My Fun, My Memories, My Life...: Mountain Dew

Mountain Dew - Rise above Fear

Fear should be a crucial element in everyone’s life.
Success: If a student does not have the fear of “Failing in a subject” he/she will not prepare hard for the examinations.
Sincerity: If an employee does not have the fear of Termination, they won’t be sincere in their job.
Punctuality: If a person does not have the fear of missing a Train or bus, then they won’t be on time to the spot.
Self-control: If a diabetes patients does not have the fear of “Sugar Level“, then they won’t limit themselves from taking sweets or taking medicine at proper time.
Discipline: If a men does not have the fear of getting Humpty- Dumpty, then he won’t hit the gym or exercise to keep him FIT.
If a driver does not have the fear of accident, then they won’t be wearing helmets or follow traffic rules.
If we don’t have the fear of break-up, then there won’t be any genuineness in love life.

So, Fear is very much needed in-order to keep us dynamic towards the positive traits of life. It’s in our control to decide whether we can seizure those fear to a constructive growth or use those deadly fear to destroy ourselves.

When we are a kid, we did fell down from bi-cycle numerous times. Though we had the fear of falling down again, every time we fall down we got up with the willpower. We are an excellent drives today because we were not scared of those hurt. If we are perfectionist in any field today, it means that we had once overcome those fear.

There was one incident - a turning point in my life;
I had been killing myself from NOT chasing my passion due to fear.

"One has to take risks in life to succeed", My dad keep repeating every second and I did overcome that fear and achieved that Passion.

That Passion was to publish my novel. I want to see me as an Author. But I had so many Fears

Fear or Rejection from Publishers
Fear of Critics
Fear of facing audience during book launch,
Fear of Appreciation
Fear of choosing cast and People for work
Fear of my English Language.
Fear of Failure and the list goes on...

Fear of Rejection from publishers:
This fear was my major road blocker that was stopping me from pursuing my dream. At one stage, I pushed myself hard to face any kind of rejection from publisher.

All I wanted was “at least” a reply from any publisher. Even if it is a rejection with harsh comments, I decided to work on those comments. JK Rowling and Chetan Bhagat had many rejections initially. My target was to make a publisher accept my manuscript at least in the 50th attempt. I started counting my rejection list First, second….third :) Hooray!!!, I was so lucky that, my novel was accepted by the third publisher “GoodTimes Reads”

Fear of my English Language
My manuscript was rejected by 2 publishers initially for my English language. They were afraid that my manuscript did not follow any rules that a novel should follow. At First, I was taken back. But, then I decided to improve my language. I went for profession help. I did a proof read to gain my confidence. Now, I am actively participating in all Indiblogger contest, writing more post and short stories, reading more books to understand the language style used. Proof Read is must for any novel, but my motive is to reduce the number corrections in the future.

Fear of facing audience during book launch:
This fear stopped myself from having a book launch. I firmly said “No” to the publisher for book launch, dreading that I would not be able to face audience questions and my chief guest.. For me, that complete atmosphere would be an alien world. But after continuous request from my publisher and from my friends and family, I decided to prepare myself for book launch. I saw all the Book launch videos and prepared myself for the big day. I voluntarily participated in a “Speak-on” Forum (A forum that inspires people for public speaking), gave numerous guest lectures in non-profit organization and trainings in my organization to overcome the fear of public speaking.
I also had a fear whether someone would turn up for a debut author’s book launch. To make my book launch a hit, I launched photo contest competition and also give away contest in good reads.
My book launch went successful.

Fear of Appreciation:
I get embarrassed when people talk something good about me. If someone says, my outfit is fabulous I don’t know how to react. When my book cover was released first, people cherished me in front of others. That was the most awkward moment. Later, to overcome this, I took the appreciation as it is for someone. In that way, I always reminded Miss. Cool.

Fear of choosing cast and People for work:
As a part of my contract, I promised my publisher that I would be making a video (book Trailer) for book promotion. I was terrified to choose my cast, shooting location, cinematographer, Editor, back ground music. I was not confident to play a fair role in picking the best ones in all. Then I put so much time in researching. For choosing a cinematographer and Editor, I invested my time in reviewing their past works and collected the feedbacks. I googled and learned lot of things about Editing and photography. It took a long duration, since I was an amateur in taking a video. Twice I failed in editing. But instead of screaming about it, I looked in for reasons and rectified. I keep a feather on my hat, whenever I see my debut video, because it taught me valuable lessons like confidence, approaching a stranger and appointing them for work, forming a team, creating a friendly atmosphere. For everything the base was to crack the Fear and get into action.

Fear of Critics:
Whenever a product is launched, a lot of people would be out there just to look the negative characteristic of it. It’s their money and it’s nothing wrong to expect it to be worthy enough. I did had that fear.
People will not give another chance considering I am a debut author. If it goes to world, it will be compared against debut authors as well as top selling authors. But this fear, craved to standardize the content of my novel. Before my novel goes to the world, I took few professional critics help. I sent my manuscript for critics review and got mixture of both positive and negative remarks. This in fact boosted my confidence and decided to take each critics as a positive milestone in my author’s journey.
I requested few authors to review my book. Sincere Thanks to all the authors Prasanta Mahanta, Arjun Deep Singh Pahwa, Arpit Vageria, Mehek Bassi, Samarth Prakash and Robert L. (Rob) Bacon who invested their time and gave a wonderful review.

Fear of Failure:
It’s always the fear of failure push us to the next level and in fact teach us a valuable lesson. All I could recollect was, a decade ago I don’t know what is writing. If my dad request me to participate in a writing competition, I would just whizz off.

Before 6 years, starting a blog itself came with a package of surprise. I keep screaming that readers would post destructive commentaries. I postponed creating a blog. But yes, I quit that fear and created a blog one fine day. Thanks to my first post. Though it was damn, damn crap but that was definitely my base for my author building today. My friends says my writing is getting matured day by day. So, Even if I fail today, after 5 years, I will be definitely a successful Author.

We can always find 1000 fears in life to reason for not doing something. Take down a paper divide into 2 columns. Write down all your fears in one column and in the next column try to write down “The ways to overcome it” (Even Excel would do)
I am sure you will enter a new destiny, which will be FEAR FREE :)

P.S – This post is not for the girls who avoid junk and oily foods for the fear of “PIMPLES” and fear for the huge insect C….C…..CO….COCKROACH. (:P)

I recently saw this Mountain Dew ad in TV and simply loved it. The making was awesome. This video conveys Rise above Fear to achieve your desire. Its lovely. Click on the below video to watch in Tamil. Arya's Die hearted fans "Dont miss it". The back ground lyrics "Achamillai Achamillai" written by "Mahakavi Bharathiyar" gives goosebumps. Here is my Embedded Video for the same.

Click here to watch in Telugu.

This post is written as a part of "Rise above Fear" organized by Mountain Dew in assocation with Indiblogger Happy Hours contest.

Contest Details:

Rise above fear! #IndiHappyHours @IndiBlogger @MountainDewIn

Fear is a fact and one has to take risks in life to succeed. So tell us about the risks you have taken to overcome your fear and claim victory!

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