"Do what you fear and fear disappears"
About this Quote
Schwartz delivers a boardroom-ready version of exposure therapy: fear isn’t a prophecy, it’s a backlog item. The line works because it treats anxiety as procedural, not mystical. “Do” comes first; feeling comes later. That ordering flatters the modern striver’s faith in execution while quietly mocking the instinct to wait for confidence as if it were a permission slip.
The specific intent is motivational, but not in the sugary “believe in yourself” lane. It’s tactical. Schwartz is telling you that fear survives on rehearsal in the imagination, not on contact with reality. Action collapses the fantasy: you discover the feared meeting is just a meeting, the phone call is just a phone call. The implied promise is speed. You don’t need years of self-work; you need a first rep.
The subtext is distinctly mid-century American business culture: risk is framed as a personal bottleneck, not a structural condition. Your dread isn’t a signal that the environment is predatory or the stakes are unfair; it’s a solvable inefficiency inside you. That’s empowering and convenient. It also lets institutions off the hook, shifting the burden of adaptation onto the individual.
“Fear disappears” is the rhetorical sleight of hand. Fear rarely vanishes; it shrinks, changes shape, becomes familiar background noise. Schwartz sells disappearance because it’s cleaner, more marketable, and because it converts courage from a trait into a repeatable process. The line endures because it offers control in a culture obsessed with performance: you can’t always choose outcomes, but you can choose the next scary action.
The specific intent is motivational, but not in the sugary “believe in yourself” lane. It’s tactical. Schwartz is telling you that fear survives on rehearsal in the imagination, not on contact with reality. Action collapses the fantasy: you discover the feared meeting is just a meeting, the phone call is just a phone call. The implied promise is speed. You don’t need years of self-work; you need a first rep.
The subtext is distinctly mid-century American business culture: risk is framed as a personal bottleneck, not a structural condition. Your dread isn’t a signal that the environment is predatory or the stakes are unfair; it’s a solvable inefficiency inside you. That’s empowering and convenient. It also lets institutions off the hook, shifting the burden of adaptation onto the individual.
“Fear disappears” is the rhetorical sleight of hand. Fear rarely vanishes; it shrinks, changes shape, becomes familiar background noise. Schwartz sells disappearance because it’s cleaner, more marketable, and because it converts courage from a trait into a repeatable process. The line endures because it offers control in a culture obsessed with performance: you can’t always choose outcomes, but you can choose the next scary action.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
|---|---|
| Source | The Magic of Thinking Big (1959), by David J. Schwartz — contains a passage commonly rendered "Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain"; the form "Do what you fear and fear disappears" is a common variant. |
More Quotes by David
Add to List
