabled me to do is have some amazing

conversations and open my self up to what if, or, you know, what's out there.

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Cause quite honestly,

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because you've been sitting in your lane for so long, doing what you've done for so long,

you don't even know what's out there.

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You don't even know what the opportunities are.

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And the last eight or nine months have been almost as much about exploring what's out

there and what are the possibilities than they have been for looking for a new

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opportunity.

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And I think that's what I really appreciate over the last year is that

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It's put me in a position where I'm sitting there going, okay, I could do that, or I could

do this.

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And it's stuff that you never thought about, right?

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Never thought about before.

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You're like, hey, now.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's really quick.

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You know, I have to say the experience very similar leaving corporate and when your

identity has been in your company, right?

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For 17 years for me, my identity was being in sales, tech sales forever and then leaving

the teat of corporate salary.

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Right.

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That's like a shock to the system.

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And dude, I'm like seven years on almost eight years on.

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And I'm like,

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Oh, I miss that corporate salary because it was easy to be kind of dumbed down and be

like, you know, you know, I done messed up a run.

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but that salary sold that paycheck.

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And entrepreneurship, you're like, I done messed up a run.

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You're like, that paycheck never coming out because they did not pay you like it's a very

real, real and visceral.

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And I think, again, at the same time, what a thrill for that freedom and why you're doing

something.

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I mean, I think you and I are both the perfect examples of like, we've had significant

change in our professional career and, uh, whether you're fresh into the decision, you're

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through the decision, you're going through it or you're like, quote graduated, which you

never are.

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never graduate from the system, the idea being is like, I welcome the change and I have

actually, I've had old colleagues.

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like literally text me and they're like, dude, are you happy?

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And I'm like, hell yeah, I'm happy.

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And uh you can see their wheels are starting to turn, right?

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And so I think going back to your question is, what is stopping you?

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You, whatever it might be, right?

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So.

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And I think that that's, that's a good place to leave it.

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says that we are our best friend and our worst enemy.

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are, we are our best friend and our worst enemy because you know, it's whether which

shoulder we're listening to, because there's, there's two people nattering, you know, on

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our shoulder at any given time.

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The one saying go for it.

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And the other one saying, don't do it.

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And the question is, which one do you listen to and why, why are you listening to them?

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And

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How does this enable you to become a better version of yourself?

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And I think that that's what we need to look at.

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So let's leave it there.

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I'm Ben and we'll see you soon.

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Hey hey hey, thanks for listening to another episode of Not On This Business Fights.

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If you liked what you heard, be most humbly asked that you like, share, and hit that

subscribe button.

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If you want to communicate more effectively within your organization, contact ben at

imbenbaker.com or me at brilliantbeammedia.com.

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We can help you build your community, brand awareness, and personality.

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digital content and podcasting.

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cannot wait to hear from you.

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See you next week for another episode of Nom This Business Pites.