Alli Peck reads Elizabeth Gilbert's "road trip" metaphor, where fear and creativity travel together, and argues you should make space for fear instead of trying to eliminate it. She applies this to confidence in networking, interviews, and starting a business.
If you are watching this video, it's because you want to work on increasing your confidence. Now, confidence is, in my opinion, like the ultimate thing you could have, especially for your career, your professional life, even your personal life, job searching, entrepreneurship, networking. Confidence is like the cherry on top. It is the difference between this and this. And if you have it, people will believe in you. So I want to read you a quote from one of my favorite books by Elizabeth Gilbert. The book is called Big Magic. And this quote I'm going to read you is about how she has tried to eliminate fear from her life so that she could be creative and be bold and courageous. And this quote is about her realizing that fear never really goes away for us. And so she has a cute little story about how she goes on a road trip with fear. So I'm going to read this. It's probably going to be about two minutes long. So sit back, relax, and check this out. Here's how I've learned to deal with my fear. I made a decision a long time ago that if I want creativity in my life, and I do, then I'll have to make space for fear too. Plenty of space, since it appeared that they would always be together. In fact, it seems to me that my fear and my creativity are basically conjoined twins, as evidenced by the fact that creativity cannot take a single step forward without fear marching right alongside it. This is why we have to be careful of how we handle our fear. Because I have noticed that when people try to kill off their fear pursuing confidence, they often end up inadvertently murdering their creativity in the process. So I don't try to kill off my fear. It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights me back. If I can relax, fear relaxes too. In fact, I cordially invite fear to come along with me everywhere I go. Even I even have a welcoming speech prepared for fear. This is the part I love, which I deliver right before embarking on any new project or big adventure. It goes something like this. Dearest Fear, Creativity and I are about to go on a road trip together. I understand you'll be joining us because you always do. I acknowledge that you believe you have an important job to do in my life and that you take your job very seriously. Apparently your job is to induce complete panic whenever I'm about to do something, any, anything remotely interesting. And may I say, you are superb at your job. So by all means, keep doing your job if you feel you must. But I will also be doing my job on this road trip, which is to work hard and stay focused. And creativity will be doing its job, which is to remain stimulating and inspiring. There's plenty of room in the vehicle for all of us, so make yourself at home. But understand this, Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. I recognize and respect that you are part of the family, so I will never exclude you from our activities. But still, your suggestions will never be followed. You're allowed to have a seat and you're allowed to have a voice, but you are not allowed to have a vote. I have goosebumps. You are not allowed to touch the roadmap. You are not allowed to suggest detours. But above all else, my dear, all familiar friend, you are absolutely forbidden to drive. Then we head off together, me and creativity and fear, side by side, forever advancing once more into the terrifying but marvelous terrain of unknown outcome. Oh, I love that. So again, that's by Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic. And if you want to listen to that again and remove the word creativity and insert the word confidence, I think it works just as well. But basically, her message is, when we're nervous to network, when we're nervous for a job interview, when we're nervous to meet a new client because we've started our first business, we don't necessarily need to squash fear, but we need to recognize that it might always be there. It might be always a little nagging feeling in the back of our minds, but as long as we don't give ourselves over to fear and don't let it take control and don't let it have the dominant voice in our minds, we're going to be just fine.
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