Yesterday, I spent 12 hours driving from Columbus, OH, to Kansas City, MO. I had that entire time to myself to listen to podcasts, audiobooks, music, and to think.
I thought about what I was going to share today, but nothing was nearly as good as this quote from Kyle Cease on the Lewis Howes podcast I listened to.
Kyle is a former touring comedian (I vividly remember his Comedy Central special that was recognized as the best special in 2009). In this podcast, he spoke a lot of fear and letting go of the things you are most afraid of losing and the things you feel the need to justify keeping around.
In this quote, Kyle was telling a story about his desire to put on a 2000-person event after just barely selling out a 200-person event (emphasis mine):
I feel this opportunity here, but there’s this fear.
If you step into the opportunity, the fear goes away. Because the fear isn’t of the thing you’re about to do, it’s of choosing the thing you’re about to do.
When people go skydiving they always say the scariest moment is, “when I’m looking over the side of the plane.” But you’re safe in that moment! They always say “when I leap off the plane I’ll be fine.” You’re going 10,000 miles per hour!
[it’s like saying] “I’ll be fine once I jump off the plane and am completely not safe.”
You weren’t scared of skydiving, you were scared of choosing to let go of your old story…
Whenever you’re scared to let go of something, the only reason is because your mind can measure what you will lose. It can’t see what you’ll gain.
This entire conversation resonated super hard with me, and it came at a great time.
I would recommend watching (or listening) to the podcast in it’s entirety; the quote above starts at 20:27.