Jonny Grover

“Highly successful persons may routinely step outside their comfort zones, to accomplish what they wish” Wikipedia

About a year ago I was sitting talking to the head of sales at the company I work for. He is a very respected and successful business man. Although he has had much success he has not let it go to his head and is very amiable and a fun guy. We were talking about life and work and he started talking about a practice he adopted years ago. He told me that he tries to scare himself every day. This is more than just spooking himself; He scares himself by getting out of his comfort zone, doing something that at first he doesn’t want to do because of fear. Seth Godin calls this Quieting the Lizard Brain and Steven Pressfield coined The Resistence which is a similar concept.

I started from that day to try and scare myself everyday. My daily scare is not always a big thing, sometimes it is simply talking to a cute girl and getting her number, other times it is going to a party by myself and making new friends, and sometimes it is big thing like going to Mexico with a humanitarian group (by the way that trip changed my life). Even writing this blog has been a way to scare myself.

We all have fear and we try to avoid pain, failure, and disappointment; However, in so doing we also miss out on the opportunity to find success, happiness, and joy. I have seen so many amazing things come from getting out of my comfort zone, ignoring the lizard brain, and scaring myself that now I’m addicted to it.

My challenge to everyone that reads this is to scare yourself everyday…Start today! Do it and see how much happier you are and how much more fun you have. Start small, say hi to next cute guy or girl you see…but don’t stop there…keep pushing yourself and you will find that this simple principle will change your life!

As you start scaring yourself, share your experiences by commenting on this post. I’m excited to hear all the crazy things you do to scare yourself.