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I got the thing I'd wanted my whole life and then I stopped growing. Doing hard things when your back is against the wall is survival; courage is doing them when nothing is making you.
I got the thing I'd wanted my whole life and then I stopped growing. Doing hard things when your back is against the wall is survival; courage is doing them when nothing is making you.
Featuring: Søren Kierkegaard, Jia Jiang, Tim Ferriss
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Chapters:
(00:00) When Nothing Is Chasing You
(00:34) Involuntary Discomfort vs Courage
(01:11) Jia Jiang's 100 Days of Rejection
(01:34) Tim Ferriss and Comfort Challenges
(01:53) 8 Courage Challenges a Day
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One mental model each day in a few minutes. Habits, business, building products and thinking clearly. From Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc.
"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
Søren Kierkegaard
I got the thing I'd wanted my whole life and then I stopped growing. I was 23, driving to work, unable to name what was wrong. For the first time, nothing was chasing me.
Up to that point in my life, all I chased was peace and security.
I got both and felt stuck.
I grew up lower middle class, with stretches that ran below that. Getting out took years of doing things I didn't want to do. They scared me. I did them because the other option was staying.
A courage challenge is a hard thing you pick when nothing is making you do it.
- The sales ask
- The hard conversation
- The call that keeps getting pushed
The years before 23 were survival. My back was against the wall.
Doing a hard thing is a different skill from surviving one.
I never saw those early years as courage. It was what I had to do to make it out, involuntary discomfort.
Once security arrived, that pressure was gone. I faced a choice. I could choose discomfort voluntarily or stop growing.
Without a threat forcing me, I stopped doing hard things. Growth left with fear.
Then I picked up Jia Jiang's Rejection Proof.
An investor turned down his startup and it flattened him, so he went out looking for a no a day for 100 days. Day one he asked a security guard for $100. Day three he walked into a Krispy Kreme and asked for doughnuts arranged like the Olympic rings.
The shift leader made them and handed them over.
He finished all 100 days.
Around that time I heard Tim Ferriss describe the same practice with a different name. He calls them comfort challenges in The 4-Hour Workweek: hold a stranger's eye contact, ask someone for their number.
For the first 23 years of my life, discomfort was involuntary. After that, growth meant making it voluntary.
Today I run 8 courage challenges a day.
One was an email I left unopened for a month. Reading it and replying took 30 minutes.
Survival is doing the hard thing because you have to. Courage is doing it when nothing is making you.
What uncomfortable thing could you do today?