Fear and Bad Behavior

Seth Godin, on fear:

Bad behavior and irrational decisions are almost always caused by fear. If you want to change the behavior, address the fear.

And yet we don’t.

Instead, we impose an embargo or throw someone in prison. We put a letter in the permanent file or put the employee on a performance improvement plan. We walk away from a prospect or blame a lack of sales on our advertising.

“What are you afraid of?” is not just a great line for a movie trailer. It’s a shortcut in understanding what motivates.