When asked how he became comfortable drawing boundaries with potentially huge consequences — losing lovers, business, friends — Brett describes a practice of feeling the feared outcome and grieving it before it happens. “Pre-grieving the loss. Recognizing that maybe I am in a codependent relationship with a partner or a client and that the moment I draw a boundary to make sure my needs are met they will attack me. That can actually really happen.”
This isn’t positive thinking or reassurance. Brett acknowledges the worst case fully: they might leave, they might badmouth you to everyone. “That’s the situation I’ve gotten myself into through avoiding fear.” But having felt and grieved those outcomes, the fear no longer controls the decision. The short-term pain becomes acceptable because the long-term result is living more authentically — even if it means different relationships.
Brett demonstrates this concretely with his business crisis: when a major client cut their contract, dropping the company from cash flow positive to negative, he lay down and let his body shake with fear. Having processed it, he immediately saw the opportunity rather than spiraling into months of avoidance. His team’s prior preparation — hiring a VP of sales, building a pipeline — was itself the result of having listened to earlier fears about what would happen if they lost business.
“There’s a bunch of stacked fears having been listened to that led us to be in the position that we could turn it around that quickly.”
Related Concepts
- Heartbreak is expansion
- Boundaries are scariest because of freedom
- Feel the false end to dissolve overwhelm
- Keeping it together as a leader blocks team trust
- Fear of consequences is really fear of emotional states