A first-person TEDx-style talk about deliberately choosing discomfort to achieve personal and professional goals. The speaker describes doing a 10-year planning exercise (prompted by Debbie Millman), then rapidly realizing many items by intentionally getting uncomfortable — notably by running a viral 100-day project to "face 100 fears in 100 days" that became the "Hello Fears" movement. The talk contrasts comfort (the enemy of success) with courage, introduces psychological framing (behavioral inhibition vs. activation), recommends reframing "what's the worst" to "what's the best that could happen?", and issues a call to action to write a ten-year plan and start facing fears. The speaker gives many concrete personal timeline events and examples and cites an 85% figure for how often things go less badly than imagined.
Questions this video answers
April 2015
July 2015
October 2015 (same year as quitting)
July 2016 (the following year)
About one year after the husband quit (approximately 2017) — described as 'a year later' after July 2016.
Chapters
Awesome. Thank you. So where would you like to be 10 years from today? That's the question that branding guru Debbie Millman asked me while I was taking a self branding class at the School of Visual Arts. She challenged me and the rest of the students to think about our best possible lives 10 years from that day. And at the, at that moment, I knew that I was about to have a panic attack. So who here has done the 10 year exercise thing? Like, to plan your life? Yeah. So let me tell you one thing about it. It's fucking scary. You want to dream big, but not too much. You want to sound ambitious, but humble. You start dreaming of a 150 foot yacht, and somewhere down the line you settle for a freaking kayak. You don't want to disappoint future you with big plans that went nowhere and then feel like a big failure. So I started by writing down semi ambitious things that I thought would make me happy. Ten years from that day, I quit my job to open my own thing. I'm working with Adam, my husband, on building this thing that we both quit our jobs to do. Whatever it is. We travel a lot together for work and we love it. I'm being invited to speak at companies and organizations around the world because of my accomplishments, whatever they are. And I'm giving my first TEDx talk soon. And finally, I wrote that I am buying my apartment in the Lower east side in Manhattan, obviously. So this is what happened. I wrote my plan in April of 2015, and this is what happened next. In July of that same year, I quit my job to open, well, to become an entrepreneur. In October, I gave my first TEDx talk. And shortly after, I started receiving invitations to speak at schools, companies and organizations around the world. In July of the following year, my husband quit his job. Adam. And a year later, we bought this beautiful apartment in the Lower east side. Okay, this is not really my apartment. It's actually Uma Thurman's. And this is us hanging out in her living room. But besides the apartment, we accomplished most of the things that I wrote down in a matter of months. Can you believe that? And as far as the apartment goes, we did quite the opposite. We became homeless, but on purpose. Or nomads, to use a trendier word. Yeah, so if you've never thought about doing this 10 year exercise thing, I highly suggest that you start thinking about it soon because it is powerful af. But as Jim Carrey says, you can't visualize things and then go eat a sandwich. You kind of need to prove to the universe, how much you want the things you envision. And to do so, you need to get uncomfortable. And not like a little uncomfortable, more like pretending to tan in the middle of Union Square subway station uncomfortable. So how do we do it? In between April. Yeah, in between April and July of that same, I embarked on a project that changed my life. For good. Well, more like for awesome. I decided to face 100 fears in a period of 100 days and share every single experience on YouTube, which helped the project go viral and inspired millions to go after their fears in a matter of days. It went from being a. A school project to becoming a movement that we called hello Fears. You see, what I've learned is that the enemy of success is not failure, it's comfort. And that the more uncomfortable we get, the greater the reward. Or the farther away you're from your comfort zone, the bigger the success. So I want you to ask yourself, how uncomfortable are you willing to get? Because that's how much your salary will increase, your followers will pay attention, and your life is going to improve. Right? So, as you can see, I decided to get really uncomfortable to achieve all of this. And what people think is that sometimes we need a sign to. To take action. Right? You're waiting for a sign from God to do something. But the thing is that comfort is what keeps us from raising our hands to suggest the next big idea. It convinces us to stay with partners we no longer love and in cities we cannot get much out of. Comfort begs us to watch one more episode instead of facing the blank canvas on our blog. And it tells us things like good things come to those who wait. But who in this room is tired of waiting? Perhaps you're waiting for the next big idea or the right partner to launch a business, or a sign from God to take action. So there's this misconception that something will happen, and then you know, it's the right time to face your fear or take a risk. But as da Vinci put it, people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to think. The other day, I was meeting a friend for coffee. Well, Matcha. She kept going on and on about how much she dislikes her job, her paycheck, her boss, her co workers, everything. And as soon as I suggest that she should perhaps start looking for another job, she immediately pulls out the fear guard. Fear of not finding a good enough job, fear of not being able to pay rent, fear of disappointing her family. And I get it. Fear and uncertainty go hand in hand. But what about the fear of living a miserable life? Of spending the only life that you have the tangible present? Complaining about your boss, your paycheck, your co workers. Isn't that scary? I know both things are, but which one will give you the opportunity to live a happier life? I can assure you that the comfortable option will not. I choose to acknowledge that my life is in my hands and that I get to change the outcome of my everyday. And there's nothing more powerful than that. When I first started facing my fears doing my 100 day project, I kept asking myself the same question that we all ask ourselves before facing a fear. What's the worst that could happen? Right. Raise your hand if you've ever asked yourself or someone else's question before. Of course you have, because it's an instinctive question. It's a reptilian brain trying to assess the level of threat that this may represent to our survival. Right. So the problem with this question is that it only brings negative thoughts into our minds. How are we supposed to gather the courage that we need to if we're only thinking about the worst case scenario? It was only when I decided to switch the question around and I started asking myself, what's the best that could happen? That I started to see the possibilities that were hiding behind each of the fears. And not all of them went as best as they could. Definitely not the time when I tried rafting for the first time. You know, they say a lot of people die from trying to take a selfie. I think this is one of the cases that that could have happened. I'm thinking now, okay, so, yeah, but most of them did like most of them did. Went as best. Well, go as best as they could. So thanks to this question, I realized that going nomad is liberating, that Brazilian waxes last longer than the pain. True. And that vulnerability will get you more respect and empathy than any lie. So according to psychologist Jeffrey Gray, there are two primary systems determining and influencing every decision that we make. The behavioral inhibition system and the behavioral activation system. The behavioral inhibition system responds to risk, stopping us from taking action. Well, the behavioral activation system is triggered by reward. So asking yourself this question is, what will encourage you to take action? During my entire life, I used to overthink everything, answer no to most opportunities, and come up with endless excuses why I shouldn't take risks. But after embracing this new lifestyle where daring is my first choice, I realized that the only time we fail is the time we fail to try. And that's why my 2017 New Year's resolution was and still is to fail. Or more like attempt to fail. And just this year I started another 100 day a podcast, a YouTube series, a book, an e commerce, a platform. I stopped overthinking everything and I started choosing action over perfection. If I succeed, awesome. And if I fail, at least I'm fulfilling my New Year's resolution and learning a whole bunch. So try turning your fear into your goal and I can assure you you will be less afraid of it. Plus, did you know that 85% of the time. Yay. 85% of the time things don't go as bad as we imagined. They may even go in the opposite direction and surprise us. Courage is not about not having fear. She who has no fear is not courageous, is fearless. And there's no such thing as fearlessness. Courage begins with the will to think about the best case scenario. It's about creating our own luck. Sending that email to pitch our idea. Courage. It's what gets us what we deserve and sometimes even more. And you know what? Courage is what will make us sweat at first but then puts that huge smile on our face and just like a smile. And as Piera said this morning, courage is contagious. Courage is. Courage is. Courage is. To me, Courage is doing a terrible job at a shit where nobody laughs and then getting back up and doing it again the next day. Courage is communicating what you need to follow your own path. Choosing to love your body every single day to keep trying to get to the school you want even if they already rejected you twice. Accepting that you made a mistake and not to settle for less than what your heart desires. Creating your own company when nobody believes you. Sharing my story about growing up as an at risk foster kid. Courage is leaving your day job, being able to do what you want to do. Courage is dancing alone. To pack your life in two suitcases and move across the world for the second time is buying my own apartment instead of waiting for Prince Charming to arrive to walk into my auditions. Regardless of how scared am I feeling inside, Courage for me is starting over at 29 years old. Me against the world. To look at someone directly in their eye and not look away. Embracing your imperfections is standing up for what you believe in. Even if it goes against what your family believes in, what your friends believe in. Moving to another country to pursue a relationship. Luckily it works. It really takes courage to be your own boss and also getting a tattoo. That's courage. Bye. So what started as a personal development project turned into my purpose, a social mission to encourage people all over the world to live courageously. I decided to get uncomfortable to make the world a braver place. What would you get uncomfortable for? This project didn't make me fearless, but it gave me the willingness to go after my fears. So now, instead of perceiving every fear as an obstacle, I choose to see it as an opportunity. An opportunity that can lead us to uncover our next big thing. And that is the best that can happen. So start writing your ten year plan today, but start facing your fears tomorrow. Thank you all so much for your time today. Thank you.
