President Franklin D. Roosevelt said: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Speaker and “Fearless Living” author Rhonda Britten agrees.

“Fear kills,” she said. “It kills relationships. It kills careers. It steals self-esteem. It takes away your ability to love, thinking that you can’t love or that you’re unlovable. It takes away your passion. It covers up your purpose.

“Fear is the only thing that stands between you and your ability to succeed in any area of your life.”

Today Britten tours internationally, speaking to audiences about how to live without fear. Recently she was in the Kansas City area for a book signing.

And she knows her subject well. Rhonda Britten got a hard lesson in fear in 1975, when she was just 14 years old.

“My parents had recently separated,” she said. “It was Father’s Day and my father was coming over to take us to brunch. As he comes over, my dad goes to his trunk to get a coat, but he didn’t get a coat. He got a gun.”

It was then, she said, that her worst fear was realized. It’s what Britten calls a universal fear: the fear that you’re not good enough.

“Within 30 seconds I saw my father murder my mother and commit suicide,” she said.

For the next 11 years Britten struggled with fear, nightmares and suicide attempts  until she finally decided to master her fear. She said it was “either that or die.”

So how can you tell whether you’re living fearlessly?

“If you complain, if you make excuses, if you beat yourself up, if you get disappointed, if you worry, if you can’t accept a compliment  you have fear,” she said.

There’s only one way to start living without fear  by mastering it, rather than overcoming or confronting it, Britten said.

“Give up complaining  give up your excuses. Start taking responsibility for your life,” she said. “That will start building up your self-confidence to give you the ability to take more risks and have the life of your dreams.”