Fear is scary. Fear makes us freeze up. Fear makes us afraid to move, afraid to shout for help, unsure of what to do next. What are our fears? Many of our fears are imagined or made up. Not having enough money, dying before we see our kids grow up, marry and grow old themselves. Or failing at our job, getting fired, not meeting your spouse’s expectations, afraid of hurting someone with the truth, bad timing, self-doubt, public speaking fears or maybe not being able to help your kids or friend when they truly need something.
Taking the risk to push through fear and conquer it takes courage and persistence. You can hire life coaches to get past personal fears or join Toastmasters if you have a public speaking fear, join a healthclub to stay fit and live longer, or just eat better. All of which take personal discipline and self coaching.
Fear is good in that if you take action on it – it will force necessary and valuable changes in your life. I am so proud of two employees we have at Think Safe as we have gone through some challenges in the past couple weeks.
One of our employees, Jen, saved the life of a very sick family member by volunteering to donate a kidney. She has young children and a busy life and had some fears of the process, but she stepped up and took action. There were many others in her family that could have done it but she stepped forward first. She went through the process, followed the steps and we are glad to see her getting back more strength every day.
The other employee also did something so remarkable last weekend. Dan was the key person to respond to a medical emergency incident at a large superstore – and he ended up resuscitating the life of someone and bringing them back from the dead (heart attack). Everyone else froze and the workplace should be embarrassed because they absolutely were not prepared – which resulted in fears and lack of action for the most part by employees and management. As a side note, the EMS took 8 minutes to arrive. Dan is the kind of guy that would have acted anyway, without all the knowledge he has from working at Think Safe and being around our First Voice products. But, I know he acted appropriately partly because of First Voice being part of his life.
It is amazing to see fear conquered and wonderful things happen. Our Think Safe workplace promotes defeating fear and I am proud that we have the kind of employees that take action. Our First Voice products provide value to others to do the same thing for those panic and fear-filled medical or first aid emergencies where it is about Making Minutes Matter.
-Paula Wickham (pwickham [at] think-safe [dot] com)
Think Safe Inc President & CEO