Facing Your Fears: A Navy SEAL’s Guide to Coping with Fear and Anxiety

Navy SEAL Mann (Navy SEALs) delivers a slim, underwhelming guide to overcoming one’s fears. Divided into three chapters on identifying, embracing, and letting go of fears, the book explores the most common fears people have, such as fear of change, uncertainty, and failure, as well as less existential fears such as of heights and public speaking. Mann stresses that figuring out the fear behind each particular fear is the first step toward overcoming them. The advice is simple enough and involves repeated exposure to one’s fears, visualization, recognizing microsuccesses, having a positive mindset, and getting used to leaving one’s comfort zone. Well-known success stories are referenced, though often the connection between overcoming a fear and how the success was achieved remains vague or tenuous. For example, the author relays an abridged biography of former pro football player Jerry Rice and how he did not let the fear of failure hold him back—but there’s no evidence provided that Rice had a fear of failure in the first place. Though SEAL training is referenced throughout, Mann doesn’t offer much in the way of his own experiences with fear during his missions or in life. Readers looking for specific advice garnered from Mann’s life as a SEAL will be disappointed by this overly loose program. (Mar.)