Episode 43
Fear
Topic is FEAR, and how it can hold us back when we shouldn't let it.
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Contact Information
email: don@callmedonovan.com
Twitter/Insta/Threads: donadkisson
Music generated by Mubert https://mubert.com/render
Transcript
Hey, welcome to episode 43 of Call Me Donovan recorded on Thursday, July 25th.
Speaker:So I've actually wound up making more episodes this week than I normally do.
Speaker:Of course, if you follow me, then Monday had to do with an illness with our oldest cat,
Speaker:and then Tuesday was the passing of our oldest cat.
Speaker:So it kind of put off some of the topics that I wanted to talk about in my episodes.
Speaker:I do try to make loose notes for each episode, and sometimes, as I know I've done, something
Speaker:will hit me and I'll decide to do a different topic, and then I have to move those topics
Speaker:on down the line.
Speaker:And also, today is 425 days of alcohol retirement, so, you know, where's my...
Speaker:I always forget this.
Speaker:I need my applause.
Speaker:There we go.
Speaker:Radio Tiff mug.
Speaker:Yeah, I'm doing a video version of this, or at least I'm doing it.
Speaker:I'm also trying out... there was a release of OBS that has introduced something called
Speaker:Hybrid MP4.
Speaker:It's in beta, so I'm recording in that format just to see.
Speaker:So if this winds up not... if it winds up being a bust, then you won't get a video version
Speaker:of this, but hopefully it'll work out.
Speaker:But yeah, drinking the last of my second cup of coffee.
Speaker:I normally have two cups of coffee in the morning.
Speaker:But we'll see how much of this actually gets into the final episode.
Speaker:The topic is fear.
Speaker:Now we all have fear or a fear of something.
Speaker:I have...
Speaker:I have what some would probably call an irrational fear of snakes, but then again, I think it's
Speaker:just bred in humans that snake bad, you know.
Speaker:Even though that's not true.
Speaker:There are a lot of good snakes out there, but I just don't like them.
Speaker:I don't like reptilian creatures to begin with.
Speaker:I'm not a bug guy either.
Speaker:So I don't suffer from a severe bout of arachnophobia, but I also don't like spiders.
Speaker:It's not like I will quiver in fear around spiders.
Speaker:I will fucking get out of the way if there's a snake anywhere around.
Speaker:And I'm usually the one that has to kill the spiders in my house because my daughter actually
Speaker:has... she has more of a fear of spiders than I do.
Speaker:So we have our normal everyday fears.
Speaker:You know, some people fear the water.
Speaker:They can't swim.
Speaker:They have a fear of heights.
Speaker:I'm probably somewhat in that camp as well, though I have literally climbed 150 feet,
Speaker:harnessed up a tower back whenever I worked for the cable broadband department that was
Speaker:part of the city of Tifton.
Speaker:And I've been up on two water towers.
Speaker:Don't really remember how tall that was, but we were... there was one over here in Tifton
Speaker:where I live and I went up it because we were testing out a wireless internet product that
Speaker:we were looking at.
Speaker:Maybe we could deploy it.
Speaker:It wound up turning out to be just complete shit.
Speaker:I mean, the idea was cool.
Speaker:It was attempting to use a protocol called PPPoE, which if you know anything about that,
Speaker:that is the protocol that was used initially.
Speaker:I don't think it's used that way anymore, but when DSL first came out on the scene,
Speaker:they basically took the way dial-up worked and dial-up used PPP and then this was PPPoE,
Speaker:which was PPP over Ethernet.
Speaker:Don't ask me what the PPP stands for right now.
Speaker:I'm not going to look it up and that is so long ago.
Speaker:I can't remember.
Speaker:But I was up on that tower and like I said, the concept, the ease of use for a customer
Speaker:would have been interesting because we were still back in those days, we were still back
Speaker:where even when we put a cable modem in, it usually was connected straight to one computer.
Speaker:It's not like it is today for a lot of us where, I mean, the provider is going to give
Speaker:you a modem that has Ethernet ports on it most of the time and will also do Wi-Fi, which
Speaker:I absolutely despise those combo units because if one part of it breaks, then the whole damn
Speaker:thing is useless.
Speaker:So I like division of technologies, so to speak.
Speaker:But then again, that's the way I operate because that's my business and that's the way I deploy
Speaker:it for my clients.
Speaker:Boy, I got off on a tangent on that one.
Speaker:But anyway, so fear of heights, fear of the water.
Speaker:There's a lot of different fears out there.
Speaker:I mean, I could probably do a query, do a search and just get a plethora of different
Speaker:fears and phobias.
Speaker:But I guess I'm mainly talking about those other types of fears, maybe fear of self.
Speaker:And that might not be the right way to explain it, but I'm going to try to flesh this out
Speaker:so you kind of get an idea of what I'm talking about.
Speaker:Because fear, rational or irrational, seems to be one of the biggest factors for holding
Speaker:people back.
Speaker:I was born and raised as an only child.
Speaker:My mother was told by the doctor, and it's not like she had a difficult time, as far
Speaker:as I've ever been told.
Speaker:It's not like she had a difficult time giving birth to me.
Speaker:I wasn't necessarily a big child, I think I was like, or a big baby, I was like six
Speaker:pounds and something.
Speaker:At one point, I think as I was growing up, I did butterball and then I had this whole
Speaker:bout where I accidentally drank kerosene and damn near died.
Speaker:And they said after that I became kind of a skinny beanpole.
Speaker:You look at me now, maybe I need some more kerosene.
Speaker:But that's a joke.
Speaker:But I was an only child and mom was told by the doctors, don't try to have another child.
Speaker:And this was before she was even diagnosed with scleroderma.
Speaker:So I don't know what that was all about, but you know, it is what it is, I guess.
Speaker:So I didn't have any brothers or sisters to share anything with, or, you know, I was kind
Speaker:of isolated.
Speaker:I mean, I did have friends, but I was, I guess I was almost like in this bubble growing up
Speaker:to a point.
Speaker:I had relatives.
Speaker:I had my first cousin, Patty, you know, we were thick as thieves there for a little bit.
Speaker:And her mom and dad got a divorce and then there was all this other kind of stuff.
Speaker:And, hell, I think, I can't recall the last time I actually verbally spoke to her.
Speaker:I think I texted.
Speaker:She was in Georgia at some point and we were going to try to get together, have lunch or
Speaker:something, but that never panned out.
Speaker:But so I guess I felt I was definitely an introvert.
Speaker:And to a degree, I still am, but I've overcome that a great deal in the last 20 years, mainly
Speaker:because of have to.
Speaker:And there was always this fear that I was not, you know, growing up in school, especially
Speaker:when you get to high school, man, high school can be brutal.
Speaker:And I, you know, I'm Gen X.
Speaker:I grew up in, I grew up in the eighties.
Speaker:That was the decade that made me.
Speaker:It was a decade that made my wife.
Speaker:I mean, it's a decade that made a lot of us.
Speaker:We are the hold my beer generation, in this case, hold my coffee.
Speaker:But I had friends that they weren't, they weren't only children.
Speaker:They had a brother or a sister or multiples.
Speaker:And I'm not saying that being an only child is, is the linchpin of this fear, but my first,
Speaker:I'm going to say it was a rational fear, was the fear of being embarrassed.
Speaker:The fear of looking like a fool.
Speaker:I remember there was a time that we had to give an oral book report.
Speaker:You remember those?
Speaker:I'm not even sure they do those in school anymore.
Speaker:And I knew this was coming for like a week.
Speaker:And I can, I can still have somewhat of a memory of the way that classroom looked.
Speaker:And I couldn't sleep for a week.
Speaker:I was, I was dreading having to get up in front of my classmates, this scrawny, funny
Speaker:looking kid and talk intelligently or attempt to, and, and give an oral book report on the
Speaker:book that I read.
Speaker:I don't even remember what the book was.
Speaker:And for a week, I couldn't sleep.
Speaker:And the closer the day came, might've been a Thursday that I had to do the book report.
Speaker:Oh my goodness gracious.
Speaker:I probably could have threaded a moving needle on a sewing machine that day.
Speaker:I remember when it was my turn, getting up out of the desk, my heart was pounding.
Speaker:My throat was dry.
Speaker:You know how difficult it is to give an oral book report when your throat is dry and you
Speaker:are fighting to actually have a voice.
Speaker:All I can say is that I didn't make a fool of myself.
Speaker:It was a nerve shattering experience.
Speaker:And when it was over, there was just like this complete calmness came over me like,
Speaker:holy shit.
Speaker:I am so glad that this is over.
Speaker:That wouldn't be the last time that that type of fear would set in.
Speaker:But fear, I got to thinking about this when I was trying to run through some topics that
Speaker:I would want to talk about on this podcast.
Speaker:And I realized that fear has literally held me back in a lot of instances or stupidity,
Speaker:maybe a combination of the two.
Speaker:And I still suffer from it today, just not as bad or is it badly?
Speaker:Not as badly.
Speaker:But I had graduated high school.
Speaker:I had an opportunity to go to the local technical trade school.
Speaker:At the time, it was called Ben Hill Irwin Tech.
Speaker:Now it's Wiregrass.
Speaker:And, oh, I think it was called the CES.
Speaker:It was basically computer sciences type or computer electronics or something.
Speaker:Anyway, it was right up my alley.
Speaker:It was a two-year program.
Speaker:And when I was done, I would get a certificate that said that basically, you know, I completed
Speaker:this.
Speaker:And, you know, nowadays, especially because of the high cost of college and what have
Speaker:you, and Mike Rowe always pushing the trades, which, you know, that's not a bad thing.
Speaker:I mean, I know what plumbers make.
Speaker:I know what electricians make.
Speaker:I know what AC folks make.
Speaker:I have clients that own and run AC companies.
Speaker:And if you're the owner, you're doing well most of the time.
Speaker:So I got a scholarship.
Speaker:I mean, I did find out I was going to have to pay for the books, but it was essentially
Speaker:a $10,000 scholarship at the time.
Speaker:And I won it.
Speaker:And I went for orientation.
Speaker:And one of my former teachers had actually moved from the high school over to teach at
Speaker:Ben Hill Irwin Tech.
Speaker:I think it was Miss Lavender, but I could be wrong.
Speaker:And for the life of me, I don't know why I did this, but I went through everything.
Speaker:And there was a little bit of a conceit, I think, in this too.
Speaker:So it was probably a combination of conceit and fear.
Speaker:After going through orientation, I talked to her and I said, "Everything that we've
Speaker:gone over today, I already know, and you know this."
Speaker:And her response to me was, "Well, look at it like this.
Speaker:You can sit in here and hardly break a sweat for the first year."
Speaker:And that made me afraid.
Speaker:It was a weird fear, but it was a fear of being bored, I guess.
Speaker:The fear of not being able to accomplish anything.
Speaker:And the fear that I was putting my life on hold for something that was not going to...
Speaker:I guess it was because I was underwhelmed.
Speaker:I expected more out of the program.
Speaker:Now, truth be told, they killed the program a year later and replaced it with the telecommunications
Speaker:program.
Speaker:So I'm not entirely sure how that worked out for the students that were enrolled in
Speaker:the CES program.
Speaker:But it was probably a good thing that it turned out that way.
Speaker:So, but yeah, that is a weird form of fear, is the fear of being an underachiever.
Speaker:The fear of being bored.
Speaker:The fear of being ineffectual.
Speaker:I guess the fear of just not mattering.
Speaker:Is that a word?
Speaker:Mattering?
Speaker:You don't matter.
Speaker:English, man.
Speaker:I gave the scholarship back, which at the time, my former computer lab teacher at the
Speaker:high school, which advocated and pushed for me to get that scholarship was pissed.
Speaker:And rightfully so.
Speaker:I'm not even sure if she's still alive, but I really should have apologized to her.
Speaker:Maybe I did.
Speaker:That's been a while.
Speaker:That's been a while.
Speaker:That was 1988.
Speaker:And I was like, to hell with this, I'm going to get into the workforce, which I was already
Speaker:working part-time jobs.
Speaker:So that was, to me, that was an example.
Speaker:That was an example of fear.
Speaker:Another one, which I started trying to overcome when I went to work for the city was, you
Speaker:know, speaking in front of people, being afraid to actually meet new people.
Speaker:And you miss out on a lot of opportunities if you don't introduce yourself and actually
Speaker:find and meet these people and strike up conversations.
Speaker:You might find that you have a lot in common.
Speaker:You might find you have nothing in common, or you might find that there's some middle
Speaker:ground and then they discover who you are and what you can do and what you're about.
Speaker:And it may just open doors and opportunities for you.
Speaker:And I still wrestle with that to this day.
Speaker:But getting into the position that I was in eventually with CityNet at the city of Tifton
Speaker:and wound up eventually being the general manager, I had to give reports in front of
Speaker:city council, the public.
Speaker:And wow, man, that was a fear that I had.
Speaker:I mean, it was like the oral book report all over again, but I made it through it.
Speaker:And the very first time I ever recorded a podcast, A, it was horrible.
Speaker:It was in 2011 and even I wasn't doing anything live.
Speaker:I was just recording.
Speaker:It was just like, I'm sitting here talking to you right now, except when you see this,
Speaker:it's already recorded.
Speaker:But I'm looking at a camera talking into a microphone and I was still nervous as shit,
Speaker:but I made it through it.
Speaker:And I've done live streams.
Speaker:I'm still a little iffy on the live stream sometimes, but I've done some of those.
Speaker:Not a lot.
Speaker:Doing a podcast now doesn't faze me at all.
Speaker:Talking to new people, walking up and especially whenever new clients introduce myself.
Speaker:Now, I don't do cold calling.
Speaker:I just absolutely detest cold calling because I figure I'm wasting your time and mine if
Speaker:you haven't made it clear to me that you are seeking my services.
Speaker:But I had, I picked up a new client about two months ago now.
Speaker:I think it's been about two months ago.
Speaker:He called.
Speaker:Of course, I didn't recognize the number.
Speaker:So I'm one of these people, because a lot of times my cell phone is the one that they
Speaker:call.
Speaker:If I don't pick up, then it actually goes over to my office phone and you can leave
Speaker:a voicemail and that kind of thing there.
Speaker:I didn't recognize the number.
Speaker:So he called.
Speaker:I listened to the voicemail and I called him back and he and I wound up having like a 20
Speaker:minute, almost half hour long conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with what
Speaker:it was that he called me about, what he needed my assistance with, to utilize my services
Speaker:with.
Speaker:And then when I met him in person, it was just like, this is somebody that I've known
Speaker:for the last 20 years.
Speaker:And I got over that initial momentary fear of who this person was and how our business
Speaker:relationship was going to go.
Speaker:And I don't think you ever fully, truly get past all these fears.
Speaker:You have to push through.
Speaker:That's like, I know one of the things that's holding me back on something else that I do,
Speaker:which is Tifton Talks, tiftontalks.com, the Facebook group, the Facebook page and the
Speaker:newsletter.
Speaker:One of the things I know that's holding me back is I need to be out and about and more
Speaker:active so that I can gather more stories.
Speaker:I can gather more pictures and content and really be seen.
Speaker:And I will be perfectly honest with you on this one.
Speaker:I'm not sure if that's fear of failure or just laziness.
Speaker:It could be a little bit of both.
Speaker:You know, the fear may be allowing me to be lazy, if that makes sense.
Speaker:And there's also that little tickle in my brain is like, is it worth it?
Speaker:Is it worth taking the time, putting in the effort for this thing that you're trying to
Speaker:do?
Speaker:To be a notable, "Hey, Tifton Talks probably has the information" person.
Speaker:Is it even worth it?
Speaker:Do I even want to be that?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I really don't know.
Speaker:It's weird as much as I don't like talking to people, as much as I don't like necessarily
Speaker:being around people, I find that I start enjoying myself when I can have good conversations
Speaker:with people.
Speaker:And I suppose that's the reason why I spun off and created a separate company called
Speaker:Tipton Media Works.
Speaker:And you know, it's still in this office.
Speaker:It's not the best place to have people come in, but I can accommodate me and three other
Speaker:people to sit here and have conversations for whatever reason.
Speaker:There again, there's a fear.
Speaker:I got to reach out and invite people out here.
Speaker:And of course, that fear is, will they take me seriously?
Speaker:If I had a building, a separate building, a business space, if you will, that was set
Speaker:up for the recordings, then I'd have less of a fear there, but then more of a fear of
Speaker:how am I going to pay for this?
Speaker:So a different type of fear, but it's almost like that legitimizes me and what I'm trying
Speaker:to do in the media content space.
Speaker:Whereas here, and not all of us can be Mark Maron, where you just have a garage and the
Speaker:president of the United States stops by and records a podcast with you in your garage.
Speaker:But that is a fear.
Speaker:There are people that I want to reach out to and it's twofold.
Speaker:One, do I want them to know where I live?
Speaker:That's a very rational fear.
Speaker:That is a very rational concern.
Speaker:And two, again, being taken seriously.
Speaker:You drive up, you've got a modest house, you've got a secondary building, which part of it
Speaker:is a shop, part of it is my office.
Speaker:You walk in the front and I mean, it's a typical IT office.
Speaker:There's shit everywhere.
Speaker:Nice little table, four chairs, microphones.
Speaker:How seriously would I be taken in that?
Speaker:So that's a fear that I have to overcome and just go, "You know what?
Speaker:Either it's going to work or it's not going to work."
Speaker:So yeah, fear.
Speaker:I haven't quite fleshed it out as much as I had hoped in this, but I also don't want
Speaker:to just keep on drawing and beating a dead horse.
Speaker:Please don't beat horses, whether they're alive or dead.
Speaker:That's just disrespectful.
Speaker:And it would really tick my wife off because she loves horses.
Speaker:But I guess we all have fears.
Speaker:And I know I'm not telling you anything that you don't already know.
Speaker:This is therapy for me.
Speaker:I'm just talking this through going, "Okay, what is it?
Speaker:How much do I need to muster in myself to punch and push through these fears, to do
Speaker:these things that might get me to where I want to be in the next five to 10 years?"
Speaker:Because I ain't getting any younger.
Speaker:I'll be 55 in January.
Speaker:Initially, my goal was to actually take early social security at 62.
Speaker:And now I'm rethinking that, that maybe 65 is looking better.
Speaker:And it's not that I don't want to work.
Speaker:I want to be free to do things.
Speaker:Content creation.
Speaker:I got the radio station, you know, for the people watching the video, Radio Tiff.
Speaker:Radio tiff.com.
Speaker:I bill it as sort of a Gen X radio station.
Speaker:It's the first and only 100% online station for South Georgia or specifically Tifton.
Speaker:And there's a lot of work to do with this.
Speaker:And there's a lot of things that I want to build up with it.
Speaker:And I want to do a morning show and all these other things that if I run the risk of getting
Speaker:canceled and not that I want to get out there and try to get myself canceled because I have
Speaker:some kind of wild ass theories about something or I'm a conspiracy theorist and all this
Speaker:other nonsense.
Speaker:No, but I want to, it's like the old adage.
Speaker:And I think I've said this before.
Speaker:There's a lot of pressure that can be taken off of you.
Speaker:And there's a lot of fear that can dissipate when you have fuck you money, when you cannot
Speaker:be harmed financially.
Speaker:Sometimes when you're just expressing an opinion, people will take that to heart and it'll piss
Speaker:them off.
Speaker:And suddenly they're like, did you hear what Donovan said?
Speaker:Do you use him for it?
Speaker:You probably shouldn't.
Speaker:He's an atheist.
Speaker:He worships Satan, which I don't because Satan's not real, but you get my point.
Speaker:So fear.
Speaker:Hopefully this has made some sense.
Speaker:I, you know, I did not put down bullet points.
Speaker:I did not script it.
Speaker:I just, this was coming straight from the head and from the heart.
Speaker:So we'll, we'll, we'll see whether it's beneficial for you.
Speaker:It was beneficial for me.
Speaker:I might talk on it a little bit more, but then again, I run the risk of just rehashing
Speaker:the same shit I've already said.
Speaker:So we'll, we'll just, we'll just end it there with, I guess, if you do suffer from what
Speaker:you feel like are irrational fears, and I'm not talking like snakes and spiders, and that
Speaker:is perfectly rational.
Speaker:You probably need to do what I've been trying to do.
Speaker:And that's an introspection of why and what are the worst outcomes if you do the thing
Speaker:that you fear.
Speaker:Because in the words of the great philosopher, Frank Reagan from Blue Bloods, it does you
Speaker:no good to rehearse for tragedy.
Speaker:So in this case, it does you no good to rehearse for failure.
Speaker:Now I can sit here and I can espouse those words, but can I put those in practice?
Speaker:That's what I have difficulty with.
Speaker:And if you do too, then, then you understand.
Speaker:But we have, we have to take a really good look at ourselves and go, okay, why am I afraid
Speaker:of this?
Speaker:What is the worst thing that could potentially happen?
Speaker:And can I live with that?
Speaker:And if you can, then it's probably something worth doing.
Speaker:Because you know, the old cliche is if it's, if it's easy, it ain't worth doing.
Speaker:If it's hard, then it's the right thing to do.
Speaker:I really do believe that.
Speaker:It's hard to really get behind that sometimes because you're just like, this is just too
Speaker:damn hard.
Speaker:Is it really worth it?
Speaker:Probably is.
Speaker:It probably is.
Speaker:So there's that.
Speaker:All right, that's it.
Speaker:I'm rambling.
Speaker:Thank you for taking the time to listen and or watch this if I managed to actually get
Speaker:this video out with this new hybrid MP4 that I'm testing in OBS.
Speaker:Thank you for lending me your ears and or your eyeballs.
Speaker:And if you're on a sober journey, or as I like to call it, alcohol retirement, then
Speaker:keep up the good work.
Speaker:There's nothing but good things that can come out of getting off the sauce, if you will.
Speaker:And just take care of yourself.
Speaker:Hug your loved ones.
Speaker:And especially in light of what happened this week with us, spend a little extra time with
Speaker:your pets because you just never, ever know.
Speaker:You just don't.
Speaker:Anyway, you can you can find me at callmedonovan.com, which is where this...
Speaker:Need coffee, because voice, huh?
Speaker:Which is the home of where this podcast sits.
Speaker:You follow me on Insta and Threads, Don Adkisson, D-O-N-A-D-K-I-S-S-O-N, the correct way of spelling
Speaker:the last name Adkisson.
Speaker:I'm on Twitter, same handle, but I hardly ever check it.
Speaker:So you really want to interact with me, you can find me on Threads.
Speaker:I'm really liking that place.
Speaker:It's like what Twitter was in the early days of Twitter.
Speaker:Now, due to entropy, I fully expect it to turn into a complete and utter cesspool and
Speaker:chit show in another couple of years, but anyway, that's where I'm at.
Speaker:So thank you for your time.
Speaker:Hope you have a great day, great rest of the week, great rest of the month for what it
Speaker:is.
Speaker:We're about to be into August.
Speaker:I may or may not have another episode drop before then, just depends on what's going
Speaker:on in my life.
Speaker:But until then, just be good to yourself and everybody around you.
Speaker:I'll talk to you in the next one.
Speaker:Peace.
Speaker:[Music]
