Susan Jeffers – Author Biography
Early Life
Susan Jeffers was born Susan Gildenberg on 3 March 1938 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. She began her studies at Penn State University but left when she married young. After raising her family in Manhattan, she returned to education with determination, earning degrees from Hunter College and a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University.
Career
Jeffers became executive director of the Floating Hospital in New York in 1971 and later taught a course on fear at the New School for Social Research. Drawing on her own struggles with fear and indecision, she wrote Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (1987), which became a self-help landmark, selling millions of copies and appearing in dozens of languages. She went on to write more than fifteen books, including Feel the Fear and Beyond and Embracing Uncertainty, and led workshops and seminars worldwide until her death in 2012.
Major Works
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (1987) is her defining book, supported by a long shelf of follow-ups on fear, uncertainty, and personal power.
Writing Style and Themes
Jeffers wrote in a warm, confessional, encouraging voice, sharing her own vulnerabilities to disarm the reader’s. Her recurring themes are that fear never fully disappears — you act despite it — that pushing through comfort zones builds confidence, and that “I’ll handle it” is the master antidote to anxiety. Her work is practical rather than theoretical: tools, not just ideas.
Legacy
Jeffers became one of the most beloved self-help authors of her generation, often called a pioneer of the modern fear-facing movement. Her title phrase entered everyday speech, and her books continue to guide readers through anxiety decades after publication.
