It was the very first day of my speaking career – ever – and I was boarding a cross town MUNI train to get from my house to San Francisco State University. I was due to deliver my first talk to students. A professor was letting me take over her class for 45 minutes.
I was freaking out with fear. What had seemed like a reasonable idea when I asked for the time in her classroom to speak, now seemed like a suicide mission. I was having trouble breathing as the city train carried me to the school.
Worse than not being able to breath, I was unable to think. My mind was in a total panic over what to say to the students. All my ideas suddenly seemed like garbage. And I was sure that I was going to bomb.
And I wanted to turn around, go home and cancel.
Fear.
Pure fear.
It’s a small miracle that I didn’t cancel. But I didn’t. I went forward bravely and I did the classroom talk. And it went well. Afterwards, it seemed in fact like it went really well. In reality, it probably just went okay, however…
Now it’s 25 years and 1500 paid speaking engagements later and I’m so happy I didn’t let fear stop me that day way back in January, 1993.
Most importantly though, I can see more clearly than ever before, that at the heart of all personal progress, is the ability to be brave when you really needed to be brave.
You can’t let fear determine your decisions.
You really have to work hard to ensure that most important decisions are made based on love, joy, optimism, faith or peace.
Whenever you want to do something great, it’s almost a certainty that fear will strike first in your being. You’ll feel fear in your chest. Or your mind will flip to thoughts so fear-inducing that you’ll almost immediately want to run the other way.
Fear does seem to usually get to be the first in us to “speak” or “react.” But… if you can get past fear’s initial response, if somehow you can deal with the fear and forge on, then in no time at all it’s like you’ve broken the bonds of gravity, and you’re learning to fly.
Man, I was also so afraid while I was writing my first book, Major In Success (Ten Speed Press). Every other day, my fear told me it was going to be a total failure. That was the hardest part about writing it… trying to not give into my fears that it would suck.
The most terrifying fear I ever faced was the fear I had when just contemplating the dream of trying to do a one-man, comedy show. That fear was paralyzing. For 10 years!
Paulo Coehlo said in his book The Alchemist, “Fear is the only thing that can stop a person from reaching their dreams.” I quote this a lot to my audiences. But I’ve never believed it as much as I believe it today.
Here’s the good news. You can press through your fears. You can outgrow your fears (although you’ll likely face new ones). And it’s my experience that the braver you live, the less power your fears ever have over you. I believe that one of my greatest personal accomplishments is the fact that I’m so very much less afraid than I was even 10 years, let alone 20! I can see how much I’ve outgrown my fears.
Make outgrowing your fears one of the top priorities of your life. I’ve been to the other side of fear enough to know that life is waiting for you to realize that you truly don’t have to be afraid of anything. Well, hot stoves and high cliffs aside – but you know what I mean.
I strongly suggest you consider finding a personal practice that helps you overcome whatever fears you discover inside you. Find a way to transcend them. Discover what you’re capable of when you feel extraordinarily safe in your life.
Live Brave,
Patrick
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