I have the same issues as my clients, including the occasional bout with irrational fear. (As a consultant I’d like to tell you I’m above such things, but you’d know I was lying by the fact I already choose to be born human.) Here’s my deal: I am currently seeking outside financing to expedite product development and sales growth for my business. I’m having all kinds of conversations, doing all the right things, yet I’m also waking up from nightly dreams of aliens taking over my home. I think my subconscious is trying to tell me something… like that I’m afraid of losing control to people I feel I don’t understand. (It doesn’t take Joseph to interpret this one.) This experience is a perfect analog to my clients who are moving from expert to manager, or manager to executive, whose actions belie a similar, subconscious fear of the unknown. We don’t feel it, but it must be there… why else would I be waking up in the middle of the night! But here’s the real kick in the teeth: we can’t think our ways through it; it’s not an intellectual process. The more we try, the more stuck we can feel ourselves get. This is a process that is solved on the same subconscious level at which it exists, a level only accessible from an emotional plane. Smart or simple has nothing to do with one’s ability to access it.
For this reason, those of us accustomed to solving our problems through critical thought may find dealing with issues like this doubly difficult.
