Leaning into Fear

Hello, everyone, and my name is Donnie Rouse, and you are listening to the podcast One Life. So I am here today in the center of the Westport Library, broadcasting, well, not quite live, but for those of you watching online via Facebook or via Instagram, it is live. And the topic I want to discuss today is, very much has everything to do with me broadcasting live in the middle of the library while hundreds of people are kind of coming in and out. And the topic today is leaning into your edge. So what exactly does that mean, leaning into your edge? Right. It sounds like it's just kind of like this really, really great play on words, but what it really means is kind of leaning into your fear. So it goes with the basic idea that everything you want, and if you've been in any kind of personal development or they say anything you want is right there, just beyond your comfort zone. If you think about that, what exactly does that mean, just beyond my comfort zone? It kind of seems, when you think about it, it kind of seems abstract. Like, what do you mean, outside my comfort zone? If I want to feel excitement, do I jump off a bridge? What do I do? And the idea is this. The idea is that we get into these patterns where we become kind of like lost in that day to day. And the more ingrained in these habits that we get, like, the less or the smaller the action, we don't take these big steps of action. So what I really wanted to do with this whole topic of leaning into your fear is kind of give you some experiences, because I was at a retreat in Orlando, Florida a couple weeks ago called Mindset. And one of the key takeaways for me was this leaning into your fear, like, stepping over that edge. So when you look at what you want way out in the distance, a lot of the time it could be overwhelming trying to say, how do I get there? And a lot of time it's not a big step that gets you to that point. You're looking for that end outcome, but a series of smaller steps. So I'm going to share with you some of the experiences, though, how I became why this entire topic, why I chose to do this podcast today about leaning into your fear. So last week at the Farmer's Market in Westport, there was an artist there, a very, very talented artist. Her name is Canyon, and she was performing and she had gone through her entire set. And one of my friends I'd spoken to her last time she was at the market performing, and I had mentioned to her that, like, I enjoy singing. And one of my Favorite songs is the song Babylon by David Gray. And she was like, all right, well, you know what? I'll try to learn that. And. And next time I'm here, you can come up and you can sing it. So the market's here. She came up to me, she's like, you know what? I never learned how to play that song, but if you want, you're more than welcome to still come up and sing. So I'm like, oh, my God, sing without the music. How can I sing without the music? So I started kind of like getting freaking out, like, no, I'm not going to do it. And then my friend was kept. My friend James, who works for the tea booth right next to me, kept egging her on and said, yeah, he's going to sing, he's going to sing. So she's telling me to come on up and she puts it on the speaker that, alright, we have someone here that wants to sing. And I told her, well, I'm not gonna do it without a. Without some kind of music, some kind of background music. Because trying to, like, I've never sung without music, so trying to do so kind of seems like a. Like a trip. Like, am I gonna be on beat? Am I gonna sound good? Will people, you know, will the rhythms match up everything? So she's like, all right, well, I have an idea. Let's take the speaker and we'll take that speaker and what we'll do is we'll put it next to the microphone. So this way you could, you know, we could amplify the speaker and you could sing at the same time. So while I was. I was very fine, I'll do it. I got up and I was literally shaking. Like, I don't remember the last time I felt that scared to get up and do something, especially up in front of people in public. And singing was one of those things. I enjoy singing, but when I could, I like doing it at a bar where it's very dark, when I can see everybody. It's a very, very different feeling, especially doing it during daylight. So. But I had this mantra. I said to myself, well, I'm going to do it because I'm afraid. Because it literally was scaring the shit out of me. I'm going to do it anyways. So I made that decision. And as I was walking up, that feeling of fear intensified even more as I stepped up to the mic and we play the song and I start singing. You might be. If you follow me on Instagram, you might be able to find a little Clip of this, if it's still. I posted it to one of my stories. I'll see if I could dig it back up and I'll repost it. And I started singing, and in my mind, I'm like, oh, my God. Oh, my God, I sound horrible. And I kept saying this over and over. But then, like, as it went on, I. I started to get more comfortable. And I could tell, like, the rhythm, like, the tonality. My voice was improving and it was starting to get better. But nevertheless, I still thought that it wasn't going to be that good. Fast forward. After the song, people are coming up to me. There was a woman who was listening in the crowd, and she came up to me and asked me if I had a cd. I was like, a cd? What do you mean? God? No, I was like, no, I'm the coffee vendor here. I'm just, you know, I wanted to sing. I was doing this for fun. And people were coming up to me saying, wow, you know what? You sounded really good. And I didn't think anything of it. And I went back and I listened to the recording that people at the market had took and posted to Instagram and Facebook and closing my eyes. Oh, actually, I was listening to it, and I still had some objectivity to it. Seeing myself like, ah, you know, I don't really sound good. And then I was home, and my parents were playing it on the computer. And like, my brother, they were kind of like cracking jokes, like, oh, Donnie singing Babylon at the farmer's market. But I was listening to it, and two things I noticed. One, you couldn't hear any of the music that was playing in the background. So while she was playing the mute, like the. The. The instrumental of Babylon, you cannot hear it. So the only thing you heard was me singing into the microphone, which was like, trip number one, trip number two. When I wasn't looking at my video and criticizing and, like, being very critical of myself, I was listening to it. I said, you know what? It actually sounds really good. All right, I'm impressed. And I gave myself some kudos. And so that. And so where I was going with the story. And I actually was going to build this into what I was about to tell you. But I started off on a rant, as I typically do. Just keep going. Canyon was working on a song that she had not yet finished. And after seeing this, after she was asking me, like, how to go, I told her, you know what? It was awesome, but I was freaking out. She got on the microphone and she said, you know what? Because of your performance, because of you coming up here to sing, I'm going to conquer. I'm going to step out and do something I was afraid of. This is a song that I have not yet completed, but I'm going to sing it anyways. So it got me thinking about this whole, the, the topic for today, about leaning into your edge, about, you know, leaning into fear. Because the funny thing about that is once you do, once you actually take that step and you take that action, the fear melts away, you know, so it's this, it's just crazy thing. It's all the anticipation leading up to it. You take the action and all sudden everything dissipates. So what is the edge? What is that critical point, that kind of like that threshold that you need to cross in order to grow? So if you are inspired and you say, you know what, wow, I really want to start a podcast, kind of like what I'm doing here. And I'll use that example going, my example of doing this in front of the entire library in a moment, as I explained through all the talking points. But say you want to start this podcast and you feel inspired, you have this, you feel like you have this momentum and you go to step forward and all of a sudden you go, you kind of pull yourself back because you feel something's like, oh, well, you know, what if nobody listens? What if I sound like a fool? What if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if? And you kind of keep going. And that prevents you from taking that action rather than. So, alright, so rewind a little bit. So you look at what you do, you want to do a podcast and you might be looking at that end result of having 10,000 followers or 10,000 subscribers, listeners, whatever it is, tuning into your podcast. But looking from where you are to where you want to be could be very overwhelming. Because success or growth or the journey, it's not one giant step, right? If there's anything I found out from this week at Mindset in Orlando, Florida, was that it's a series of small steps that compound. So it's taking action. Well, it's taking action on these small steps and then another small step and then another small step until you reach that final outcome. What I typically like to do and how I've operated in the past, and I wouldn't like to completely, completely disown this part of me because it also, I mean, yeah, it's worked for me. So what I've done in the past was I'm kind of like A burn the bridge and leave no option. Or, you know, leave only one option, I should say. And typically how I do this is when I travel. So I was going to. I was going to Nepal. I was doing Mount Everest, the base camp trek from Mount Everest. So it's 14 days to do this trek. And the trek, while I think anyone can do, does pose some potential health risks. One, like the food and the sanitary conditions of the food. There was one point where I was eating at this tea house and the chef comes out from the kitchen to light the fire in this main area where all of us are gathered, like all the trekkers are gathered, comes out, takes this bucket of yak dung that's dried out. It's what they use for fuel, and throws it into the fire, puts the bucket back down, and then goes into the kitchen and starts to prepare our food. You're like, oh, wow, okay. I guess. Well, you know, that's. That's kind of how they do it here. So, thankfully, I did not get sick, but I end up taking a few vials of pinworm medicine immediately after I got back. But not the point. The point was that I was, when I booked that trip to Nepal, and the realization that, one, I don't know the language, two, the potential risks that could. Or things that could go wrong when I'm doing this trek. And there's one guy who had a stroke, like where he was doing the hike, and half of his face been paralyzed. And another woman on the trek who had to be helicoptered down because of the altitude sickness. Like, the day before she was getting helicopter down, she literally looked like she was going to die. The group had come for a trek. See, she had stayed behind, and, you know, when we left, she looked in pretty bad shape. But when we came back from that, it's like a hike that you do to acclimate. When we came back and we looked at her, we were like, what the hell just happened? In the few hours we were away, she literally looked like she could have died at any moment. She looked horrible. They ended up putting her on the shoulders of a Sherpa, carrying her through, like, the mountains on this narrow path because it was snowing, and eventually helicoptering her down to a lower elevation. So these are all the potential things that could go wrong. And so those were playing in my mind, not knowing that that kind of stuff could happen. Actually, I had no idea that that kind of thing could happen, but I had the little bit that I thought, you know, could happen with, like, a bubble in your blood. Or whatever that that was. That was playing over my mind, and that scared me. But then I booked a trip anyways, and I was shitting my pants, literally shitting my pants. Every night I would go to sleep, waking up in the middle, like, oh, my God, what did I do? Should I cancel this trip? But I have this thing where I never really. When I book trips, with the exception of one incident, and maybe I'll go on that in a different podcast. I never. Once I book, I never alter my trip because there is always a fear. There's always something there. And what I found in the past is that every time I take this trip, whatever fear I have about people, whatever, it's all made up in my head. So going into leaning into your fear. So as I was saying before, it was that fear, leaning into it. It's not this giant step that you have to take from, you know, this massive action from where you are now to where you want to be. It's not just one step. It's a series of small steps. So the first thing you have to do is realize what is your edge? Like, what is that threshold, that fear point that's holding you back or that is preventing you from taking action in that moment, that small action that will kind of take you forward step by step. So the example I wanted to use was doing this podcast today. I wanted to do the podcast, but the person who manages all of the sound and visual and audio equipment was not going to be in on Monday. So he. I met with them this past Thursday, and he said, listen, well, I'm not going to be here. So, you know, the room that you want to use is all booked up, but I do have the main podcast station in the center of the library open if you want to use that. Excuse me. And I thought about it. I'm like, oh, my God. Well, broadcasting live in front of everyone. There's, like, people walking in now. I mean, I've been at the farmer's market in Westport for literally 10 years. I mean, I'm gonna know a lot of people. They're probably gonna stop, listen to what I'm saying. And I kind of freaked out. And that the day prior, I think he had suggested it in an email. And I was like, no, don't worry about it. I'm not gonna do it. I'll figure out another day. But then after I did the. After I sang that song Babylon in front of the entire farmer's market, I was like, you know what? Let me go back into the market. Let me Just let me do it, right? What am I afraid of? I'm afraid of people hearing me, people coming by, making eye contact and inquiring and being curious. And I was like, well, you know, why don't I use that for my. The best of my ability? Why don't I put a little sign out? I have this little sign that says, follow the One Life podcast with Donny Rouse on Spotify. So I have that little sign there. Maybe I can get some listeners. Maybe I could get people who hear what I have to say, and it'll benefit them in some way. And so I met with him last Thursday after the farmer's market, and I said, you know what? Give it to me. I'll take it. And he said, really? I'm like, yeah, you know what? Yeah, I'm a little bit nervous. I'm afraid to do it, but give it to me anyways. And, you know, I figure worse comes worse, I'll get some subscribers. And at the very least, it's going to push me to a different edge. Right now that I'm doing this in front of the entire library and people are swarming by. You could probably hear the background noise of children. I think they have, like, the children's class going on right now somewhere in the library, because I hear him everywhere. So hopefully you can't hear him is strongly in the microphone. But I did it anyways. Which brings me to the second point. So the first one is, what is that edge? What is that threshold that you feel the resistance in? You know, you want to get to here, but you feel the resistance. You might even try talking yourself out of that of doing this step, because saying, like, you know what? Well, you know what? I thought I wanted this, but I don't really want that. And the truth is that you want it, but you're just. You're hitting that resistance and doing that step that's gonna take you to just kind of get to that next step, that next level for you to take the next action. So you're trying to trick yourself out to say that you don't want it and you don't really want to do it anyways, blah, blah, blah. And then the second step was taking the action. So I came in here, I'm here now doing this live. I have people come by looking at, like, you know, my sign from the One Life podcast, and kind of curious kids standing on the side of me staring at me. It's kind of funny. So once you take the action, what happens? So you take the action. You're feeling that tickle of fear. Or maybe it's that fear now turns to excitement. And what you realize after taking that action was that you were worried about nothing at all. Because that fear starts once you're actually in it. Once you've decided and you've taken that step, the fear dissipates. It goes away. And it reminded me of this. So there was a video they showed at this retreat that I went on. It was this little kid who had done. It was at a ski mountain. He'd done this. Say there's. Say there is a. A, like the slope, like, that's 20. 20 meters, whatever it is. Or there's a steepness, and there's different levels of steepness. So he went to one that was three times the steepness of the one he was on. And his father's telling him, oh, don't worry about it. This is just like the small one you went on. He goes, really? And he's looking down. I'm scared. Looking at the video of this kid getting ready to go down, and he's talking to his father. The father's like, yeah, just. Just go. I promise you, it's. It's almost the same. It's like the same thing. You've done this before. And the kid kind of creeps forward. He goes, all right. With this little creepy, like, kind of crickly voice. And then he steps out and flies down the hill. And by the time he gets to the end, he's cheering and so excited, saying that, you know what? This wasn't that bad. He wants to do it again or go to the next one. So that's really what it is. When you kind of step into that fear, the fear that you've had before kind of dissipates. And then the last step is observing it and repeating it, because it does get easier. The more you kind of do these little steps, you start to recognize what exactly fear is. You start to recognize that it's just this, like a little thing that, you know, tries to hold you back. But when you realize that there is no power there, you're able to kind of recognize it for what it is. Not that it's not gonna have some control over you, because there's always gonna be an emotional intensity to it. But you take action despite of it, and it comes. It becomes easier to take that. Those small steps, Keep taking those small steps, and eventually you will end up at your goal. It literally, it's as simple or as complicated as that. As much as you want it to be I guess the first thing is really trying to understand what exactly it is that you are going for and why you want to go there. Right. Because that's really what's going to carry you from one end to the other. So now that I've done this podcast and I've done it in front of I don't even know how many people, I mean, like I said, everyone keeps people reading the sign as I'm looking at them in the eyes over here. Likely I'll probably end up doing this again out in the open because, well one, you know, it's kind of, I'm getting my word out. So this was definitely a test for me and in pushing my limits and yeah. So here's some more. So I have, I'm gonna not gonna stop it here. I'm gonna keep talking, but it shows that my memory card is almost out. So for the people who are listening to the audio part of the podcast via the One Life podcast with Donny Rouse, if it gets cut off, I totally apologize. But I'm gonna keep recording and gonna talk about one of my upcoming trips that I'm doing to Asia and just kind of like what things kind of were exciting for me as I'm, as I'm getting ready to plan this and I haven't really planned anything yet and it's kind of typically how I do my travel, but I try to have like these handful of things that are experiences that I want to have and those experience are the thing that carry me forward, that push me forward, that enable me to like kind of keep that momentum because my focus is going on this exciting experience that I'm going to have. And so I was researching today I was researching Ha Long Bay. So in Vietnam, Holong Base, it's a, it's like a UNESCO heritage site. And like all they call it, I think Hong Bay means, I don't know if it has something to do with the dragon, that the tale is that a dragon went to the water and all these bumps, these limestone formations are like the scales or like the scales of the dragon. And I was looking at this one excursion. It's a two day excursion. So you spend the night on a boat there and then you go to this, this island that has like restaurants, like volleyball beaches. It looks awesome. Just spend a night in there seeing all the boats light up. This halong bay looks amazing. So that was one of the experiences I'm going to have. I'm trying to figure out how exactly to plan the next, you know, all these things I want to fit in such a limited amount of time. So I have 11 days and in Vietnam, which is not much, just considering the travel time it takes to get from point A to point B. And. But one of the things I had mentioned a lot last podcast I want to do is from Hue, or if I'm pronouncing it correctly, Hue to Da Nang. And there's this beautiful drive that you can do via scooter that has these picturesque, like, panoramic views. It's not as busy as being in Hanoi or being in Ho Chi Minh City, which I've heard is, like, ridiculous in terms of, like, the amount of scooters and traffic there's. So it's much, much safer, relatively speaking. And yes, that was. That was the experience. And I booked my hostels. I was staying at hostels, one, because they're more economical and two, because the quality of the people you meet, you meet these people who are just wide open to life. And when I was in Orlando, I stayed at a hotel, a beautiful hotel, a JW Marriott, where the service was fantastic and it was nice to actually sleep in a nice bed for once. I was like, man, this is what it feels like to stay in a hotel, like the hot tub. But it's a completely different experience. And I'm just going to kind of go on a rant here. But when people. When I talk to people who want to travel and they're like, oh, but I can't, because, you know, hostels sound dirty. They sound scary. Have you ever seen the movie Hostel? Oh, my God, no way. I can't do that. And I've never been. Actually, the worst hostel experiences I've ever had in my life have been two places. And one, you actually. Probably both of them will surprise you. One is United States. So I stayed in some crappy hostels. I mean, well, the New York one was all right. New York City. I stayed in one, did1in dc the ones in California. I mean, some of the worst that I've ever stayed at. And believe it or not, Italy. And what was wrong with Italy? It wasn't even so much like the, like, were the hostel. The hostels, the way they were laid up, like, it was just like the noisiness of it. I stayed with. When I was studying for my espresso sommelier, I stayed with some other Italians. And it was just noisy. Yeah. It was just knowing there wasn't much respect for other people sleeping in the room. And the beds that I slept in kind of felt like they were wet. Newspaper, except wet newspaper probably would have been a little bit more comfortable than the beds I slept on in Italy. So those were the. I mean, other than that. I mean, you step outside. I mean, Italy's amazing but hostile experiences. My worst were in the United States and in Italy. And the reason why I tell you that is just because there's this misconception that those are dirty, they're not safe, yada, yada, yada. If anything, it's the complete opposite. And I found that the more Third World the country is, the more underdeveloped, the better. The hostels are both places. It's just the people you meet is just a raw experience where you're wide open, they're experiencing life, you're experiencing life, and you're learning from each other's, you know, cultures, everything. It's amazing. So that is it. So I hope you guys enjoyed this week's podcast. I am leaving again. I'm leaving on the 25th of November and I'm gonna be back on the 13th of December, roughly. I'm not sure. I might end up changing my trip a little bit because I'm supposed to stop in Hong Kong for two and a half days and depending on what's going on there, I've heard, despite the fact that protest, that it is still safe. I have a friend who's on the ground now and he says, you know, the protests are very organized, although things kind of took a shift, I think this morning. So I'm going to monitor that. So in some way my trip may change. But back about while I'm there, I have my phone and I'm going to be broadcasting the One Life podcast while I am on my travels. Kind of give you my experiences, my insights and maybe even tips. Is if you are interested in finding out, like hearing more about the trip, maybe getting some tips and kind of following me on that journey. I ask you to please subscribe to the One Life podcast with Donnie Rouse that's available on Spotify. I don't believe it's on itunes yet or on Apple, but definitely on Spotify. And slowly as they put out more episodes, it starts to go on to different platforms. So if you like it, please follow, share it with friends if you think they might find value in it. And be sure to check out the One Life Podcast with Donnie Rouse Facebook group. And if you haven't already, go to Instagram. The tag or not the tag. Donnie. D O N N Y R A U S My handle is Donny Rouse. Or you could also follow Rousecoffee but all the posts I'm going to do is going to be on Donnie Rouse my personal so that is it. I hope you guys got a lot out of this podcast today. And if there's one thing I want to leave you with, one thing you can take action on, think of one thing in your life. I mean, think of an instance where you kind of hit that, you bump against that edge, where you know it's kind of uncomfortable. You know you want something on the other side, but you kind of hit this edge and you pull back. It could be anything. It could be having a difficult conversation with a friend or family member, whatever it may be. I want you to pick one thing and this week I want you to just follow through, take action on that. And I'd love to hear your experience and what happens at the Tion Mess. Again, the handle is D O n n Y R a U S. Or you can go to the One Life Podcast with Donnie Rouse Facebook group and leave a comment there. And I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much, guys. It has been awesome. I really look forward to sharing these moments with you and sharing my insights and my experiences with the world. So I really hope that they bring value into yours and really just the message that, you know life to be yourself, but also to do things that are going to invigorate, that are going to make you feel passionate, to make you feel excited about life and realize that every single day is a blessing. The only thing to do is to realize it and seek it out. That is it. Guys. Thank you for tuning in and I will see you next week.