I have a career coach that is worth every penny because he pushes me to do the things I want to do, but that I resist doing for one reason or another. These aren't small things either - they're big, consequential, possibly career-changing things that freak me out.

Last week he suggested I do something that pushed me right out of my comfort zone and into orbit (paraphrased):

So I did. I wrote the damned page and I found it both terrifying and liberating. This is what I've told friends and people that I have coached over the years: if it scares you, you must do it. I guess it means that I need to practice what I preach, right?

If It Scares You, It Might Be A Good Thing To Try

That's a quote from Seth Godin, which I love but, of course like to tell other people. Another good one is from Eleanor Roosevelt:

Again: fun to tell others, not so fun to actually do it yourself. Talking the talk instead of walking the walk, innit?

The best summation of this, for me, is from David Goggins:

People have all kinds of opinions on Goggins (Can't Hurt Me), I know I did, until I read his book. It really did change my life, but as he says, it's not about him motivating me - it's about me motivating myself.

That motivation comes from "doing the work", or identifying, confronting, and directly addressing the fears that hold you back, and then moving through and past them.

So... here goes...

The Walk

​I wrote a book about Imposter Syndrome and programming about 9 years ago (wow, long time) and it is still selling today. I'm proud of it, and the process of writing it helped me get past that horrible feeling of being an outsider because I don't have a CS degree.

Imposter Syndrome is just another version of fear, and it's incredibly toxic in both an individual and a group setting. You might not intend to, but when you tell others that you feel like you're not worthy or aren't qualified, they will (mostly likely) try to make you feel better.

You probably won't believe them, then they'll try harder. You might say things like "you're very nice for telling me these things and I know I should get over it but it's hard", and the cycle continues.

It's possible to reverse this cycle, but it takes awareness, effort, and a willingness to face your fear directly. The simplest win is to reframe each invasive feeling into an opportunity: yikes I don't know what NP-Hard means to wow, I get to learn something new today! Reframing is one of the simplest, most effective ways to engage your curiosity and move past the bullshit that is weighing you down.

For me, I have a hard time selling things for money. Every time I write a book or make a new course, the worst part is trying to come up with a price tag. I was discussing this recently with my coach and that's when he blew things up for me personally:

That's when he described an idea to me that made me want to run away and hide. It's way out of my comfort zone but, as I keep saying, I did it anyway. We'll see what happens with it. I have high hopes as I really think it can be extremely helpful to people, and free me up to do the things I really want to do.

A More Personal Story, and a Simple Tactic

One of the other things I'm pushing myself to do is to be more open and personal. I usually don't talk about these things because, well, they're personal. But in this case I think it could be helpful.

I took my girlfriend to Kauai last weekend as she wanted to meet my friends and see the place I called home for so, so long. Kauai is, truly, my home. It's where I raised my kids, spent the best years of my life, and where my closest friends are - it's also a place I plan to go back to at some point if I can, even if it's in a jar.

I've been dating this wonderful woman for just over 2 months, and taking her to the place where my soul lives involved dropping a lot of emotional armor. My divorce ripped me apart in every way: spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically, and exploring those walled off places within me was going to be... interesting.

It's not easy for me to trust someone new with something so meaningful. It brings up a lot of fear in me - the deep kind that triggers my fight or flight. That, of course, means only one thing: follow it, face it, and do it anyway.

An old therapist showed me a great method for facing fears like this that I'll share with you, because I find it extremely helpful. In short, it's visualization. The idea is straightforward: you think on the thing that's scaring you, find where lives in your body, and then close your eyes and give it a form in your imagination.

That's when the fun begins. Once your fear has a visual form, you engage your curiosity and reach out to it, explore it, and see if you can learn from it.

Let me give you an example of what I mean.

I went to see this therapist back in 2004 when we moved to Kauai for the second time (the first was in 1997). I wanted to be sure of my reasons for going, and that it was a healthy decision. My therapist asked what my fear was, and then introduced me to this process:

The trick, she said, was to envision a moment where your fear would be most realized. If you're giving a talk to a large group, for instance, it might be when you first walk on stage and the applause dies down, and you have to start speaking. Maybe it's the moment you tell your new partner that you love them for the very first time - where are you sitting, what are they wearing, what exact words would you say?

Once you have that feeling, you give it form in your imagination. Getting off the plane, for me, made my guts contract and my throat constrict. Focusing on that constricting feeling and giving it form was tricky because who wants to think about fear that closely! Either way, it was incredible.

When I did this in my therapist's office, I saw myself in a junk yard full of jagged, rusted metal sitting in the rain and mud. There were fires coming from random piles of junk and it seemed that everything was oozing with tetanus and, at any moment, I would brush against something and get cut. I told my therapist this and she simply said:

I quite literally shouted "NO!" in her office. A true, physical recoiling at the idea. She asked if I was OK and reassured me that I was in a safe place. Strangely, something else came with that immediate reaction: curiosity.

So I walked up and touched the metal. I wanted to run so, so badly but I touched it and... it disintegrated. The sun came out and the piles of metal turned into shiny lumps that seemed completely unthreatening. Unfortunately that's when the ground beneath my feet opened up and I got sucked down.

The mud pulled me in, suffocating me, down my throat and up my nose. I couldn't breathe and actually thought I might get sick. My therapist once again reassured me and suggested I let go and let the mud do what it was going to do.

I felt it fill my body. I could taste the burnt, wet earth as I felt that I was literally becoming that very same mud. It was at the moment that the downward pull ejected me into a cavern, and I began to free fall through the air, into a void.

"Is this ever going to end, or am I going to go from one terrifying thing to the next?" I asked my therapist. Her reply was so very therapist-y:

Free falling, giving up control, not knowing what comes next. You see the theme here.

That's when I saw the fire below me. A simple fire, like the kind you find on a beach, with driftwood and branches. It was, in fact, on a beach. A warm beautiful one, at night, and sitting next to the fire was a friendly looking man about my age, with bare feet and piercing blue eyes.

"Hey" is the only thing he said to me. I remember regarding this man and wondering who he was supposed to be. He seemed very friendly, like someone I'd like to get to know. I describe him to my therapist and added that he really seemed like he could be a long-lost friend.

I still get chills thinking about her reply:

That was one of the most powerful moments of my life, and if you were sitting next to me and I told you this story, you would still see tears in my eyes. In fact, if you were sitting here as I write this, you would see the same.

Your Journey

I've learned all kinds of fun ways to address fear over the years, but nothing is as direct and freeing as visualization. When you're feeling something eat at you, including Imposter Syndrome, try to isolate what that feeling is, and see if you can use your imagination to give it form. Once you have that form, let your curiosity pull you toward it and see what happens.

​I love facing down my fear, but I don't love how it feels in the moment. I hope that I learn to relish that feeling someday, thinking "Right on there's that clench! Let's do this..."

What's your one thing that you'll face down today? I'm here if you want to share - I find that sometimes confiding in random strangers (if I haven't met you, that is) is the perfect way to let something out! As always: just hit reply.

Thanks for reading!

Rob