Rinse. Repeat.

Refuse to be afraid. Free yourself. Dream.

Rinse. Repeat.

I've found the little three-step exhortation at the top of this page has multiple applications. Longtime readers know that I started saying "Refuse to be afraid" because so much of modern communication seems to be about raising fears. Terrorists are lurking in every dark corner of the land, most of the food you eat may give you cancer or make you obese or both, and termites may eat the foundation of your house unless you treat it with a certain product.

My advice was simply not to fall for it. Refuse to be afraid. OK, you're nervous and/or scared, but don't let it control you. Refuse to be controlled by your fear.

Then I realized not being afraid was only the first step. You're not afraid, fine. Now what? "Free yourself." Get loose of what you were afraid of. Resist the solutions offered by the politicians and the salesmen and create your own answers. Fly.

But free yourself to do what? Fly where? That's where the dreaming starts.

Releasing the fear makes you free — free to dream — dream of doing something amazing.

How do you apply this advice? It depends on what you're afraid of, or what someone else is trying to frighten you with. But it seems to me the process is the same in most cases. Refuse to be afraid. Now that your fear is under control, you can free yourself to consider many options or take the action you feared. Once free, you can set goals, objectives, dreams ... and go for it! (Whatever "It" may be.)

And then move on to the next fear ... rinse, repeat.