Its all about overcoming your fear.

Its all about overcoming your fear, its all about going to the edge, giving it all you have. I believe that it is everyone’s sacred duty to be prepared to do the biggest thing possible that needs to be done at any given moment. That’s not to say that doing the big thing is always easy – but doing the big thing is always necessary.

The legendary actor Hume Cronyn once told a story about meeting Orson Welles in the late 1930s: “I was lunching at Sardi’s one day and Orson came over to say hello. I had just seen his Julius Caesar. He had given it in modern dress. It was the only time I had seen that work as a comment on fascism, and it was very stirring. I said to Orson, ‘What I admired about your production is your sheer courage.’ ‘Courage?’ Wells replied…. ‘Courage! That’s going to the edge – because you have to be good.”

Going to the edge can be scary, but it’s a consistent habit of achievers. As you approach a self-imposed barrier, you many hear a voice saying, “This far and no farther”. It’s not the barrier’s voice that you hear. Listen carefully. Do you recognize it? It’s your own!

The next time you feel fear in pursuing a goal, ask yourself, “Am I listening to my fear or my courage?” Either choice can become a habit.

Any forward movement involves risk, and an unconditional faith and belief in you. Risk of raising one foot, rendering yourself unstable with the belief that when you put your step back on the ground, it will hold you, and hold you well before you fall. Every single step involves this risk and faith combination. Every time you climb a ladder, you let go your hands to catch the upper rung of the ladder and you also move your foot to place it on the upper rung, and you believe in your subconscious that everything would be alright, and its worth the risk.  Every time you eat, your epiglottis closes your windpipe so that the morsel doesn’t go into it and choke you to death, but this small piece of muscle may fail; if you ask a doctor he would say there is no guarantee that it will close always, scientifically it may fail, but you take the risk and have faith in this tiny piece of muscle mechanism to work, because the risk is worth taking for your survival.

Compare these life and death risks that you take every day since you were born to the risk we need to take in our daily life. You take these life and death risks without even bothering to think that you are taking any risks, it has become systemic. When your mind can be trained to take these life and death risks in its stride, why can’t it be trained to take the other risks which are important for your growth, for good of the society, community and people. It sure can. People, ordinary people around you get over this fear.

When a young marketing executive goes out in the market for his first sales call, he has this fear looming large over him, when he dials a prospect’s number, he prays that the person at the other end doesn’t pick the phone, and he would right in his response register that the “Did not pick the call”, but while this is going on his mind, he is mustering courage and continues to hold on to the ringing bell, and he hears a “Hello, who is this?” from the other end of the phone, he develops cold feet, feels like hanging the phone, but in that tiny fraction moment of time, he gathers the faith on his training and trust on himself, and answers – “Sir this is…..”. Fear is an image in your mind, born out of stories of failures in the world. Stop the source of that image and you will be good.

Similarly when you go out to make your first speech in the college auditorium, with all the teachers and students looking at you, you have prepared your speech well, but you find that your knees are shaking, you are feeling numb while you are moving towards that podium, you hold on to the lectern, and you find your hands are sweating profusely, you are so scared, that you feel like saying sorry and running away. But you garner courage and start to speak “Respected Principal…..” and you realize you have made a damn good speech from the thunderous applause you receive from the crowd after you finish speaking, some of your friends are even standing and cheering you. You achieve your moment of glory, a glory you could achieve because you gathered enough courage, and overcame your fear.

If you don’t summon the courage necessary to take care of a problem, the problem may take care of you.

These were  examples  of risk of failure, the dent to your “image”, “self-esteem”, which is nothing but euphemism to ego. The risk doesn’t render you physically impaired and doesn’t kill you, if something goes wrong or your calculations fail, but there are risks which are fatal, there are risks where all calculations say that you are going to die, but then you think your mind, well is it worth it? Should I go for it and your ‘self’ answers, well go for it, its worth it. It is worth for all the people around. In the plane crash on 29^th June 2018, the pilots, Pardeep Rajput and Marya Zuberi showed that ultimate courage, when they took their plane to a construction site to minimize the causalities, every single crew died in the crash, but this death toll could have been enormous, if the plane crashed anywhere else in the very densely populated Ghatkopar area.  

Look around you, there are enough brave-hearts, every day heroes to drive inspiration for, just keep them in your mindscape and see the courage and an attitude to going out to the edge, and giving it all you have comes so naturally to you.