Will Smith - The BEST Things in Life are on the Other Side of FEAR

3 years ago, I went skydiving in Dubai, right? And skydiving is a really interesting confront with fear, right? So I gotta stand up, I'm sorry, I gotta stand up. All right, so all your friends, what happens? You go out, how you, oh, sorry, I dropped my thing. So what happens is you go out the night before and you, you know, you take a drink with your friends and somebody says, "Yeah, we should go skydiving tomorrow." And you go, "Yeah, we'll go skydiving tomorrow. Yeah, yeah." And you go, "Yeah." And everybody goes, "Yeah." Right? And you go home and you're by yourself and you're like, "Mm." Right? You're like, "Well, I mean, they was drunk too." Right? So maybe they not, maybe, I mean, We don't have to go. We don't have to do it. So then that night you're laying in your bed and you just keep, huh, huh, and you're terrified. You keep imagining over and over again jumping out of an airplane and you can't figure out why you would do that, right? And you're laying there and you have the worst night's sleep of your life, but you still have the hope that your friends were drunk, right? So you wake up the next day and you go, you know, down and you stay where you were going to meet and everybody's there. You're like, "Ah, shit. All right, all right, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool." Right? So you get in the van and you don't know that your friends had the same night that you had 'cause they're pretending like they didn't. They're like, "Yeah, man, my uncle's a Navy SEAL and you know, this is gonna be great. I've been looking forward to this." And you like, "Oh my God, oh my God." And your stomach is terrible. You can't eat and everything, but you don't wanna be the only punk who doesn't jump outta this airplane. So you get there And then you have this safety brief. And you're standing there and the guys would say, well, if the chute doesn't open, what's going to happen is you're doing— well, why the hell— what could happen? That the chute wouldn't open, right? So you do a thing. And what you do is your first jump, you're attached to a guy who is going to walk you out. So you go and you get there and there's an airplane and nobody's stopping. Everybody's still going. So you get onto the airplane and you're sitting there. And it's extra because you're sitting on some dude's lap, some stranger. He's sitting on his lap. And it's like, you know, you're trying to make small talk. Yeah, man. So you do— you be jumping with people all the time, huh? Right? You know. So— and then you just want to make sure— you got kids, right? You got people you need to see, right? You just want to make sure he's serious, right? So you get in there. So everything's normal. So you fly, and you go up, you go up, you go up, and you go up to 14,000 feet. And you notice there's a light. It's red and it's yellow and green, right? So right now the light's red. So then you start thinking at some point the light's gonna go green, but you don't know what's gonna happen, right? And you wait and it goes yellow and the light goes green and somebody opens the door and in that moment you realize you've never been in a frickin' airplane with the door open. Right? Terror. Oh, sorry, I'm spittin'. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. No, terror, terror, terror, terror, right? So you go and then, you know, if you were smart, you sat in the back so you don't go first, right? And then people start going out of the airplane. And you go and the guy walks you up to the end of the thing and you're standing and your toes are on the edge and you're looking out down to death. And they say, "On 3!" And they say, "1, 2!" And he pushes you on 2 because people grab on 3, right? Right? And you go, "Ahh!" And you fall out of the airplane and in 1 second, You realize that it's the most blissful experience of your life. You're flying, right? It doesn't feel like falling, right? It's like the— you actually are kind of held a little bit by the wind. And then you start and you start falling, you falling, and you— there's zero fear. You realize that the point of maximum danger is the point of minimum fear. It's bliss. It's bliss. And you're flying, right? And you're doing that. And then 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 40 seconds, and you have enough time to just kind of be like, oh, shit, that's that building I saw like that one. Oh, you can see the ocean, right? You start doing all of that. And the lesson for me was, why were you scared in your bed the night before? Why did you— what do you need that fear for? Just don't go. Why are you scared in your bed 16 hours before you jump? Why are you scared in the car? Why could you not enjoy breakfast? What did you need that— the fear is— fear of what? You're nowhere even near the airplane. Everything up to the stepping out, there's actually no reason to be scared. It only just ruins your day. You don't have to jump. And then in that moment, all of a sudden where you should be terrified is the most blissful experience of your life. And God placed the best things in life on the other side of terror. On the other side of your maximum fear are all of the best things in life. You know? So that was— sorry. So that was my experience with skydiving and fear. All right. All right. So practically speaking— But I didn't like that take. I'm going to do it again. I can sell that better. I can sell it better. The confrontation with fear is an absolute magical way of facing the things we have to do in this life. You know, forget security, live for experience. All right.