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TEDx Talks
Published: 2010-06-09
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkFRwhJEOos
morning everyone still owned and leading with my Twitter acclaim here you can't do a thing about it so cool how come we discovered a few questions this morning and %HESITATION my first question can anyone tell me what the number for fear is in the world any guesses shouted out I know not spiders helmet stakes number for fear and granted that the service going to change a
little bit but very often is listed as dad that they were not the number one fear in the world we it's like a no brainer for anybody here right public speaking does it bother anybody here that people are more afraid of speaking than dying I'm I'm just wondering %HESITATION there's also there's a little known now number one point one fear they don't know what that one
is that's that's actually point one percent of people now the I. number one point one fear we're gonna move through this this morning so take two seconds here I just turned to the odd strange bizarre human being sitting next year I say hello okay don't get too friendly no chest bumping in the aisles calm down guys I have eighteen minutes okay so I'm gonna move on
now I'm gonna move on now and I want to take you back to a time in my life about nine years two thousand one it was a pivotal year for me %HESITATION for a number of reasons the biggest of which is that's the year that I became and that was the most magical is still the most natural thing in my world %HESITATION it's also the I
did something a little bit odd I signed the lease on that a six year lease on a Florida building in the city that lived in with the goal of opening when I hope to be the premier yoga sent %HESITATION which if I was a guy who came to know the world maybe it wouldn't be so odd that I was a guy who not too long before
was a venture capital layer in a large firm so the court is pretty much anybody around me I had no experience no reputation no investors know clients and no to him business doing this with a three month old baby and a family and a home Cup I think that may be a little bit careful just the slightest bit anxious a study by the way and and
this is the support I got %HESITATION by those closest to me %HESITATION and by the way that the night that I signed that lease appetite for some odd reason I slept like a baby that night it's really great so %HESITATION so I go to bed that night little bit freaked out about what I was doing was the right call this is my dream this is a
thing that I think is gonna make me cum a lot nervous anxious can handle this the city was New York the day that I signed the lease September tenth two thousand one when I woke the next morning my seat was literally in that was a long time to your hair and what you hear my voice now talking about this isn't isn't well yeah it's nerves about
talking here but that's not what really you're hearing what you're hearing is for those of us that were in the city that day as far from that date as we remove ourselves still right there still and the first thing that happens that morning as my thoughts are splitting between two warring things one wants to put it on now because everybody knew somebody if we were in
the city who did I know that I know somewhere that was in the towers that day and then the other thing it was bouncing between let's when I delete my seriously going to launch a business into this into this abyss of pain and morning and sadness and remind %HESITATION cells also that at that moment we didn't know if this was the first of many or if
this was it %HESITATION hand as the day progressed and I was talking to my wife we start to realize we didn't that know somebody who is working in the hundred or one of the towers a father of a friend of ours wasn't married father the two and a half year old and a nine month old son and then she just finished with their dream home few
months earlier at the suburbs so we pop my daughter into the car we drove out there to the house where there was a vigil going on hoping for some word that sadly would never come and as the day progressed and as people made their way home it ended up being just our friend the wife and and my wife and me and %HESITATION my daughter who was
sleeping with two kids and and the two moms went up and put the nine month old slate and asked me if I would go and read the two and a half year old the story and I remember it's it's like it was a there today I remember walking up the steps is that not knowing what to expect opening his door and and seeing him just sitting
there %HESITATION flannel PJ is half cocked favorite book in his lap the end wondering who he is he would be doing here knowing that I was a guy who had now trying just in some way making feel okay and I sat down to read the story to him slowly he laid back he fell asleep and in that moment as I was sitting there something something which
there was a realization that this is it my friend did not go to work that morning expecting never come home path this is our by the FBI and as I look back on that moment there's there's something that Steve Jobs said a number of years later and it's actually it's two thousand five commencement speech at Stanford where he said remembering that you're going to dis the
best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose your already naked there is no reason not to follow your heart so driving home that that evening my mind is I'm thinking okay going back to the you know the studio on the the least that I just signed it and that the huge amount of money of about to spend to make
this business a reality and I really gonna do this and I really gonna do this it's something at that I that I have to do now because I feel this is our bite at the apple this is my shop and my filled with fear and anxiety ha yeah big time but this is my one chance I don't get do lowers so as we went home and
I think I made the decision to actually go forward with it I was asking these questions I was saying to myself do I launched my company or walk away do arise about fear and anxiety and based in large part of that moment of what had just happened in that room with this two and a half year old boy the answer was yes and I went ahead
and I launched it and that studio then over here seven years grew into one of the largest most successful studios in New York City %HESITATION and potentially in the country where more important than that I had an opportunity over that period time to touch the lives of tens of thousands of people to impact people's lives in a deeper way from around the world we trained hundreds
and hundreds of yoga teachers at the same time I became this magical expansion and actually in December two thousand nine I I sold that company but this whole experience started me something that led me to want to explore deeper to try and figure out what is it what is it that makes people some people able to just move past fear to move past anxiety and actually
do the things which terrified that of and what is it that makes people just stopped cold %HESITATION and and we're gonna go into that new freebie questions ever going to explore but %HESITATION first I want to ask you a question that I show you a picture in a second and I'm gonna ask you a question about it before you see it's we can really focus in
on the answer and question is very simply what color are the laces color are the laces okay game eternal color laces were why is everyone in relations were white no polkadot snooping no nothing get to pretty much foreign is something people there in here said okay one second white laces but a second question let the girl what color dress which you are let go take a
look in the sunglasses the girl lying down on the dock reflected wearing a white dress the question is why did nobody noticed her and I've done this know that you get this lined up for a minute and nobody sees the girl why doesn't anyone see her it's because nobody told you to look for nobody told you look for her we start to realize my exploration about
fear is that very often it starts with the questions that we ask in the things that we observe but also beyond that the really big thing is it's about the things that we don't notice the questions we don't ask in the things that we don't see that really take that fear and just went up lost so I'm asking what I've written about %HESITATION how do you
handle fear you seem to be somebody who's moved through his large number of businesses whose change careers make huge changes life how do you handle it and my answer is always a question that which is fear of what and the three big fears that always come up or fear of failure fear of judgment and all the enough fear of success there's a real fear of success
freaks people out and we never have Liggett think of the business per second and say but if this scales too quickly I'll never be able to handle the demand and I'll shut me down destroyed my life a real concern but the real thing the big thing when you go back to the top ten phobia list of these three the thing that's always on their fear of
failure if you feel you can be this devastating thing because we just ask this question we asked what if I fail and then instead of just creating a realistic scenario say okay this is what happens I'll get through it what we do is we create a doomsday scenario and I don't nobody in this room has done that's but you probably know some people that may have
done that you spend in your head pull my god if this thing collapses of you lose everything my home my relationships on public and get thrown in the country if not the planet I have to live in the arctic and take away my shoes at the raw fish for the rest of my life to be the biggest disaster on the planet and then that creates this
thing where it shut us down it just takes the fear and anxiety and it ramps it up big time we do something even wore powerful we take a doomsday scenario though his spin and based on that is that right so what happens when you hit spin is sadly even though we're sitting this beautifully university hall and some of the brightest people in the world I'm shoring
here we're so much closer to Pavlov's dogs that we've ever like thing because the way our brains were is repetition breeds Billy we can start with a thought a factor scenario or vision and in our minds regardless of whether starts in truth in what we repeated then we believe that to be the absolute truth the only possible outcome not a mental model but in the model
of the world there is no other option and the more we buy into that more we buy into the fact that this is the only possible outcome for this thing the more were absolutely engulfed with fear and anxiety and the more it becomes paralysis we can't live we can't move but there's one thing which is even more serious than that it stops us our focus on
this stops us from asking to other questions which a mission critical to our ability to reframe fear and move through it those two questions are what if I do nothing once I succeed so let's go back whenever cycle back and we can go through the three question what if I fail now it's important I ask this question you don't blow it off but in asking what
I want you to do next time is take that question and is there creating a fantastical doomsday scenario they want to do is create a very realistic now what if I can't write it out create a picture making a movie make it as vivid as you can but that's only half of the what if I fail question the other half is how will I recover and
give equal attention to that picture plot out exactly what you'll do to get yourself back when most people find is just doing that alone goes a long way towards dis empowering if you're a failure because they realize almost everything is recoverable it makes up a little bit it may be hard but it's recoverable take that scenario now the realistic scenario set it aside and we move
on to the second question which is what if I do nothing and for a lot of people what if I do nothing seems like a no brainer question but the reality is for most people the what if I do nothing is the most horrible scenario out there because if there's some opportunity there something you're not doing now that would make you come alive because you're being
paralyzed by fear and anxiety if those opportunities present themselves over and over and over during the course of your life five ten twenty thirty years from now and you keep backing away doing nothing do you think that you just keep going sideways and I think it's come home along if you're a little bit unhappy now do you think ten twenty thirty years of doing nothing will
keep a little bit unhappy now if you're a little bit overweight now do you think ten twenty or thirty years of sitting behind a desk in eating cheesecake for breakfast will keep you the same weight if your relationships are a little bit pants now do you think if you do nothing they'll still be a little bit tense come twenty thirty years from now now there is
no sign of his life simple fact is life applies friction there is no sideways there's up or down and life conspires organically slowly greatness to a whole it's not a bad thing or good thing it's just a thing part of our job is to apply lubrication energy to change it you got during go up there is no sideways so when you answer the do nothing scenario
you create a very realistic picture of what will my life look like if I do nothing I will most people find is when you track that out five ten fifteen twenty years that is the form more terrifying scenario in failure and recovery great that's near your head set it next to the failure recovery and now we get to move to the third one the third one
and this is where we have fun because so far we've been talking about re framing and disempowered in fear and anxiety but now we talk about hope now we move to the other side of the equation where am I going and we ask the final question what if I succeed what if I succeed right now what I I have another question for you who in this
room is sitting here who in this room is sitting here not doing something that they believe in the heart has the opportunity to make them come alive maybe it's introducing yourselves to somebody you would like to connect with maybe it's starting a company maybe it's starting a project whatever it is who is not doing that thing who would do it if you were a hundred percent