Don’t play it ‘safe’

Ever since I was a toddler, there have been eerie and prophetic moments in my life, wherein people whom I barely, or in most cases, not at all, knew, vaticinating that One day, "he’s gonna be a great man”. Now, I truly never realised, nor had I had the forethought to appreciate how that would play into my future or my upbringing. And when I would hear that from someone I would almost instantly get into thinking about being great at my work or dream job or whatnot, but I was not able to see what they saw in me.. When I was 12, I was so frustrated by what had been happening in the U.S. with the president back then clamping down on people of specific religions, with his blatant discrimination against specific people, his incendiary rhetoric, his divisive attitude and sheer aptitude to act in perverse ways, and I had had enough of witnessing such outrageous injustices occurring and nothing being done about it,and then I had a brilliant idea, I would go on social media, and protest his reprehensible actions, and I thought, surely, I would make a wave as a 12-year-old excoriating and reviling their current, U.S. president, then, and that might inspire others thus inducing change, but.. I was .. shackled by my own fear and angst of how it might go, afraid of failure and making a change and standing for what I believed in. So, I didn’t do anything, and the idea withered on the vine, and never materialized. That, with hindsight, was indeed my most grave and consequential mistake ever. I had allowed my fear of failure, uncertainty of how it may play out, as well as how others, including my parents, would view it and react to my bodacious undertaking, to limit and inhibit me, and kill that opportunity that will never be repeated, simply because, I’ll never be 12-years-old ever again!

The moral of the story is, that you should never ever let your own fear, or other people’s opinions, be a factor in defining who you are, because, at the end of the day, none of that actually matters, what matters is what you choose to do, and who you choose to be! As Jim Kwik encapsulates this perfectly in his book, ‘Limitless’; “Creating the life you want can be scary” Really though, you know what’s scarier? Regret. One day we will take our final breaths and not one, of either the other people’s opinions of you, or your own fears, will matter.What will matter is how we lived. Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from. People will doubt you and criticize you no matter what you do. You will never know your true potential until you break the shackles of the unfair judgements you place on yourself. Don’t allow other people’s opinions and expectations to run or ruin your life." 

When I was a circa 14-year-old, I had an epiphany, I was to dedicate my life to serving humankind and changing the world, and that was caused in small part by the sheer amount of inspiring wisdom which I had already assimilated; this time, I not only had an idea, but also a plan, a definite purpose, and not merely a frustration about a U.S. president to convey. One would think that by that time, I should've learnt a lesson or two, from my previous stalled endeavour, and be courageous, valiant and muster enough grit, to break through the unfair and limiting fears which I had imposed upon myself.. But, NO! I still procrastinated, groped for excuses on why I should ‘wait’ due to my age, and still shackled and hindered myself and strangled yet another attempt at creating the kind of change that I wanted to see in the world. My plan was thwarted by me listening to what others said, and letting the noise of others drown out my inner voice, and, right then and there, another initiative was sunk into the depths.

This time it had a profound impact on me, and particularly on my mental health. The fact that I had recently lost my father surely didn't help but to compound the toll on my mental health and wellbeing even further, and consequently I got so dejected and terrified because I felt hopeless and impotent, to the point that I barely saved myself from going into depression, when I was on the verge of it, then luckily I was able to get a hold of the situation just before it developed into clinical depression. Now, when I look back, and in retrospect, I am thankful for the experience, as it made me stronger, and it allowed me to have gone through some bad times, which left me able to appreciate the good times that ensued a few years later. As Les Brown once said "If you never tasted a bad apple, you would not appreciate a good apple. You have to experience life, to understand life." and that experience, right then and there, allowed me to have some tough times to be contextualized with the better times that followed.

Now I wanna ask you all a simple question? How many of you are afraid of something? It can be anything. It can be this monster lurking in the closet, it can be this ghost hiding under your bed, it can be this snake that you're so frightened of, anything that makes you simply faint. Now, if I asked you, 'Is that fear real?', you might answer with a 'yes', 'no' or be dubious. Well, the truth is ... 

Fear is not real. It is an abstract and illusory construct of the human mind. Fear is nothing but what you make of it. You can either choose to spend your entire life living in fear (that you created), or tell yourself that 'fear' isn't a word where you come from. 

Fear is only real when we choose to allow it to materialise in our minds. But, to understand how to overcome our fears, it is imperative that we first be aware of the type of fear that it is.

Firstly, let's zoom in on the arguably the most pervasive and pernicious fear of all: The fear of uncertainty.

Now, why do you think you feel anxious before an undertaking, such as a final exam, and when it has passed, that feeling fades away in no time? Why?? ... Because, we humans fear uncertainty. We always think of what can go wrong and also what we have to lose or to give up, instead of focusing on what we have to gain. In other words, our minds are wired for negative thinking. And it is those negative thoughts, or as Jim Kwik calls them "ANTs", or "Automatic Negative Thoughts", that render us fearful. As Will Smith reminds us "Fear is not real. It is the product of the thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice." Fear was meant to protect us from danger, back in the days we were hunter/gatherers, but you see, these primordial instincts more often than not actually do not serve us in our modern world, they instead inhibit us from true greatness and from realizing our true potential and mission in this world. Do not fear what you simply do not understand. (unless of course, danger is implied)

Now, on to the second type of fear I want to talk about today, and that is the infamous fear of failure. 

As one of my heroes, Mr. Jay Shetty, once said "Too many of us are not living our dreams because we're living our fears." Isn't that true? Just think about it. When you get to a job interview, you get very nervous and anxious, you may even inadvertently dampen your self-confidence, perturb yourself and lose your composure, making yourself diffident and timorous, essentially ruining your interview before it even starts. Why??.. Well, it's because you are afraid of failure. And why is that??.. Because, you are not certain that it will go smoothly and that you'll succeed in securing that job. And this fear of failure is what paralyses you, essentially, rendering you powerless, perplexed and devoid of self-confidence. So, we've so far established that fear is something that humans create and is an inner instinct ingrained in us, tens if not hundreds of thousands of years ago, as a protective measure which no longer serves us,  but instead limits us, and to un-limit ourselves, we need to overcome both these types of fears.

We tend to focus too much on the negatives, and on what could go wrong, instead of redirecting our energy and concentration on what will go right. And it actually may come at a cost, by being afraid of failure, due to our fear that we may not succeed, in fact, worsens our odds of success. So, we’re effectively sabotaging and undermining all of our training, preparations, efforts and success through being overly hesitant and diffident. Even if we fail, don't be the reason for which we failed, left rueing with profound regret the fact that it was our lack of self-confidence and hesitancy that made us shy or timid, and not our true selves  at all, and which had cost us whatever we were trying to achieve. Failing doesn't make us a failure, it is through failure that we succeed. As Winston Churchill once said "Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."

One of my favourite quotes is from Eric Edmeades (a leading authority in Behavioral Change Dynamics), when he said, whilst referring to people's fear of public speaking, "Nervousness is simply excitement with a negative expectation. It's just that you're excited with a  negative expectation. On the other hand, excitement is just nervousness with a positive expectation. That's all it is. They're the same thing. So, if you feel nervous before you're walking on stage, all it is, is you're imagining it going badly"

As Wayne Dyer  (rip.  - he was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker..) said "When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change", and thus, when we change our perspective from "I've always failed at this so I will never succeed" to "It doesn't mean that because I've been hitherto bad at doing this thing, that I'll always be like that". That shift in our way of thinking has an unimaginably transformational impact on the way we operate. Our brain is like a supercomputer, it runs whatever software is embedded in it. Whatever software we have running our brain, will determine our mindset and belief system, and consequently, our thoughts and actions. So do NOT be afraid of failure, for failure is a treasure brimming with life lessons, waiting to be learned. As Irish novelist Samuel Beckket (rip) once said "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better". And we always shall learn from our shortcomings and mistakes. Our minds rust from disuse and our potential fades away as they're not being chased. You're akin to a ship that, as Paul Coelho (de Souza, a Brazilian lyricist and novelist) puts it "is safest when in port", but the truth is, it'd be a shame if we let that ship sit there just languishing over at the port, while it's clearly not meant for that.

The third type of fear we have is the fear of change itself.

There's a saying that people dread change because they always know what they have, but they don't always know what they're gonna get. Again, we focus on what we could lose that we blind ourselves to what we could gain. As Wayne Dyer (rip,Wayne Walter Dyer was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker) said, “Change is the only constant in life”, therefore, if you always crave stability and constancy, without even a hint of change , well, you'll be in for some really agonizing disappointment. Everything changes in life, and change is one of the best things in life. I certainly didn't think that things were ever gonna change for me, back in the days when I was on the verge of going into depression, but it turned out that I was wrong. Nothing ever stays the same. A famous Norwegian proverb reminds us that "All weather is passing", and even though each one of us here knows that this is so, we still for some reason sometimes tenaciously continue to act as if whatever plight or difficult or painful situation that we're in, the storm we're in, is gonna persist forever, which is just incredibly misleading and unreasonable. . 

And I want you to realize, death is just a form of change, as well. Death is likely the most emphatic and transformational form of change there is, cuz you change from being alive, to being dead. That's a very profound and inescapable form of change. The fascinating thing about it is that it could come crashing down on us at any moment. We just never know what's coming our way.  For example, I could finish this talk and then go outside only to be fatally hit by a car and - bam - I'm dead! Couldn't that happen? Of course it could. And that's I think what makes life so exciting; the knowledge that anything could happen any moment, allowing for infinite possibilities, ranging from the beneficent to the deleterious.. To quote Virginia Woolf (rip - renowned English novelist, essayist, publisher, and critic),  "The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think," We never really know what life is gonna throw at us. And we can't control it. That's why its imperative that we’re conscious about where we direct our energy. We must all focus our energy on what we can control instead of focusing it on what we can not control. We can't always control what life throws at us, but we can always control how we choose to respond. And, that's a perfect segue into my next point.

See, there's also the matter of not simply just recognizing that people and situations change, but also how we respond to that change, cuz that's where the real magic happens, and that's where we can control something. How we perceive and then subsequently react to change can mean the difference between weeping or shrieking after something bad happens to us, and simply accepting it, or reacting with calm and stoicism, while maintaining poise.Charles Swindoll (Charles Rozell Swindoll is an evangelical Christian pastor, author, educator) states "Life is 10% what happens and 90% what how you react to it"  Being conscious and deliberate about how we perceive whatever happens to us, and consequently how we react, could be the game changer for us, and could transform our relationships, because now we’re suddenly more tolerant, equanimous and stoical, to the point where it becomes a habit, so when someone takes a jibe at me or you, or does something that really gets on our nerves, we don't bristle at them, we don't lash out at them.. what do we do? We take a step back, breathe deeply, gather our wits, decide on how we wish to respond, and then respond. Now we become essentially unflappable, and much more self-confident and self-assured. As Maya Angelou (rip. American memoirist, popular poet, and civil rights activist.)  wisely said "You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

Now, we can go even a step further and turn fear from something that inhibits us, to something that pushes us forward to be the best version of ourselves, but that is only if you know how to use fear as a fuel. Next, I wanna get into the concept of antifragility. Antifragility is basically a step beyond resilience, that was first conceptualized by Nassim Taleb(Nassim Nicholas Taleb is a Lebanese-American essayist, mathematical statistician, former option trader, risk analyst, and aphorist whose work concerns problems of randomness, probability, and uncertainty) “When you put pressure on a system and then when you lift that pressure, the system goes back to it's prior state, that's resilience, but if you do the same thing and the system actually becomes stronger, and grows after this pressure has been lifted, then that's an anti-fragile system.” Fear is such an undesirable, nagging and tenacious sensation that actually going through what we fear, with courage, and thus embracing that fear, is almost always the best and most effective way to overcome that fear. After all, courage isn't being afraid of anything, it's being afraid of something and going through with it anyway. It is when we embrace our fear, when we use it as fuel, when we turn it from a weakness to a strength, only then do we become truly antifragile. As the fear becomes our ally, no longer is it our foe.We need to ask ourselves the most burning golden question of them all: What the heck do I have to lose?.. Cuz most of us die and nobody remembers a thing we did, so why be afraid? Why be scared? Don't be. As Steve Jobs (rip. Co-founder of Apple) once said: "Remembering that you're going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you've something to lose"

Davinci had said that “One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery over oneself” and how do we reach  that mastery? By being conscious and deliberate about what we want to do and be in life, and to do that we have to control our fear, instead of allowing fear to control the direction of our lives, and making fear serve us, instead of it being the other way around. 

Know your purpose

So, even if we have a purpose, a definitive purpose, it’s not always sufficient, cuz if we still don’t possess enough courage, valiance and determination, then, anything we wish to accomplish or make happen, will still die out and wither away slowly, and we’d be just stuck, unable to achieve anything at all, due to the limitations we imposed upon ourselves. It’s all about whether we allow the limitations that we willfully choose to impose on ourselves take hold of us or, let ourselves be truly free and limitless, and believe that anything is possible if given enough effort and time.

Uplift OUR level of self-awareness

What is self-awareness? It’s being present in the present moment, whilst being fully aware of what’s happening around us. It has transpired that one of the things needed most direly and urgently in today’s society, is: a moment of reflection; a time for reckoning; an introspection.

It’s actually kind of funny how some people liken our brain and minds to a computer system, with our memories being limited and easily filled up to the brim like a hard drive; and they take care of their computers and phones, repairing them when needed, maintaining good device health, downloading virus protection software, installing regular updates to keep their device “up-to-date”, but those very same people, just somehow, somehow, forget to update the most important and valuable software they have, one which, determines how they function, act and make decisions as well as the level at which they operate: That software is the software in here! Between our two ears, the software of our brains! We often prioritise, keeping our phones and devices ‘up-to-date’, while missing and forgetting to make sure we do the same for our terribly outdated software that runs .. us!

Our brains are indeed like computers, not in the sense that our memories can be filled up like a hard drive, eventually requiring some deletion to be done, which by the way, has been proven to be a fallacious misconception, but rather our brains are like computers in the sense that they, too, have a software; our thoughts, belief systems, ingrained attitudes, notions and ideas, our entire mindsets, are our software. (by which we operate our daily lives, indeed.)And, that software must be updated regularly if we are not to be ossified and mired in our old and outdated ways of thinking, especially in such a fast moving world, where it seems that each one of us, has to grow daily in order to keep up with the relentless pace of change in our current world. We seem to have no problem at all updating our phones, but so conveniently leave out and overlook doing the same for our mindsets. We must no more let that be the case, for our minds dictate and determine how we interact with our world.. …and yes, including with our phones etc also! Our minds are in desperate and startlingly overdue requirement of a much-needed update, because we have stayed on the same software human operating system for far too long..

So if our mindset is the software of our mind, this begs an important question: how do we rewrite the code that has been installed within our mind? How do we rewire our minds, and thereby change our mindset?

The first step is to change our belief system. What we say we believe, and what we believe we become. Everything we believe is a choice. And as to why it is a choice, it is because we  can literally choose which words and sentences we say to ourselves! It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein, what we say so do we become. As Henry Ford (rip. American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production) did say “Whether you believe you can, or you can’t, you’re right". It’s all about what we choose to integrate into our belief system, and whether we actually believe that we  can do it. So to change our belief system, we have to first change how we talk to ourselves, aka our self-talk, because it is the code that is written in the software of our minds, that forms our  mindset. Identity and values are what ultimately drive behavior, as Tom Bilyeu (Born 1976, and is an American entrepreneur best known as a co-founder of Quest Nutrition), wisely observed. So if we want to change our behavior, we have to change our self-talk, we have to change the self-narrative we use. How we define ourselves makes all the difference. That's why they say that the most powerful statement in the world is "I am", because what follows "I am" determines who we are, and since identity, and by extension, values, are what ultimately drive behavior, it also determines our actions. Whatever we convince ourselves of, and if we repeat it often enough, then that becomes our reality. We must all choose wisely what we say to ourselves and be conscious of our self-talk. 

Also, changing our perspective on things like fear or on how life 'should' work are also important if we want to be the best version of ourselves. You see, perspective is such an interesting thing, in the way that we could do things that we just couldn't do a mere second ago, as when we shift our mindset, then we shift our perspective; and that thought, truly blows my mind. It's all about how we choose to view things, it’s about our perspective. Again that quote from Wayne Dyer, cuz I believe it's so powerful and truthful, "When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change". Changing our perspective allows us to come to the realization that life is like a puzzle, and the hurdles or problems which we encounter, are there not to destroy us, but to strengthen us by teaching such invaluable life lessons, however we so often lose ourselves in the muddle and all the noise of those problems, that we forget to pay attention to the lessons that can be learnt along the way. 

When we stop seeing your "problems" as simply "problems" and start viewing them as challenges, as simply part of that great puzzle, we realize  we can suddenly surmount them, and it will be that which creates the motivation we need to overcome all those challenges.

The brevity of life

Now, last but not least, let’s take a step back and recognise that, we are all visitors to this Earth, we’re guests that will live here for a small number of decades, and then, leave. One of the most expressive and descriptive quotes that eloquently encapsulates this, is that of Stephen Hawking, (rip. eminent Physicist and Astrologer) wherein he said: “We are all time travelers, journeying together into the future. Let us all work together to make that future a place we want to visit.” And what makes what he said so beautiful and profound, is that it illustrates, through the imagery of the future being a ‘place’ that we are to visit eventually, that we are here temporarily. It serves as a sobering and timely reminder that someday, none of you will be here, and all that will be left of you would be a memory, so do your best to be a good one for those who choose to remember you in the future. 

Marcus Aurelius reminds us to "Let each thing you would do, say, or intend, be like that of a dying person." When the day comes, and we're no longer here, what will matter thereafter, will be how well we loved, how we lived, and the legacy that we leave behind. So, always keep in mind how you wish to be remembered, if at all. You see, the goal was never to try to live forever, but to create something that will. As Carl Sagan once wisely stated “To live in people’s hearts, is to live forever”. The truth is we're all always dying, so why not act like it? Bronnie Ware talks in her book about the 5 top regrets of the dying. Any idea what they might be? The top 5 regrets of people who came to the end of the line of life, are:

1- I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. 

2: I wish I hadn't worked so hard. 

3: I wish I had the courage to express my feelings. 

4: I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. 

5: I wish I had let myself be happier.

Always remember, you too, will one day meet your fate, live your life in such a way that, when that moment comes, you have no regrets looking back.

Now, I want you to take a deep breath.. That breath that you just took, could very well have been your last one, but don't let the fact that it wasn't lull you into complacency or make you think that death is still far away. Don't let it fool you into thinking you still have time. When asked "What's the biggest mistake we make in life?", the Buddha replied "The biggest mistake is you think you have time." Death could come knocking on your door at any moment in time. And that thought, in and of itself, will provide you with the motivation that's needed to overcome most, if not all, of your fears. And there's a name for it: its called mortality motivation. I dunno who said this but, it was Steve Jobs who had shared this quote with us back in 2005, it goes like "If you live each day as if it was your last, one day you'll most certainly be right."

Again that converges onto the topic of fear, and Mark Twain perfectly captures that relationship between fear and death, “Twenty years from now, we’ll be more disappointed by the things we didn’t do, than the things we did do.” Indeed, whether we’re giving our last breath on our deathbed, or simply reminiscing about the past, in the future we’ll lament and rue the things we did, far less than the things that we didn’t have the courage to do; the dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never authored, the companies that were never found, the people whom we haven’t forgiven, the feelings that were never expressed. As Les Brown wisely said “The graveyard is the richest place in the world, because that’s where we can find all the dreams that were never lived, the songs that were never composed, the words that never made sound, all the hopes that were never fulfilled, the idea that was never launched, the movie that was never produced, the trip that was never taken, the product that was never used.” And as Mr. Jay Shetty adds “Which means that our minds are the biggest graveyards for dead ideas, dead experiences, and dead memories, that never happened, that never lived, that were never fully given birth.” So, don’t hesitate to follow your heart, for everything, from your fears, to your family expectations to society's opinion, they all fall in the face of death. As Steve jobs reminds us “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

And I want you to realize that death is a form of change, too. Death is likely the most emphatic and transformational form of change there is, cuz you change from being alive, to being dead. That's a form of change. And the fascinating thing about it is that it could come crashing down on you at any moment. You just never know what's coming your way. Like, I for example, could finish this talk and then go outside only to be fatally hit by a car and - bam - I'm dead! Couldn't that happen? Of course it could. And that's I think what makes life so exciting; the knowledge that anything could happen any moment, allowing for infinite possibilities, both beneficent and bad ones. To quote Virginia Woolf "The future is dark, which is the best thing the future can be, I think," So you never really know what life is gonna throw at you. And you can't control it. That's why its imperative that you're conscious about where you direct your energy. Focus your energy on what you can control instead of focusing it on what you can't control. You can't always control what life throws at you, but you can always control how you choose to respond. And, that's a perfect segue into my next point which is being resilient and antifragile.

And so, to recapitulate, we've so far established that fear is:

-Unreal

-An imaginary and elusive construct of the human imagination

-A feeling that CAN be defeated and effaced if we change our 'software' or mindset

-Something that doesn't control or define who we are and cannot affect us unless we allow it to do so.

-An integral stepping stone to success, as it entails failure, which is also an indispensable and inextricable part of success

-Something that we can choose to ignore and negate it's existence.

And with that knowledge in mind, and with perseverance, courage and determination can you overcome your greatest fears and surmount their associated limitations and setbacks. Everyone can choose to change and be a hero! You just have to remember that, so long as you persevere with consistency, courage and persistence, you can do whatever your heart desires and do good in the world and become whomever you want to become.

As Historian Thomas Carlyle once said "Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak."

So, at the end of the day, I perorate by saying, believe in yourself, don’t settle, don't try to play it safe, for no more is there such a thing as ‘safe’, choose to be limitless, rebel, like your life depends on it, for it does! Be YOU! Believe in others, remember that we’re all visitors in this world, and that we’re all humans, after all. Go out there, make some history, and Change the world! Cuz If not now, when? And if not you, then, who?

This article was written in 2023.