I recently retired after 45 years in tech. I started out in 1978 at Bell Labs. I have had great jobs and terrible jobs. Great bosses and horrific bosses. And all the things in between. I did not just survive, I thrived and beyond and worked at 3 start ups and a bunch of other companies large and small. What I learned is to not to be afraid. Regardless of what is happening around you. Fear is the enemy. Don't be afraid to be weird or crazy or whatever is causing you to be timid.
> What I learned is to not to be afraid. Regardless of what is happening around you.
Were you perhaps financially secure enough not to have to fear anything? Or tenured (Bell Labs!) that unemployment wasn't actually a threat to you? YMMV.
While YMMV, a fear response is a choice. You can have all the rational reasons to be afraid (like the bottom of your hierarchy of needs being unmet) and choose to act out of cold rationality rather than fear. Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy - if you can act without fear even when there is justified reason to be afraid, you will be able to easily do so when it isn't justified.
Where I come from, "hav[ing] all the rational reasons to be afraid" and pretending otherwise is called a delusion. I prefer to see the world as it is.
"... is called a delusion". What I am suggesting is not delusion, it is mindfulness and cutting through delusion. When one is presented with something that elicits a fear response (whether the stimulus is rational or not) the goal is to quiet all of the "lizard brain" reactions, and instead formulate a well reasoned response. "Fear is the mind-killer" - while from fiction, still rings true to me - if you react out of fear you will short-circuit internal processes that are far better at long-term reasoning even when at the expense of short-term comfort.
I'm sorry, but that is delusional. It is not possible for humans to forego emotion in favor of logic.