The Tools

Friedrich Nietzsche, a daring thinker of the late nineteenth century, put it best in his famous aphorism: “Whatever does not kill me makes me stronger.” His idea that adversity has a positive value was new.

He summarized his response to suffering in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. His amazing conclusion was that even under indescribably harsh conditions—sleeplessness, starvation, and the ever-present threat of death—there was an opportunity to grow in inner strength. In fact, this was the one thing the Nazis couldn’t take away from a prisoner. In t

1. The first cue comes when you have to do something uncomfortable and you feel fear or resistance. Use the tool right before you act. 2. The second cue occurs whenever you think about doing something painful or difficult. If you use the tool every time you have these thoughts, you’ll build a force that will allow you to act when the time comes.

But another group isn’t lying; they truly don’t feel pain or fear. Unfortunately, that’s because they’re so deep in the Comfort Zone that they’ve lost touch with the whole world of possibilities that exist outside the Comfort Zone. This type of person is actually more afraid than the average person; they just deal with the fear by denying there’s a

Courage is the ability to act in the face of fear. That this seems impossible to most people is because of the way we experience fear. Fear is almost always linked to an image you have of something terrible happening in the future. If I speak up, I’ll get fired. If

This is the second cue: each time you catch yourself thinking about the dreaded task, stop thinking and use the tool.

The first step is to learn to experience fear without the mental image of the dreaded future event. Focus all your awareness on how the fear feels right now, in the present. When you’ve separated fear from what you’re afraid of in the future, it becomes just another kind of pain you process with the Reversal of Desire.

There may be many positive things in your future—great joy and fulfillment. But inevitably, life will never exempt you from facing more pain. Once you accept this, your goal will no longer be for pain to stop; it will be to increase your tolerance for it—which is exactly what the Reversal of Desire will do for you.

Oliver Wendell Holmes in “The Voiceless” wrote: “Alas for those that never sing, / But die with all their music in them.” It is a tragedy to die with your song unsung. What’s worse is that we are guilty of stilling our own voices—we silence ourselves. Yet