Next Monday I’m relaunching my online course that helps people become more courageous, and in the run up to that fine occasion I’m doing a whole bunch of things that push me out of my comfort zone. Like stand-up comedy!

Here’s video of my second ever attempt at stand-up, which happened last week at an open mic at Fred Zeppelins in Cork. I spoke about that lingering problem I have peeing in public restrooms when there are other dudes around :-/

Can’t see the video? Click here.

Truth be told, I was pretty happy with how my set went. Getting up in front of a room full of people (there were about thirty heads at Fred’s that night) and making them laugh is no small feat, and I have an immense amount of respect for anyone who gives it a lash.

My first attempt at stand-up comedy happened back in New Orleans in November, another open mic night. That didn’t go so well. It was just a three-minute set, but I was obviously nervous and pretty much sucked. I never could bring myself to watch the video of that performance, and the footage was lost forever when my laptop crashed in January.

A few things changed between that initial attempt and my attempt last week. First, I’m a lot more confident and self-assured now, having worked hard on building my courage these past few months. I really didn’t appreciate just how far I’d come until I got up on that stage at Fred’s and found myself completely at ease. All those challenges I did for the original Random Acts of Courage project obviously paid off. As such, I’ve never been more convinced of the potential of A Course In Courage to positively impact people’s lives.

Second, I’ve come to believe that the key to stand-up, at least when you’re starting out, is to forget about being funny and to simply focus on being comfortable. You might have the best material in the world to work with, but if you’re nervous delivering it, you’re screwed.

I was at a comedy gig a few weeks back and was inspired by a couple of the comics I saw there, one guy in particular. His material wasn’t especially great, but he was so at ease up on stage that everyone loved him. He was bantering back and forth with the audience, poking fun at his own botched jokes, not trying to be a superstar. It was as if he was lounging in a pub, telling stories to a few close friends.

I went with that same laid-back approach for my set at Fred’s. Whereas for my first attempt I had my whole spiel memorized word-for-word, this time I hadn’t learned anything off verbatim. I resolved instead to go with the flow. If I forgot the general gist of what I was trying to say, I figured I could just admit my dumbassness to the audience and make a joke of that, no need to get flustered. Worked out pretty well.

Third, it definitely helped having a lot of friendly faces in the audience. When I did stand-up back in New Orleans, I didn’t bring along a big posse. This time around, a whole bunch of my CouchSurfing friends came out to support me, so I didn’t have to face a room full of scary strangers with raised eyebrows.

Fourth, I did my routine at a venue not exactly known for comedy. The open mic at Fred’s is primarily for musicians, but they were cool with me bringing some humor to the mix. That took a bit of the pressure off; it wasn’t like the audience was expecting an evening of guaranteed hilarity. A few chuckles would have been more than they’d bargained for, and I was able to draw those out of them. Win!

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Also, if you’re liking the sound of A Course In Courage, fill in the form below to get priority notice when registration opens for it again on April 18th, 2011.

[UPDATE: Mailing list closed, course open]

I pinky promise not to do anything shady with your e-mail address, and rest assured that subscribing to the above list puts you under no obligation to join the course at any time.

I learned a lot from the experience, and I’ll happily share a few key lessons with you in a minute. If you’re not into the public speaking thing, I encourage you to give this post a quick read anyways, since many of the lessons can be applied to other areas.

First, here’s the video of my winning speech (recording started about 15 seconds into it):

Now on to the lessons. I want to emphasize here that I am by no means an expert on public speaking or humor, but this stuff worked for me, and hopefully you can find something in here that works for you, too.

1. Preparation wins

The guy who came second place in the contest had actually beaten me in the previous round. (Luckily, the top two moved on from that, which was how I made it into the final.) He definitely deserved to win that previous round, because his speech was much better than mine. However, for the final, he admitted to not having practiced at all in the week leading up to the contest, whereas I had practiced my speech at least 20 times in the 24 hours before.

I recorded some of my practice sessions on video and reviewed them to see where I could improve. I even put the audio from one of my better practice runs on my iPhone and listened to it on repeat as I drove to Baton Rouge for the contest.

Excessive? Absolutely. But to paraphrase Will Smith: “Somebody might be just plain better than me, they might be more talented or they might have more experience. But I can always work harder than them. That’s within my control.”

Also, if you practice your ass off, you can rest a little easier right before you get on stage, because you know you’ve put in a ton of prep work and you deserve to do well.

2. Get feedback (and use it!)

There’s no way I could have won without help from my Toastmasters club. At our club meeting before the contest, I delivered my speech and had everyone give me feedback. It was golden. I made lots of tweaks in light of the advice I received. In fact, you can see for yourself just how much my speech evolved between rounds three and four, since I have video of my round three performance, too:

To note a few specific things that I changed:

• Lots more gestures. Where I talk about running up the hill and tiring myself out, I was advised to actually look exhausted on stage, have my body language emphasize my words.
• The armpit sniff. That was an idea straight from a fellow Toastmaster.
• Vocal variety. In round three I was at pretty much the same pace and volume for the entire speech. But in round four I mixed up a lot more, slowing right down in some places, whispering in others, then raising the volume significantly for the more dramatic moments.
• Less foot movement. I paced and shuffled a lot in round three. Moving between spots on stage isn’t a bad thing, but those movements must have a purpose. Just wandering around aimlessly can distract the audience from what you’re saying.

3. Give the audience blanks to fill

For storytelling, I’ve learned that it’s a good idea to let the audience fill in the blanks. In the earlier rounds, I described what Bridget looked like (“brown hair, more cute than sexy”). A fellow Irishman from another club advised me to be more general in my description and let the audience use their imagination. So, in the final, I described Bridget’s appearance simply by saying, “she… was… beautiful!” Everyone listening could then envision their own idea of a beautiful young woman and thus become more invested in the story.

In other words, it’s not always a good idea to spoon feed the audience. If you’re giving an informative speech, details become very important and you want to make sure the audience has a specific picture in mind. But for an entertaining speech, you want them to use their imagination.

Many popular TV shows leave blanks for the audience to fill. They don’t describe every little thing. Think of The Sopranos, Lost and The Wire. These shows assume the viewer ain’t stoopid and let you connect the dots yourself.

4. Letting loose

A few weeks ago I wrote about giving yourself permission to suck. That in a nutshell: you shouldn’t fear those first few weeks/months/years of trying something new, that phase when you inevitably suck and you’re tempted to quit and avoid the awkwardness and embarrassment. You have to give yourself permission to suck for a while, and eventually you’ll get better.

Likewise, I’ve found that you often have to give yourself permission to be awesome. There’s this strange resistance we encounter when we set out to do something remarkable. I encountered it in the first three rounds of the contest. My speech was good enough to get me through those rounds, but I was holding back each time. I was fine practicing the speech alone in my bedroom, but when it came to delivering it in front of an audience, everything was dialed down a few notches.

It made no sense. I knew that my speech would be better received if I went all out, exaggerated my gestures, raised my voice, kept my energy high. Yet there I was, reluctant to let loose. It was as if I was afraid to succeed.

In the hours leading up to the final performance, I kept telling myself that I had permission to go all out. I even stood in front of the mirror in the restroom for a few minutes, giving myself permission to be awesome.

And hey, it worked!

Even if I had lost the competition, I would have come away satisfied because I really gave it my all up there, held nothing back. It felt great.

Next time you’re trying to achieve something, make sure you give yourself permission to really get after it. It’s okay to suck for a while, but don’t hold yourself back.

5. Visualization and the breath

I meditate for 10 minutes every morning. In the week leading up to the contest, I used that time to sit quietly and visualize myself delivering the winning speech. I imagined myself being confident, going all out, and wowing the audience.

I had never given a speech with a microphone before, but I knew I’d have one for the final so I visualized what that would be like and imagined being comfortable with it. Likewise, I knew it would be the biggest audience I had ever spoken to (~50 people), so I tried to picture in my mind what that would be like and how I could feel good about it.

I also did some breathing exercises right before I delivered my final speech, exercises I learned from an Art of Living course last year. I felt that helped me keep calm and focused.

I believe all that visualization and the breathing exercises made a big difference. Even though the stakes were higher and the environment more intimidating, I felt more at ease getting up to deliver my speech in the final than I did in any of the previous rounds.

Wrap up

I still have a lot to learn about humor and public speaking, but I’m happy with the leaps I’ve made in the past few weeks. This whole contest experience showed me once again that you can make significant progress when you step out of your comfort zone.

Last week I dropped by a local bar to check out an open mic comedy night. They had about 15 comics do 3-7 minute sets throughout the evening. The crowd was rowdy and some of the comics failed miserably. I left feeling intimidated, thinking I’d have to be crazy to get up there and try it sometime.

I woke up the next morning, determined to give it a shot.

Today I’d like to share with you what a typical Toastmasters meeting is like. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Toastmasters is a network of worldwide clubs in which members help each other become better public speakers and leaders. Tis nice.

My club in New Orleans meets every Monday (6pm) at Latter Library on St. Charles Avenue. The meeting typically lasts about 90 minutes. Each meeting has distinct sections and members typically rotate between different roles each week. I’ll describe a few of them here. Note that some clubs have slightly different roles and formats, so this information may not be entirely accurate for everyone.

Toastmaster

The Toastmaster runs the show. He picks the theme of the meeting in advance, and has several opportunities to speak on it throughout. I’ve acted as Toastmaster twice for my club and have used themes of “Self-Discipline” and “How to be More Effective.” The Toastmaster also introduces various other members in their roles throughout the meeting.

Table Topics Master

It’s always fun to be the Table Topics Master. When in this role, you get to stand at the lectern and pick people from the audience to give short, impromptu speeches. You’ll usually have a list of questions/topics prepared in advance. For example, if I’m the Table Topics Master, I might say: “Last night I had a dream about a giraffe sitting on roof singing Eye of the Tiger in Spanish. Mary, tell us about a strange dream you’ve had recently.” Mary will then have to stand and try to give a confident, well-spoken response lasting at least one minute.

Speaker

We usually have three featured speakers at each meeting. These folks will have prepared 5-10 minute speeches on just about any topic. Each member does receive speech manuals to work through, and so each speech typically has a focus, be it body language, vocal variety, entertainment value, etc. But within those frameworks, you can speak about anything at all. The first speech any member gives is an Icebreaker, where they simply introduce themselves to the other members, say who they are and what they’re about.

Evaluator

Each speaker has an evaluator. An evaluator will stand up for 2-3 minutes near the end of the meeting and deliver feedback on the speaker she was assigned to. There are many different styles of evaluation, but the goal is always the same: help the speaker improve. An evaluator will often say what she liked about the speech, and then suggest some areas for improvement.

General Evaluator

The General Evaluator leads the evaluation team, introducing them at the beginning of each meeting and calling on them for reports at the end. She wraps up by giving her general thoughts on the meeting, noting anything remarkable and offering any suggestions to improve future meetings.

Story Master

We end the meeting with a short joke or anecdote from the Story Master. At our club, it’s typically the same person who performs this role every week, and he never fails to get a laugh.

President

The club President opens and closes the meeting, and makes any official announcements. We elect a new president every year, and that person is responsible for the proper running of the club.

Other roles

At each meeting we also have people act as the following:

• Timer – keeps track of how long everyone speaks for and works the light signal so speakers know when to finish.
• Grammarian – notes interesting and inappropriate uses of grammar.
• Ah Counter – keeps track of any filler words (ah, um, you know, etc.) used by the speakers.
• Ballot Counter – we vote for best Speaker, best Evaluator and best Table Topics participant at each meeting. The Ballot Counter gathers the ballots and counts up the votes.

What Toastmasters can do for you

Now that you’re familiar with a typical Toastmasters meeting, I’d like to describe some of the benefits I’ve gotten from being a member. I decided to sign up about 18 months ago for three main reasons:

1. I wanted to minimize my fear of public speaking and become better at it.
2. I wanted to learn how to organize thoughts in my head better and faster (Table Topics is great for this).
3. I wanted to meet more people interested in improving themselves.

I’ve gotten all that and more out of Toastmasters. I’m no longer terrified of getting up to speak in front of people. Some fear still lingers, but it’s more like a nervous excitement now, not complete dread. I’ve definitely improved as a speaker over the 18 months. In fact, I just recently won the club and area contests for Table Topics and Humorous Speech. (Wish me luck as I compete in the division contest this Thursday!)

Toastmasters has definitely helped me think better on my feet and express my thoughts coherently. Before I joined I would often try to make a point while talking to someone, only to go off on a tangent and forget the point I was trying to make. That doesn’t happen to me anymore.

I’ve also met lots of great people in my club and division. There are many distinct characters, but everyone seems to have at least this much in common: they want to better themselves, and they want to help others better themselves.

A few other things I’ve learned from Toastmasters:

Constructive criticism
Giving regular evaluations has helped me get better at providing useful feedback. Evaluations in Toastmasters are always constructive. Nobody will stand up there and shake their head at you. As an evaluator, you first and foremost focus on what the speaker did well and congratulate them on their progress, while throwing in some tips for further improvement. That’s not to say everybody is trying to be overly-nice and avoid hurt feelings. It will be made clear to you where your weaknesses are and how you can improve them, but it’s all done in a supportive way so you never feel you have to go it alone.

Do it your way
There’s no “right way” to do something. There are a million different ways to run a meeting, deliver a speech or give an evaluation. Some members get flustered when someone deviates from the traditional meeting format (and I’ve been one of those members), but it’s always been the most fun when someone turns the meeting on its head and comes at it from a different angle.

Highs follow lows
You’ve heard the saying, “night is darkest just before the dawn.” I’ve found this to be true in Toastmasters, and I’m sure it’s applicable to many other areas of personal development. My biggest growth spurts as a public speaker have all come right after significant low points. For example, one of the best evaluations I ever gave came a week after the worst. It’s good to keep this in mind when you find yourself struggling. You’re probably not far from a breakthrough. You just have to keep going.

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So that’s Toastmasters. Go along to a local club as a guest and see for yourself. If you decide to become a member, it will cost you a $20 sign-up fee and $27 every six months beyond that. For the value you receive in return, that’s the steal of the century.

If you want to check out some speeches I’ve given at my club, you’ll find video included with these posts:

• A Dozen Ways I Can Be a Better Public Speaker
• The best you can be
• What the self-help gurus don’t tell you about the Law of Attraction

In a nutshell, the speech is about the importance of taking action. If you’ve seen the movie The Secret or are otherwise familiar with the Law of Attraction, you may have noticed that a lot of emphasis is placed on the thinking side of things, and not so much on actually getting out there in the world and taking action.

Now that’s not to say that The Secret sucks or that the Law of Attraction is worthless; I’m simply saying that positive thinking is only half the battle.

If you’ve tried and failed putting the Law of Attraction into practice, it’s likely that you spent too much time thinking, and not enough time acting. To reach your goals, you need to do both consistently. Think the right thoughts and take the right actions.

It’s been said that luck is the meeting of preparation and opportunity. I agree with that, so I’d advise you to get busy preparing for the opportunities that are coming your way. Spend some time thinking and visualizing, sure, but then go attend those classes, make those phone calls, run those laps or do whatever it is you need to do to get yourself ready.

I’ll leave you with the quote from Yvon Chouinard that I used in my speech:

There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens.

What is Hyperclocking?

I first heard of the concept in Tim Ferriss’ Trial by Fire TV pilot, which you can watch in its entirety online here. In that video (starting at about the 24:20 mark) Tim is trying to get faster at drawing an arrow, loading it into a bow and firing. He uses hyperclocking, a concept borrowed from computing, to do this. His description:

[Hyperclocking] usually refers to changing settings on a computer so the hardware runs faster than the manufacturer intended. In my case, that hardware is my nervous system.

The idea is to practice doing something at an outrageous level, so that, come the real challenge on the big stage, it’s relatively easy to meet your goal.

In essence, hyperclocking forces you out of your comfort zone, forces you to stretch yourself a bit more. And the more you stretch your comfort zone, the bigger it becomes.

How can you use it?

I’ll give you a couple of examples of how I’ve used hyperclocking to great effect.

For the Crescent City Classic, my goal was to finish in the top 200, meaning I would have to run the 10k in 41 minutes or less. To make that goal seem easier, I worked out what time I would need to finish in the top 100 (39 minutes or less) and that became my new target. It worked out to an average of 3:54 per kilometer, and so that’s what I aimed for. Of course, I ended up falling well short of that, but just pushing myself to get there ensured that I did finish well inside the top 200.

I’ve also used hyperclocking for practicing speeches. In Toastmasters, we have a time limit for each speech, and sometimes I find myself running up against it as I rehearse. Usually my biggest problem is not being able to recall different parts of the speech fast enough, so I’ll have lots of wasted time while I’m trying to think what comes next. To force faster recall and cut down on those gaps, I practice delivering the speech as fast as I can. I’ll race through it, trying to get everything said in half the allotted time. After doing this a few times, I revert back to my normal speaking pace and the real time limit suddenly seems like an eternity.

The possible applications for this are endless. I plan to use hyperclocking again soon to ramp up the emotion I display when public speaking. For my next speech, I’ll go way overboard with my emotions and gestures as I practice, then reign them back in for the real delivery.

If you’re having difficulty reaching a goal, identify what specific part of it is giving the most trouble, then brainstorm ways you can apply hyperclocking to help you break through.

Aim for the impossible, the unrealistic, the completely ridiculous. Even if you fall short, you’ll still be in a pretty good place.

You can picture the five parts of this model on your fingers, as illustrated below.

Pinkies – Universals

The pinkies represent universals; words like all, every and never. Be careful with these type of words. If someone says they never win anything, is that really true, or just a generalization? Often it’s the latter, and such generalizations do us no favors.

I caught myself falling into this trap at a dance class a few weeks ago. After botching a certain step for the umpteenth time, I turned to my dance partner and said “I’m sorry, I always mess that part up.” I had to stop and ask myself, “Really? Always?” Besides the fact that I was being my own worst critic, I realized that saying such a thing didn’t send the best message to my brain. Think of a child who is constantly belittled and criticized by her parents. What kind of self-esteem will she have? What chance will she have to succeed in life? The same principle applies to your internal dialogue. Every now and then, stop and ask yourself if you’re feeding yourself accurate information, or if you’re selling yourself short.

Ring fingers – Limitations/Restrictions

The ring fingers represent limitations and restrictions in The Precision Model; words like should, shouldn’t, must, can’t and so on. Lots of people go around saying they can’t do something, or believing they have to do things they don’t like to do. You can break the cycle by asking certain types of questions. Examples:

• What would happen if I did do that?
• What would happen if I let that slide, if I just said no?
• What would happen if I could do that?

The goal here is to train yourself to challenge the status quo, to see possibilities and opportunities instead of limitations and restrictions.

Middle fingers – Verbs

Middle fingers next, and these represent verbs. If someone tells you that they’re unhappy, or if you’re unhappy, you can’t do much to solve that problem until you find out how specifically you or that person is unhappy. You need to break through the fluff and get to the root cause of the unhappiness. So you probe and keep asking why why why until you expose the real problem, and then you can work towards solving it.

So the next time you tell yourself that you’re bored, lonely, sad or depressed, instead of just wallowing in your own misery, force yourself to be more specific. What is it in particular that’s causing you to feel that way? Drill down as much as you can; try to pinpoint the specific problem (a conversation with self might help you get there). Once you have it defined, there’s a much better chance that you’ll be able to move towards a solution.

Index fingers – Nouns

Index fingers represent nouns. You often hear people say “They don’t understand me… They’re never going to give me a fair chance… If it wasn’t for them…”

Who is they? Who is them? Are we talking about a whole group of people, or is it just one person in particular? Or do they only exist in your mind, some imaginary or overblown blockade you use as an excuse not to take action?

Another example: If you present a plan and someone says “That plan won’t work,” odds are that they only have a problem with a specific part of the plan, not the whole thing. So, again, you probe and ask why until you find out what the real problem is, and then you can work on overcoming it.

Thumbs – Comparisons

Lastly, the thumbs, which remind us to be wary of comparisons. When we say or think things like “That’s too much, that’s too many, that’s too expensive”, once again we’re restricting ourselves and often creating problems where there really aren’t any. For example, some of my friends here in the States think I’m too skinny, but back in Ireland I’ve never been called that. It used to upset me a little, but then I realized that in America I’m being compared to Americans, who on average are known to be a little on the chubby side. Once I saw it that way, being considered skinny was no longer problem for me. It was just perception, not reality.

A similar thing often happens with money or possessions, people thinking they don’t have enough. Consider who you’re comparing yourself to, and check if the problem is real or just something in your head.

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So those are the five parts of The Precision Model. Once again, this model can be very helpful in communicating more effectively with others, and for sorting through your own internal dialog and figuring out where you might be limiting yourself.

To become more familiar with this model, I delivered a speech about it at Toastmasters this past Monday. You can watch it here (thanks to Darlyn for the camera work), with some notes below.

• “You only have control over three things in your life — the thoughts you think, the images you visualize, and the actions you take.” That part of my presentation came from Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles. Thanks to some feedback after my speech, I’m considering that thoughts, words and actions might be a better trinity, since visualizing can be considered a form of thought. Also, the latter approach fits better with Gandhi’s teachings of non-violence: peaceful thoughts, words and actions.
• Giving a talk on clarity and precision and my name tag was turned backwards the whole time. Oops.
• I could have done much better with the visual aids. I took the diagram directly from the book but it wasn’t the best way of presenting the information to a live audience. I noticed at the beginning that everyone was gawking at the flip chart and trying to make sense of the diagram instead of listening to me. It would have been better to break up the visuals into more pages and step through them one at a time, revealing each part as I was talking about it. Lesson well learned.
• Besides the flip chart, I didn’t use any notes and I cleared the lectern out of the way. I felt good about those things. I rehearsed the speech quite a bit at home (recording my practice runs on video and reviewing them several times) and so felt confident that I could deliver it without those common crutches.
• There was quite a lot of content in the speech and I was pushing the 7-minute limit. One thing that helped me prepare for this was to practice delivering it as fast as I possibly could, trying to get everything said in 5 minutes or less. That forced me to organize my thoughts more quickly, cutting out a lot of the pauses where I was trying to think of what to say next. After doing that a few times, 7 minutes felt like an eternity. Some folks call this type of thing hyperclocking, and you can apply the concept to much more than public speaking.
• Something I definitely need to work on: Vocal variety. I was at pretty much the same volume and speed for the whole speech. Not good for keeping the audience engaged.

The dozen ways:

1. Open dynamically
2. Get rid of the lectern
3. Use direct eye contact
4. Loosen up the body language
5. Sound like I care
6. Express a controversial opinion with confidence
7. Use less notes
8. Use notes on purpose, not by accident
9. Use long pauses
10. Video tape myself speaking in front of an audience
11. Involve the audience
12. Finish strong

• Fearful thought: “I can’t ask that girl out; she might reject me.”
• Curious thought: “I wonder what will happen if I ask that girl out.”

My curiosity and my fear are always battling with one another. When fear wins that battle, I do nothing, and so I lose. The challenge is to make my curiosity stronger than my fear.

Learned behavior

Us humans are funny creatures, fearing situations we create in our own minds. That’s a learned behavior; we’re not born with that. Think of how a child learns. It’s all through curiosity. “I wonder what happens if I put my hand in the fire.” They’re not afraid because they don’t know any better. But as children grow, they learn not to be so curious and not to take risks, because that might result in pain, failure or rejection. Curiosity dies, fear wins, we lose.

A common misconception about fear

Most people, when they fear doing something, avoid taking action until the fear goes away. “I’m too afraid right now. I’ll do it when I’m feeling more confident.”

The problem is that fear never just goes away by itself. Most people have it backwards. You don’t overcome the fear and then do the thing; you do the thing and then you overcome the fear.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.” – Seneca

I’ve found this to be true time and time again in my own life. Two specific examples:

• I was terrified of public speaking, so I made myself go and talk in front of 20-30 people each week at Toastmasters. With each speech, my fear subsided, and now I look forward to the Monday meetings in that big old library on St. Charles.
• Many times I’ve been afraid to approach certain people in social situations. On those occasions when I ignore that fear and approach such people anyway, the fear always evaporates, regardless of whether I make a good impression or crash and burn.

More curiosity, less fear

I believe the key here is to keep with you that sense of wonder at all times, like a child.

If someone at a party looks interesting, go talk to him/her, and do so enthusiastically. If they’re not responsive, don’t get dejected; remain curious. “Hmm, that person didn’t want to talk. I wonder if this person does.”

If you’re afraid of flying, diminish that fear by focusing on all the incredible experiences that could await you overseas. Start imagining what it might be like to explore the streets of Beijing or to hike with some CouchSurfers through the Italian countryside.

The fear ebbs, curiosity flows.

If something goes horribly wrong, don’t fear the repercussions. Remain analytical. “Okay, that didn’t go exactly as planned, probably because of X, Y and Z. I’ll try it a different way next time and see if I get better results.”

In the moment

The trick for me is remembering to be curious in the moment. That’s the hardest part. I’ll often look back at a situation and realize I was being ruled more by fear than by curiosity. But I’m getting better, becoming conscious of those moments as they occur, then reminding myself to wonder. The results have been encouraging.

Closing it out with some wise words…

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do… Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain