In this lecture, we're going to talk about a very common experience of travelers and would be travelers and that's fear. So let's go ahead and explore how we understand and tackle our travel fears. First, let me start with a short story. There once was this criminal who had committed a crime because hey, that's what criminals do. That's their job. Anyway, he was sent to the king for his punishment.

The King told him he had a choice of two punishments. He could be hung by a rope, or take what's behind the big dark, scary iron door. The criminal quickly decided on the rope. As the noose was being slipped on him. He turned to the king and asked, by the way, out of curiosity, what's behind the door. The King laughed and said, you know, it's funny.

I offer everyone the same choice in nearly everyone picks the rope. So, said the criminal, tell me What's behind the door? I mean, obviously, I won't tell anyone he said, pointing to the noose around his neck. The King paws, then answered freedom. But it seems most people are so afraid of the unknown, that they immediately take the rope. So think about this for yourself.

Are you afraid of the big, dark, scary door, which could be the key to some of the freedom that you're looking for? And is that big, dark, scary door, travel your travel journey? So that's something for us to think about. As the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson told us, what you are afraid to do is a clear indication of the next thing you need to do. So that's telling us that fear is not something to again be afraid of, right? It's something that's normal.

It's often a signal or a sign that's helping us to determine our next step in our next path. As we know, fear is Not something that we have to fight. Rather, it's something that we can embrace as a part of the full journey and experience, we see that most of the magic, most of the growth, most of what we're looking to have an extraordinary experience around happens outside of our comfort zone. So just knowing that you're going to be uncomfortable is a way to embrace your fear and not fighting. So we will never completely eliminate fear. But we will be able to be aware of it and try to understand what it's telling us about the next part of our journey.

And actually, travel fears are very, very common. So if you have any of these or other travel fears, you're not alone, you're actually in good company. Part of the growth and experience and excitement actually, of travel has to do with the fact that it does induce and evoke some fears. So one of the common travel fears and I've done surveys of people who travel is that fear of Line, it's very, very common. Even frequent fliers are sometimes subject to having this fear having this what they call anticipatory fear right before they get on the flight or right before they're preparing to fly being very, very anxious. And there are a lot of resources out there to help people.

In fact, one of the websites that I posted on this lesson links to some free resources, including a free online class on helping you to decrease your fear of flying. Another common fear is not knowing the language, running out of money, getting lost at your destination, terrorism, which is huge because of the 24 hour news coverage these days, being alone, feeling out of place, getting sick, not liking the food, getting robbed or taken advantage of, and there are many more, there are more that may be specific to you. I always tell people that there's a balance when you're dealing with fear one is just the accepting that it's there. Sometimes acceptance is enough to help it go down or decrease. The other thing is to try to arm yourself with information or knowledge so that you're prepared, preparing yourself and arming yourself with information and knowledge.

So it's that balance between using the rational part of yourself your mind to prepare and get knowledge, and then the emotional part which is to say, you know what, there's going to be some fear and I just have to accept it. So with fear of flying, as I said, there are many resources that can help you to understand flying like number one, flying is actually one of the safest modes of transportation and it continues to get safer, but the thing is those huge air disasters and airline crashes are what sticks in our mind. So understanding that you know, fear that flying is actually one of the safest ways of of getting around even safer than the driving that we do in our cars every day. Because can be Help. Not knowing the language there are things that you can do there tons of free language programs.

Dual lingual is one. There's Rosetta Stone, there are meetups, there are language immersion programs where you can try to learn a few phrases at least to help you communicate. The other thing is just understanding that depending on how long you're traveling or your journey is going to be, you might actually be in a situation where you're not going to understand everything that's going on because it's a foreign language, you can't possibly learn every language of every place that you're going to completely right. So having that knowledge that you there are going to be times that you may not understand, but also trying to develop some skills using some of the free and other resources that are around to help learn at least some key phrases to communicate running out of money. Well, part of it is you can budget and we're going to talk about budgeting next.

You can budget for travel, you can do your background research to see things like exchange rates, how much you're going to need to research In activities and accommodations, so you can prepare, you can also have a cushion something like a credit card in case of emergencies that you're not planning to spend or use unless you really need to getting lost again, doing some research to figure out the places that you want to go once you get to where your your destination is, but the other part of it is, sometimes getting lost is where you find yourself, right, another one of those big picture ways to think about fear. So all may not be lost, quote, unquote, if you actually do get a little lost, as you're out exploring. Terrorism is a frightening, a frightening phenomenon. And it does seem like it's increasing because we're getting non stop coverage of it.

One thing is, though, that terrorism is increasing in some Western places where there's a lot of Western countries where there's a lot of tourism, but it's not an everyday all day occurrence. It's a risk that yes, you might have to take as part of traveling. But still, the statistical chances of you being in a terrorist a terrorist attack are actually quite low, being alone. So part of it again, is you don't have to travel alone, you can try to go with travel groups find their places where you can get travel, companions. But the other thing also is asking yourself what's so scary about being alone, if there is part of your trip, where you're not with someone all the time, is that a time that you can use for personal growth and exploration? Again, just like getting lost is being alone a time where you can actually find yourself.

Another thing is feeling out of place. And again, that goes back to what we said about travel is a journey to a place that's unfamiliar. So if you didn't feel out of place, then you would sort of be missing out again on some of where that magic happens because this feeling out of place is going to put you a little bit outside of your comfort zone. Getting sick. There are tons of resources in terms of travel medicine, travel doctors, where you can also find information about the place that you're going to in terms of the food and the water, you can follow those instructions, you can get travel insurance, there are many ways that you can prepare yourself to try to prevent illness while abroad. And also to have something that you can do in case you do get sick, not liking the food.

Again, that's part of the journey. But if you're really, really, really picky, and you're really afraid of the food, what you can do is take some of your own dry foods, your own snacks that you can have as your own stash with you. But again, part of what I do when I coach people with travel is push them to sort of go a little farther outside of their comfort zone so that they can get the added benefits of the travel. Again getting robbed or taken advantage of that's part of it is being aware of your surroundings, making sure that you understand or you get some information about somebody safer places to go versus not safest place places to go. But again, understanding that there's a risk with everything that you do. Even in your home country, your own town or state or city, you can be at risk for some sort of, you know, criminal victimization, that's part of the risk that we have just walking around every day.

So these are common travel fears. Part of it is to understand the information how you can prepare yourself and better inform yourself. And part of it is accepting that in some ways, you may have these feelings or experiences, but it may actually help you to grow. So we're going to practice a skill which is learning to face your fears and move forward despite them, not eliminate them, but move forward despite your fears. So this is your second challenge and it's called reframing your fears. I want you to write down either on the sheet is connected to this lesson or on your own little travels.

Write down your top three travel fears, they may come from that list that I just went over. Or you may have your own specific fears that are unique to you and your situation, write those down. And then you're going to come up with three counter statements that will help you to travel despite your fears. So one example would be the first one which is fear of flying. So that could be a travel fear, I'm afraid of flying a counter statement could be, well, the information that I have about flying says that is actually one of the safest ways to travel. In fact, millions of people trapped fly every day and reach their destination safely, day after day after day.

You see, so that's a counter statement. It's a factual counter statement. Another one could be, I am afraid of not liking the food that could be a travel for you. And the counter statement could be you know, I actually might not like some of the food but I'm pretty sure There will be at least one thing in the place that I'm traveling to that I will like. Alright, so these are counter statements that will either help you to accept your fear, see your fear a little differently or have information to try to try to counter that for you. So make sure you do this challenge.

It's a really important part of addressing your fears.