Given she’s one of a handful of women in history who can fly an F-16, you’d expect Michelle Curran to eat fear for breakfast.
After all, with a call sign like “MACE” (short for “Mach at Circle Entry,” earned after entering a maneuver too fast, breaking the sound barrier, and pulling nine times the force of gravity long enough to nearly lose consciousness), fear ≠ her.
Yet, here she is, in her book, The Flipside: How to Invert Your Perspective and Turn Fear into Your Superpower, openly admitting to things she’s afraid of: spiders, public failure, being judged by others, and all the things that so many of us are petrified of, too.
“It may seem odd that someone who has forged a career performing aerobatic maneuvers inches from another jet would doubt her own abilities,” she points out, “but it’s true.”
So if you’re thinking, “If she feels this way, what does that say about me?”, then her story is for you.
Michelle “MACE” Curran wasn’t born brave
“Yes, definitely not born brave. That is for sure,” Michelle tells Kristina Mӓnd-Lakhiani in her interview on the Mindvalley Book Club.
Brave, growing up in the way she describes, seemed to be something foreign, like Superman falling into Smallville, Kansas (of all places). Though she isn’t from “The Sunflower State,” her hometown wasn’t much different from the one Clark Kent was raised in.
“I grew up in a really small town, like a farming area, rural Wisconsin,” she shares. “I was a very shy, introverted, awkward kid.”
But being so didn’t stop her from being driven and high-achieving. Her plan was to study criminal justice, complete four years in the Air Force to repay her scholarship, then leave to become an FBI agent.
Then, halfway through college, she visited a base and watched two fighter jets take off in full afterburner. That moment shifted her whole life trajectory.
“I was just awestruck,” she recollects. “Goosebumps. Like, I cannot overstate how excited I was about seeing those jets, and I was like, forget the FBI, I have to try to go figure out how to do that.”
But just because she was amped on flying doesn’t automatically flip on the bravery switch for everything else in her life. She says, “I still regularly felt fear and self-doubt.”
Not so much from the physical danger that comes with flying at extreme speeds and forces, but “around judgment of others, letting people down, failing publicly, shame, embarrassment…”
Now, you don’t need to fly at nine Gs like her to know that feeling. Fear can show up forcefully, anytime, anywhere.
Why fear feels so real (even when it isn’t)
Fear can be irrational. Your heart races, your head spins, your palms are sweaty, your vision blurs, you’re at the tipping point of either projectile vomiting or forcing the bile back down… Even in situations that pose no actual danger, like speaking up in a meeting or meeting someone for a first date.
That’s because fear evolved to protect survival, not reputation. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, one of the world’s leading researchers on fear, has shown that the brain reacts to potential threats, real or imagined, by flooding the body with stress hormones before you’ve had a chance to think it through.
By the time you try to talk yourself down, the reaction is already underway. That’s why fear can feel undeniable even when you know, logically, that you’re safe.
Social judgment, public failure, and embarrassment can trigger the same biological response as physical danger. And it’s perhaps why, according to the World Health Organization, more than 300 million people worldwide experience fear-based anxiety.
Michelle, included. As she tells Kristina, the struggle stayed with her for years, showing up early in her career and resurfacing again whenever high-stakes opportunities appeared.
She’s talking about elite selections, leadership roles where mistakes carried weight beyond herself, and high-profile missions under intense scrutiny. That pressure only intensified as she stepped into public-facing roles, speaking on global stages and representing the Air Force as one of the very few female Thunderbird pilots.
“It took me a lot of time and reflection and intentional work to gain perspective on those moments and learn how to leverage them instead of be afraid of them,” she adds.
The thing that she learned, though, is that if fear isn’t something you can outthink, then the only leverage left is how you act when it hits.
Michelle Curran’s go-to tools for turning fear into forward motion
Who better to learn how to work with fear than a combat-trained Air Force female fighter pilot? Here are a few tools Michelle shares in her Mindvalley Book Club interview that can help you, too, move forward under pressure.
Watch her sit down with Kristina for more insights:
1. Disrupt the physical fear response
Fear has a way of hijacking the moment, like the intrusive relative who grabs the mic at your wedding and starts bellowing, “Don’t wanna be all by myself…”
“I hit a vulture with my F-16, a large bird, six-foot wingspan, put two holes through the side of the airplane,” she recalls. “I saw it. I felt it. I heard it. And that is the moment the amygdala is like, ‘uh-oh.’ Like sirens are going off. This is bad.”
She could feel that stress. Her shoulders and arms tensed up, and she felt like every muscle in her body was straining to force the jet to respond. That kind of hostile takeover, mid-air and at tactical airspeed, wasn’t an option.
The advice she got from her instructor? Wiggle her toes.
Grounding techniques like this can help pull you out of an overwhelming fear or anxiety response. Research shows that by doing so, you interrupt your body’s stress cycle and return your focus to the present moment.
There are other methods that can help you ground yourself. Nature walks, mindful breathing, and meditation, just to name a few.
Obviously, when you’re strapped into a cockpit, many of those options aren’t available. That’s why something as simple as wiggling the toes can be, in Michelle’s words, “magical.”
“It was like flipping a switch of like a giant exhale,” she says. “And I suddenly felt back in control.”
2. Shrink the time horizon
When fear hits, everything can feel urgent and endless at the same time. Move too fast, and your decisions turn reactive. Wait too long, and you freeze.
So Michelle’s advice? One minute, one hour, one month.
- One minute: Give yourself permission to, as she says, “feel all the feelings.” Swear, cry, pace, get it out.
- One hour: Look at what actually happened, what you can work with, and who can help you move forward.
- One month: Make a decision and act on it. Focus on the changes you can own so the same situation doesn’t repeat.
So let’s say you get tough feedback at work. It might feel like a gut punch, sure. But take the first minute to shut the door, swear under your breath, feel the embarrassment, and let it pass. Then, the next hour, reread the feedback, identify what’s actually being asked of you, and decide who you can talk to for perspective. Then, the next month is action—you adjust how you show up and change the behavior that caused the issue.
This framework helps build your emotional agility. Not shutting down emotion, just staying in motion.
3. Make “Small Bold Choices” (SBCs)
You know the saying “one step at a time”? Michelle’s version adds a twist: make it small, but make it bold.
“That means,” she explains, “taking the smallest step that you can towards the thing you want that feels slightly bold.”
Research published in the Journal of Mood & Anxiety Disorders shows that taking small, manageable actions toward what you’re avoiding can reduce anxiety. It works better than waiting for confidence to show up first.
You see, fear doesn’t always stop action outright. More often than not, it convinces you to aim too big, too fast, until the risk feels overwhelming and you do nothing at all.
“I don’t want you to go out and like do something wild where the chance of failure is higher, the repercussions of failure are higher,” she warns. “If you do fail, you’ll probably scare yourself back into inaction.”
Here’s the thing about SBCs: they lower the bar without lowering the intent.
So, for instance, you want to get into weightlifting, but you find that it’s really intimidating. Instead, do one thing, like maybe three sets of bench presses. Not a 60-minute full-body workout on 10 different machines. That’s just a recipe for overwhelm.
“So, small bold choices,” says Michelle. “They’re like an entry level to doing bigger and bigger things.”
(Disclosure: This is an affiliate link. If you make a purchase through it, Mindvalley Book Club may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)
Fuel your mind
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Dr. Seuss may’ve had a point.
Books have more use than to fill up shelf space. They can entertain you, pull at your heartstrings, and challenge how you think. And that’s the very reason the Mindvalley Book Club exists: to make reading sexy again.
- Every week, you’ll receive a curated selection of personal growth and business books chosen for depth, relevance, and impact, not hype.
- You’ll get early access to standout new releases, a short list of books worth your time, and a deeper look at one featured title each week.
- You’ll also hear directly from the authors themselves through live interviews and Q&As hosted by Kristina Mänd-Lakhiani.
Joining is free, of course. Just bring your curiosity, and the Mindvalley Book Club will take care of the rest.
Welcome in.
