Leaving my Comfort Zone Archives - Pick a DirectionPick a Direction

Leaving Your Comfort Zone… And Moving to China

I have a friend leaving for China tomorrow. I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Miles told me he was thinking about it back in January and I fully encouraged him to do so. In fact, I told him I wish I could accompany him, just to see what’s out there.

He, by his own admission, has been trying to find his way for a while now. He doesn’t even know how much I can relate to him.

The past 11 months of my life have been very up & down and many of my actions have been attempts find out what I love to do. I’ve tried writing, I’ve tried an online business, I’ve tried volunteering, I’ve tried coaching, and I’m just now settling into what I feel like I should be doing with SOUTH.

Miles is going for drastic change. He didn’t want to make small, incremental changes. He wants to jolt his system!

And he’s going to have an incredible journey of self-discovery along the way.

Many times we settle for the easy changes when we know we should take on the hard changes. Trying to learn Chinese could have been an easy, challenging alternative to mix things up. But he didn’t settle for that. He’s moving to China for an extended period of time.

I talk constantly about leaving one’s comfort zone. What Miles is doing fully embodies that idea.

He knows no one. He doesn’t speak Mandarin. He has never been to China. And he is going to stick out like a sore thumb being a 6’4 white guy with wavy brown hair.

For all those reasons and more, I am very proud of him for taking this leap of faith. He’s going into the unknown and ready to see what sort of self-discovery is waiting for him.

Good luck Miles, I can’t wait to hear what this experience is like for you!

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What have you done lately to get out of your comfort zone?

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Chat with Miles on Twitter (@kilometers9) and help him stay connected to America while he’s on this awesome journey!

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The 6 Steps I Took to Leave My Comfort Zone Behind

In recent weeks I’ve talked about how I try to leave my comfort zone and I’ve encouraged you to do the same. Finding where I’m not comfortable and doing my best to put myself in that realm helps me see things through a new lens. If we’re always doing the same things, we’re never experiencing new tastes or discovering new passions, we’re just comfortable in our own little worlds.

My previous posts on leaving my comfort zone have been individual situations that I’ve put myself into and how I felt I grew from them. Around the first of the year I realized that leaving my comfort zone wasn’t just something I could do once and then hop back into safety. If I was going to push myself to be uncomfortable, I needed to continually put myself out there instead of periodically doing so after I calculated the risks. Here are some of the things I’ve done in the previous weeks to live where I haven’t yet been.

comfort zone

New Foods – Each time I go to the grocery store I get a new food that I’ve never prepared. Some I haven’t eaten, and some I just want to prepare. It’s a good lesson on cooking and it’s fun to learn how to incorporate new tastes into everyday life.
Said, “No” – We all want to please our friends and family, so saying no can be hard for many of us. I’m no different, I never want to miss a thing. I had to tell my friends, “No” this week because I couldn’t help them build their brand (hilarious gym shirts). I have to avoid spreading myself too thin, I only have so many hours in a day to work on what matters most and I had to do something I wasn’t totally comfortable with. I risked alienating friends, but ultimately I decided that I have to make sacrifices: they understood and there’s no hard feelings.
Networking Events – Ever been to an after-hours business networking event? Nobody knows you and you have to pitch who you are and what you do to 30+/- people that you’ve never met. For some, that’s not so bad. And even for me a year ago when I had a job and I was secure in it, this wouldn’t have been bad. But as I am starting to pitch myself as marketing consultant and business coach, I was extremely uncomfortable. I have never done that, I don’t have business cards (a cardinal sin at networking events), and I wasn’t even sure what to say. I’m glad I went, I made some great contacts even with an awkward pitch, and I became more comfortable in my own skin.
Pitching & Closing a Client – As you can gather, since I’ve never even told someone I am a marketing consultant and business coach, I’ve never pitched someone on my services either. That changed this week as well. Once again, I put myself out there and I was rewarded. If I never made that leap, I wouldn’t have been able to harvest the reward of my first client.
Volunteering – I talked about volunteering with the Alzheimer’s Association last week, but that was from a cushy office and is more fundraising than than volunteering. Saturday afternoon I helped 12 other people feed the homeless in downtown Charleston. It was as rewarding as it was sad. I looked for ways to write about it, but I don’t want to come across as ‘holier than thou’ with all these volunteer posts. Just know that I was well outside of my comfort zone, but at the end of the day I felt that I gave back just a bit and my soul felt good for doing so.
Even for Fun – Since I’ve talked about this so much, my girlfriend Katie decided we’d do all new things for my birthday on Saturday night: go to a New Restaurant, see an Improv Comedy Show, and visit a New Watering Hole. All were new and all lead to great experiences with awesome people. It wasn’t the same old same old, and we found something new and awesome to do in Charleston with the comedy show.

In Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business,he argues that our brains slow down or even go into auto-pilot when we engage in a habit loop. Think about the last time you drove somewhere, do you remember all of the exact steps you took from leaving the house, to locking the door, to opening the car door and starting the engine? Probably not, you just did it out of muscle memory.

mediocrity

Now if we’re constantly in auto-pilot, our bodies and minds are not being challenged. We are not paying attention to each of the little details around us. Now think back to the first time you drove a car, how exhilarating was that for you? Your senses were peaked to attention and you noticed every little thing around you. That’s what happens to us when we’re out of our comfort zone. Our minds peak up and we take in these new events for the first time with a fresh view: sounds are more clear, colors are more vivid, and we study the details of the situation.

For me it helps to have these new experiences to write about but more so for my personal growth. I am embarking on an entrepreneurial journey that is going to require that I get out of my comfort zone and stay there to be successful. None of us gets better when we’re comfortable, we grow when we’re in new territory. When we spend time here, we are able to learn from it and gain confidence from it to keep stepping out.

CHALLENGE: Get out of your comfort zone this week, do something you’ve never done before, even if it’s buying new groceries. I’d love to hear about it, come back and leave me a comment with what you did to get uncomfortable.

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Thanks for reading, have a great week!

How Ice Cold Water Can Teach Us About Company Traditions

Was it Comfortable?

Yesterday, January 1st, 2014, I willingly jumped into the Atlantic Ocean with nothing on but a pair of baggies. The water was 55 degrees and the air was about 4 degrees warmer. Although this sounds like downright stupidity, the Polar Plunge is a fun and exciting way to start the new year!

Everyone gathers early on New Years Day and strips down to their summer swimwear for a brief dip in the ocean. These plunges are held all over the world and are sometimes associated with fundraisers. Many people refer to it as a nice “cleanse” going into a new year, signifying a fresh start… a VERY fresh start.

Although this is not technically something new for me, I am counting this as getting out of my comfort zone. If you’ve ever sat in an ice bath, had to wear a wetsuit while surfing, or done a polar plunge yourself, you know how UNcomfortable 55 degree water is!

Tradition

My Mom has been doing this for 10+ years on and off and she is no doubt the reason I have picked up the tradition as well. Each year on New Year’s Day she sets out (sometimes twice) to plunge into the chilly waters with hundreds of other folks in her community. A few years back she asked my brother and me to do it with her and some of her friends.

From Left: Nancy, Linda, Terry, Kendria, Marty, Lyn, Katie, Mike, & Laurie

Now, each year she has anywhere from 4 to 10 people that she has somehow convinced to jump into the ocean with her. It’s become a tradition. It doesn’t matter if the water is 70 or if it’s in the 50’s, she’s showing up to plunge. In December as everyone is making Christmas and New Year’s plans, my Mom is making Polar Plunge plans and gathering the troops for the annual dip.

When everyone gathers we talk about how cold it looks, when it was the coldest, when so-and-so joined us, and what it was like last year. We gather and we bond over an experience, we create memories together. We laugh and smile and put a little Kahlua in our coffee to keep us warm. Nobody gets paid off of this, nobody is forcing anyone to show up, it’s just plain fun and one last excuse to spend time with friends and family before the holiday season is officially finished.

Application

In our businesses, we should have similar company traditions. They don’t necessarily need to involve 50 degree salt water, but they should be events that are held to bring people together. Some companies do a Christmas party, some have a summer picnic, others do an annual retreat. The point is to bring people together around something that is not work focused to encourage fellowship amongst the team.

When we incorporate seemingly ‘silly’ traditions such as this, we are strengthening the fabric of our company culture. When Mom tells everyone she’s doing it and she’d love to have them join, some people grimace and walk-away. That’s fine, it doesn’t bother her. Other people beam and they’d love to join! The ones that will be there smiling are the ones that will tell the naysayers how much fun it was. Many of the naysayers will be at the front of the line next year, nobody wants to miss a good time.

Company traditions can be the same way: some people will hate them, some will love them. But in the end, if we never put them on consistently,we never have the opportunity to build traditions. If we don’t put effort into building events that help shape culture, a culture will take on it’s own form and it may not be what we want. Company culture is something that should be planned out, traditions are one way to help us do this.

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What kind of traditions (company traditions or other) do you have? Where do you have the opportunity to incorporate one?

Leave a comment below or chat with me on Twitter!

Happy New Year! Make 2014 the best one yet!

What Duck Hunting Taught Me About Niching Down

Why duck hunting?

In my weekly quest to get out of my comfort zone, I am taking on new challenges to broaden my scope of the world. This week I went duck hunting with my Epic Day partner, Travis. Getting out to do stuff like this is exactly why we began Epic Day in the first place. It’s a great excuse to learn how to do fun stuff, plus when we have a website we get free and discounted trips! Friday was just Trav and me on the Intracoastal Waterway.

As part of Epic Day, Travis put together a “101 Course” for our website on duck hunting. Since the season started a few weeks back, he’s gone a handful of times, but this was the first time he’d taken a true beginner like me. He has the fever, he’s addicted. And I can see why, it’s a fun time and it’s very calming to be out there in nature… plus you get to shoot guns, so that’s always awesome. I had read a lot about it and I’ve shot lots of guns, but never dressed up in camo with the intent of bringing home some food.

Intricacies

I showed up to Travis’ parents house at 4:00 PM to help get the ganoe (yes, that’s a G, it’s more than a canoe) filled and ready to go. Travis had done most everything already so we put on some camouflage, packed the ganoe with some palm frawns, loaded up the shotguns and our hunting licenses and shipped out.

Trav had already scouted a great spot for us. How did 2 amateurs know it was a great spot? Someone had already set up a pretty permanent duck blind in the place we came to. A duck blind is necessary because ducks and waterfowl have great eyesight and we need to be covered up or we’ll spook them when they are coming in to land. The spot we came to was a pretty opened pool where ducks can land after flight.

Sunset was at 5:30 and we had to get set up quickly so we could take advantage of the 15-20 minutes of twilight right before sunset. We had to set up decoy ducks made of plastic in pairs of drake/hen, drake/hen, drake/hen (aka male/female) to try and fool more ducks to land near them. Then we setup shop near the pre-made duck blind and posted our own palm frawns into the mud to cover ourselves in the ganoe.

Shot Fired

No wonder Travis didn’t want to go on his own, this is a lot to know if you’ve never been by your self. At sunset, exactly 5:30 PM, we could no longer shoot so from about 5:12 to 5:29 we were posted up and ready to fire… but nothing came. Then, right as we were about to retire for the evening and call the day a wash, 2 ducks came flying straight at us.

“Can I shoot those Trav?”

“Where??”

“Behind you, right there!”

“Yes!! Uh oh, my safety’s on!”

BOOM!

I fired a shot just they went in front of us. No dice, but man my adrenaline was pumping! I was beginning to think it was all too much work and we weren’t going to have anything to show for it. But even firing one shot at the moving targets has me itching to go back out again as soon as possible.

Application

As we were heading in for the day, I couldn’t help but think about how much we needed to know about this to have a successful hunt. Yes, there is some dumb luck involved, but there are so many factors to take into account. The temperature, the time of day, the direction of the wind because they like to land into it, which animals are legal to take, the formation of our decoys in a “J” shape or a straight line, the ganoe placement, and more. I began to see why time is needed to become a good hunter.

In each of our professions, whether it’s commercial real estate or the manufacturing of shoe-laces, we need to be masters of our craft. If we don’t know about every facet of our business, we’re doing ourselves and our customers a disservice. We have to be experts in our respective fields.

If we spread our attention across multiple businesses or ideas, we’ll never be able to focus in on what can bring us the most benefit. If I really wanted to become and avid duck hunter, I’d need to apply myself vigorously to become a master at it. I would have to forgo some other hobbies and invest my time and money heavily into duck hunting.

Niching down our businesses allows us to be masters in our respective fields. It allows us to focus in on a small segment of the market to become masters of that particular craft. When we aren’t spread thin, we find that we can apply ourselves to the best of our abilities.

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What is your niche? How do you continue to master that craft?

Leave me a comment or connect with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear what you do to become a master of your niche.

P.S. 2 Days till Christmas!

6 Lessons I Learned from Running a Marathon

A few days ago I started a series called ‘Leaving my Comfort Zone‘ that I’ll be adding to about once per week. I have always heard amazing people and entrepreneurs talk about growth, and they never seem to mention being comfortable. They always use words like, “terrified” or “nervous” or “unsure” when describing pivotal moments. I want to share these experiences with you so we can all learn from them.

The Back-story

In Spring I decided I wanted to knock something off my bucket list this year. I had been running much more frequently and began to see that I loved it. I was already good at it, or so I thought, I was running 15 +/- miles/week at that point. And it had been a while since I challenged myself physically. Shortly after, I signed up for the Kiawah Island Marathon and began to train. Here are the 6 Lessons I Learned from Running a Marathon.

(1) Pivotal Moments Can Make Us (or break us)

Once I signed up, I began to run one long run per week to prepare… Until I pushed it too hard. My IT band didn’t want me to run this marathon. Now I couldn’t even run 3 miles without wincing in pain. How was I going to make it 26.2???

Should I quit or should I push on? If I quit, nobody would blame me, it’s a difficult feat that only 0.5% of Americans have completed. But I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook that easy. I have had this on my bucket list and I want to do this before I die. I was pushing on, it was decided.

Fortunately for me, my brother is an athletic trainer and I had a specific therapy regimen to follow within days of my injury. Had I not resolved to do it, I never would have called him. Jim Rohn said, “If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way. If you don’t, you’ll find an excuse.”

(2) My Hobby Became a Job

When I first started, I loved to run. It was stress-relieving, it was fun, it was a great workout, and I used the time to listen to audio books. But after the injury I started a strict training schedule that required me to run 4 days per week. Due to my injury I needed a good 20 minute warm-up and I needed at least 45 minutes to cool down properly, and that was just on running days. I needed to do additional exercises 3 times per week, I needed to ice myself down in certain places up to 4 times per day, and I was to take ibuprofen like it was candy.

I was spending upwards of 15 hours each week on this ‘hobby.’ I was sick of training after only a couple weeks in! I found out how committed I was when the reality of how much time and effort required became apparent. I had to sacrifice comfort, sleep, time, tasty foods, and social commitments to ensure that I could finish this race. This was not meant to take over my life, but that’s what I knew I needed to do to finish the race. Had I not been committed to this, I would have flaked out and been content with not giving it my best effort.

(3) Haters come from Everywhere

Whenever we put ourselves out there and announce our goals, we set ourselves up for criticism. People will question our motives, they will question our abilities, they will even question our sanity. But when we know we want something, nobody’s words are going to stop us. Here are some things I heard while training:

“Why?”
“It’s how long? Is that physically possible?”
“Are you running for a cause or something?”
“Are you sure? Why?”
“That sounds terrible”
“I don’t get it”
“Why are you doing this again?”

Very rarely did I hear, “That’s awesome! Good luck!” or anything similar to that. It’s not that people truly want us to fail, but when we put ourselves out there it makes others realize what they’re not doing in their lives for personal growth. They don’t mean to drag us down, but that’s what they’re attempting.

When we go against the grain, it scares people. Don’t let their fear of being different stop you from doing something your heart and mind are set on. Let them stay in line, let them be content, let them say what they want, but don’t let them stop you from accomplishing your goals.

(4) Nerves are Good

My brother arrived the day before the race and from the minute he saw me, he knew something was wrong. I had been getting slightly sick, I hadn’t slept well, and my legs were tired. I was so nervous I could barely sleep the night before the race. What if I didn’t finish? What if my knee didn’t hold up? Had I trained hard enough? What if I get really sick tomorrow?

I questioned myself because I was nervous, that was a good thing. I knew I had trained hard enough, I knew my body could handle this, I knew why I was doing this. I was leaving my comfort zone and headed into uncharted territory, I was pushing myself to a place I’d never been.

(5) Challenges Multiply When we’re Close

Right before the gun, during the national anthem, I realized that the hard part was out of the way and all I had to do was run. This is why I started this. It was time to check this box and cross this off the bucket list!

After a while my legs seemed weak, or maybe that was in my head, I’m still not sure to this day. And then I had to pee. And then my knee brace popped off. It was only mile 6… I had 20+ miles to run and I was a wreck!

But I reminded myself why I was there, how much I’d put into this, and resolved to finish this race come hell or high water. I was back on track. Then I hit ‘The Wall’ at mile 17. Side cramps, throbbing in my knees, dry mouth. My body was trying to tell me how stupid I was. I had to slow down and walk more times in that 2 mile span that I did for the entire previous portion of the race.

After mile 20 it was all mental. I turned off my iPod and just focused. Everything hurt, but I was determined to finish, I was not going to be beat.

(6) We Can Amaze Ourselves

After I finished I could barely stand, but the pain was good. Lots of people are capable of doing great things, but few people actually do them. I felt accomplished when I finished, and nobody can take that away from me.

The best part is now I have grown my comfort zone. I know that I’m capable of doing this and I know how high I have to set the bar next time I want to push myself.

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What are you doing to get out of your comfort zone? Leave me a comment or connect with me on Twitter, I’d love to hear your thoughts on personal growth!

P.S. 9 Days till Christmas!

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Race Results

Time – 4 Hours 7 Minutes 40 Seconds
Pace – 9:23 average mile
Results – 15th place in my age group & 348th place overall
More details here

Blogger Meetup: How to leave the Comfort Zone behind

I’m not sure what I expected to get from this blogger meetup

I kept hearing that in order to have a highly trafficked blog, networking with other bloggers is necessary. I didn’t really know why, but I figured it was because we could send traffic to each other from time to time. After Googling “blogger meetup + Charleston” I landed in a Meetup group set for Barnes & Noble on 12/5/13. I didn’t know what to expect from the situation, but I was hoping to get some tips on how to improve my blog and I was just haughty enough to think I could give some out too.

I was a little nervous, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. I was about to go on a ‘date’ with 6 strangers (that’s how many RSVP’d) and share with them a personal project that I’ve been caring for like a child. I have been working on this blog a little bit each day since I started it back in August, and now I was about to open it up to be scrutinized by people who have been doing this longer than me… I felt like I was about to go watch game film back in my CSU days and Coach Staggs was going to rip me for something I didn’t see.

Getting out of the “Comfort Zone”

For years I have heard that we need to constantly get out of our comfort zones in order to make progress. I taught a guest lecture at CSU a few weeks back and asked the 2 football players in the room if they had ever gotten better at an easy practice. They both shook their heads “No.” We only get better in difficult situations.

The same theory applies to our everyday lives. When we constantly push ourselves to try new things and go out on limbs, we are constantly pushing to be the best version of ourselves we can be. Nobody has ever won an award for coloring in between the lines. We only get better when we get out of our comfort zones.

What actually happened

I arrived to 2 very nice, helpful bloggers that immediately asked me about my site. What type of content is it? How often do I write? Have you thought about adding this? I loved it. I wasn’t being mocked for having a basic site and they immediately made me feel comfortable about my decision to come to this.

I soon learned that each of them were as normal as me and my apprehension was soothed. One of them is a life coach and I was immediately intrigued because I’ve always wondered how people got into that profession and how they actually make money from it. The other is a lawyer and this is her side project that she has packed with inspiration, for which I’m obviously a sucker. We talked for a bit about how to improve each of our blogs and upcoming projects we’d like to take on, all offering suggestions where we could.

I learned some great tips to improve my blog from some very nice people and I can now say I belong to a ‘blogging mastermind’ group. The next time we meet I want to be able to offer more to the group and have some good suggestions, I found myself taking more than giving and I don’t like those scales to be unbalanced. But the others didn’t seem to mind, they were happy to help and I’m very appreciative. The experiment was a success!

Making it a habit

A few days leading up to this I found myself getting nervous and wondering if the people I meet will be way ahead of me in their blogging prowess, or if they would all be awkward and silent, or even worse if they liked me and wanted me to come back for the next one… Do I want another commitment???

Seth Godin refers to this as ‘the lizard brain‘ and he regularly speaks about why we need to beat it back as vehemently as possible. When we are scared of something, that usually means we need to go towards it. We are often more scared of the potential within us than actions we should take to reach that potential.

So now I have been, it was great, and I was able to successfully step out of my comfort zone to try something new. Just before this meetup I decided I need to do this more often, I need to get out of my comfort zone more often. If you’ve read any of my blog, you know I’m all about some public accountability so here it is:

Every week I’m going to get out of my comfort zone and do something that I’ve never done

Each week my comfort zone will get bigger and bigger, so each week will be a new challenge. Of course I’ll be writing about this so get used to that feeling of “That sounds cool, I should try something new, too,” because I want you to feel that. If you’re reading this I want you to take something away from it and get better, so what are you going to do this week to get out of your comfort zone?

Please let me know what you do to get out of your comfort zone, it can be small – not everyone has a large comfort zone – but if it pushes you, that’s what matters!

Connect with me on Twitter or Linkedin, I’d love to hear what you have going on.

Have a great weekend!