Be Fearless
Jean Case, Chairman of the National Geographic Society, and cofounder of the Case Foundation, visited where I worked to talk about her inspiring book, “Be Fearless: 5 Principles for a Life of Breakthroughs and Purpose.” Her stories of changemakers around the world were examples of everyday people making innovations to improve the world around us. Some big takeaways for me: the people were not all wealthy people with funds to spare, and not every innovation was successful. What is notable about the stories is that from failure, great things can happen. As she says, “Every great innovator has failed, but only the true great among them find ways to apply the lessons of the failures to propel them forward.”
Her recipe for success is broken down into five themes:
Make the Big Bet
Be Bold, Take Risks
Make Failure Matter
Reach Beyond Your Bubble
Let Urgency Conquer Fear
It’s not to avoid fear, or to think that only the fearless are successful, but it’s important to use the anxiety and fear of the unknown to fuel the next thing one might do in their personal or professional life. A great piece of advice I was given during a challenging time in my life was this, “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.” What? Who wants to do that?
Learning new skills can be unnerving, because we put ourselves out of the expert zone, for those of us who are well into our careers, and back into the student’s chair. I personally love the student’s chair and am wistful for the classroom every September. Last year, I took on a new challenge to learn to podcast. I’ve been interviewing people for many years, recording lots of interviews of experts in their field. But putting my own voice online was daunting, and it took time to build a level of comfort with my guests to become more confident and make the podcast sound more like a conversation and less like a Q&A.
So, that’s me. I’d love to hear what you are doing to get out of your comfort zone!