Overcoming FOMO: How to Stop Fear of Missing Opportunities

Overcoming FOMO: How to Stop Fear of Missing Opportunities

Hello, welcome to the In The Rising Podcast, and this is the platform from which I talked to you about living a life without the captivity of guilt and regret. So basically using your self. Your experiences, your self-love to live an empowered, independent, and free life, because that's what it's all about, right?

So my name is Bettina Brown. I'm your host, and I will start off by saying that I am not a licensed counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, but I am a student of life, a healthcare professional who loves to research and have really in-depth conversations. Help figures figure out, you know, what makes us tick, what makes you tick, what gives you a vibe and energy to get up in the morning and go after your dreams, and what makes you want to do that every single day.

So if this topic or similar topics are of interest to you, go ahead, sit, subscribe, and leave a review. I totally appreciate it. This is episode 16. And I'm very excited to talk about the topic of missed opportunities today. Missed opportunities. Why? Because there are so many opportunities that we may not have pursued or even recognized in that moment, but now, Because we're in this stay at home or shelter in place kind of time right now with the coronavirus, we have some time.

We have time to recognize what opportunities we've had. We have time to actualize. Things had have been going on in our mind or dreams that we've wanted to pursue, and having that extra time can be a joyful thing. And at the same time, very nerve-wracking because there's this time that we don't know an exact end to, but we cannot deny that there is time.

Right? There is some time right now to evaluate and examine. So I may be a little bit behind the times. I don't know all of the verbs and, and the, the abbreviations like I did when I was young. I remember rolling my eyes at my parents and now my own son rolls his eyes at me. But I heard this term, the fomo, fear of missing out.

A long time ago. In fact, it wasn't that long time ago, but I did have to Google like what it even is. I'm gonna be honest, I'm gonna be transparent. I did not know. But I also feel it's the fear of missing opportunities, missing out, missing opportunities. And my question is then is everything we pass up on an opportunity that was worth pursuing in the first.

You know, is what we're fearing missing something we should be excited and thankful that we did miss. For example, did we miss an opportunity to buy that perfect real estate property? Did we miss out on the chance to go up the corporate ladder? Or better yet, did we have a chance to leave the corporate ladder system alone and start our own company?

 Did we say that thing we were gonna say to that special someone, family member friend? Did we give the homeless person that last $5 bill or did we make that blanket for our child full of their old t-shirts that we were able to cut up and sew together? Did we ever do that? Did we take the opportunities or did we let them slide by?

And I feel there are two, maybe three main points with this one. And number one, did we, did we let that opportunity slide by number one is maybe we did, maybe we didn. So depending on your personal beliefs, I know that's a weird one, but depending on your personal beliefs, I think that we get a chance to examine our life when we've moved on from this one.

Okay. I carry that belief pretty strongly and I think we get to have like a little rundown, a little quick show, which may not be quick to us on the other side, but just a quick show to see all the different things that could have, could have been or would have. And not everything about that would've been something better than the life we lived, and I believe that strongly as well.

 Here we can be missing that we, or, or, you know, missing something or we're worried about missing something and we should be thankful, right? What if we only think something was a missed opportunity because someone in a similar circumstance, or a similar degree actually achieved that? What if I didn't take a certain job opportunity, but someone else did and they were successful?

How, how do I feel with that? But what about if they brought things to the job and, and characteristics and the mindset and experience that I did not bring, maybe that would not have been successful for me, but we tend not to look at it that. And so number two is what if we know, we know we missed an opportunity?

What do we do? Well, for one, I think we just need to own it. You know, and have, take, have, have, and take responsibility for your actions, your ability to learn and respond differently. Your ability to respond in a manner that only helps you. Is the one worth pursuing? I think that also is part of the process of learning who you are, what value you have, what values you have, what values you take to your life is just recognizing that some things you do great and some things.

Maybe not so much, maybe not so much, but that's part of the human experience. Right? I wanted to share this. I have had the opportunity twice now to interview for a management position. The first time was many years ago, I think 10, 10 years ago. And I. Really nervous, just even submitting the application.

I felt it was above me completely and I had to do two interviews and I, you know, was very nervous about what questions I was supposed to ask. I was nervous about answering the questions they were asking me and. This was, I think the, the time when they were starting to ask more behavioral questions. Like, well, tell me about, you know, a time that you saw a crisis and you changed something.

Tell me your weakness. Tell me all that stuff. And I could tell I was just a nervous wreck. I remember doing the interview in my car. I don't know why I was in the car. It was a phone interview to Tennessee and I was just so nervous. I was just so nervous and I was wondering if they could feel my nerves through the telephone.

And I was offered this position. I was offered this position and I, I couldn't believe it. I, I couldn't believe that they chose someone like me, cuz at that time I was not confident in who I was. I. Had a shell confidence, but I didn't have an inside confidence and I was so excited. I felt, I felt like I a little bit of an imposter when you hear that imposter syndrome.

I was like, if they find out that was me who interviewed, they're gonna take the job back. And then I found out something very, very big. I found out I was pregnant. And this was a position that required a great deal of traveling primarily by car. And I sat there, you know, after I found out I was pregnant and I just thought, this does not seem like it's a, an environment I should be in, in this state.

You know, that doesn't sound wise. And so I had to then decline. What I felt was like my dream, my won and only chance, and I declined it and I didn't regret it. You know, this opportunity to be pregnant and have a, a child is without, without regret, you know? It's the way it's supposed to be. Well, that does sound like a missed opportunity, maybe from a career standpoint, a greater opportunity from a life standpoint to be a.

But I learned something from that. I learned a few things. One was that I believed if something is supposed to happen, you will have an opportunity at the right time. Even if everything looked right, it was not the right time, and my belief became just stronger with that idea. It was not my time. The second thing I learned .

Was I need to do a lot more investigation on who I interview with, and what I mean by that is even if I had taken this opportunity, Without looking into, you know, the company, and nowadays a lot of companies are owned by other companies, owned by other companies, and it turned out that the company that I would have worked for was under investigation from the S E C, which is the Securities and Exchange commiss.

It's a big deal, and I watched this unfold for several months. But the bottom line is that this company owned millions and millions and millions of dollars in fines for many things. And in order to pay for those millions and millions and millions of dollars, they closed certain offices. And the office I would have worked out of was one of them.

And so the bigger lesson out of that, Was that my belief that when something's really right, they won't shut down and it will be the right opportunity, it will be the right time, it will be with the right company. And having the witness of that made that conclusion for me even stronger. But what I will say is I also learned to start looking into an organization, not just a job or a career.

But unless I own my own company and I'm working for someone else, I need to know much more about them. I need to know about their C E o. I need to look into their, especially if it's a publicly traded company, I need to actually look at their annual report. I need to look at what their expansion process processes.

I need to investigate the last five years. What have they done? Who works there? What is their background? Because it's not just about a job anymore. Jobs come and go and with them comes us people. But I learned a valuable lesson in gaining a history and learning to interview them as much as they were interviewing me.

So follow. Many, many, many years later, I had another opportunity come up for a director management position within an organization where I would not even report to anyone locally. It was just a national, my direct supervisor would be on a national level and that that first interview went well and I, I remember painting my house at that time, but I don't know why I'm never, Doing something different, but painting and sitting in the car.

But that first interview, which was just so the phone, I could feel it in my own body that I didn't have to make up confidence. I didn't have to make up competence. I, I owned it. And it was through this interview that I realized I've got it. I've got that stuff I was trying to fake earlier, and I felt good because I had finally actualized what I know and who I am, whether or not I had this position, whether or not they picked me.

So needless to say, I asked better questions this time around and. Interviewed them after doing some history on them and, and I felt really comfortable and I was excited about this opportunity. And then it came down to the pay and I was like, you know, I don't need a title. I am not going down that much.

Pay for a title. Like if I have to. And they, and they kept trying to tell me, well, you get to respond and you get to, to talk to the corporate level of the entire company. And I said, well, then they can pay me more. So I was like, you know, I'm not going backwards. I, I just, you know, I'm not, and they, they said, but this is a great opportunity.

And I said, it is. And you have a great applicant and when you can meet X amount of dollars, then we will be in business. And if not, I know you will find a great a. For this position, but her name won't be Bettina Brown. So needless to say, I did not take that position and I felt comfortable with that.

Where before I would've been, oh, I don't know, and I felt stronger about this follow apart or fall apart. Then I did the first time because I understood my. I didn't compromise my value for the sake of a title, and I didn't compromise what I know you should make. I, you know, you don't give someone five times as much responsibility for that pay.

You just don't, you know, I'm just responsible for myself right now and then, yeah, I'm not going backwards. I'm not going backwards. And what felt great about that was I was not going to back off what my principal was and. I think from those experiences, I know it was all about me in that section, but I, I think we learn and I learn that we don't have to hang up from these experiences or missed opportunities or fos, but man, we can learn from them and we can respond more appropriately the next time that we can be confident and competent and clear and concise and that be our true.

Because it is not a missed opportunity. It's another experience. And what if you do feel, yeah, I could have done a little better. You know? What did you learn? There are so many things someone can take away from you. And I've heard this many times. Yeah. That, you know, you can take everything away from someone, but you can't take their heart.

You can't take their soul, and you can't take what's in their mind and. That energy from inside someone, you can't take away. You can't, you can't break that. You can't, you can't put a dollar amount on it and you can't do anything. It's in there. It exists, and you just have to know and believe in yours. And we cannot be so busy looking for the next opportunity that we are blind to the opportunity right in front of us.

You never know what thought. Or ideas is gonna pop up in your head. Just doing what you're supposed to do right now, being in that place, having that conversation with someone, reading that book so that you can talk about it with someone who's not able to read anymore. Because if it's not in large print, they can't read it.

What about sharing a story, sharing your experience that has value for other people, and extending yourself some grace? Because it is all about life and having opportunities, and yes, we should learn and pursue and go, but sometimes it's not about pursuing and going. It's just about being right now and not missing the opportunity to just enjoy this moment of sitting.

Enjoy this TV show. Enjoy petting your dog. Enjoy hanging out with your kid. Enjoy just making a meal for yourself. Just. And with anything, sometimes we don't have to miss out opportunities. We can create them. If something is calling your name, if some idea struck your mind, you will lose nothing by sending out a cold email telling your friends and family what you're interested in, what you're excited about, you will miss nothing.

By creating and giving and donating your experience, your time, your love, and your compassion, you will miss nothing. With that, you will only gain and so will the people around you. So it's that time again, thank you for listening. I appreciate your time today. And hey, if you found this episode valuable or some insights interesting to you, go ahead and leave a review or better yet, share.

Share it with someone that you feel this would be helpful for, because that's what it's all about. You can email me at Bettina@ in the Rising, it's in the comment box below, and I'll see you guys next Tuesday. Let's keep building one another up!