Fear does have a place in our lives. The motivational power of fear can even be crucial to our survival. If we’re physically attacked, fear can jolt us with the adrenalin and motivation we need for fight or flight. Fear is like fire. It can be a life-giving energy source or it can badly burn or destroy life.

Jim Clemmer - Practical LeadershipA core message of Growing @ the Speed of Change is strengthening our leadership skills to disperse the darkness of fear, pessimism, and negativity that change — especially during tough times — can bring.

"The most destructive element in the human mind is fear. Fear creates aggressiveness….fear grows in darkness; if you think there’s a bogeyman around, turn on the light….only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live."
– Dorothy Thompson (1893 – 1961), American journalist

"Only fear can defeat life… it goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always… nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it… if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you."
– Yann Martel (1963 – ), Canadian author, Life of Pi, winner of Man Booker Prize

"I don’t like being afraid. It scares me."
– Major Margaret J. "Hot Lips" Houlihan, fictional character in the American TV show M*A*S*H

"Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear."
– Albert Camus (1913 – 1960), Algeria-born French author, philosopher, and Nobel Prize-winning journalist

"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."
– Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and historian

"All of us are born with a set of instinctive fears – of falling, of the dark, of lobsters, of falling on lobsters in the dark, or speaking before a Rotary Club, and of the words, ‘Some Assembly Required’."
– Dave Barry (1947 – ), American author and columnist