Go Places That Scare You

Buddhist advise: Go places that scare you.

Well that shouldn't be too hard these days. A sample from today's Financial Times includes word that Microsoft is laying off 5000 people, the banking sector is still in deep trouble, the stock market was off again and Spain estimates 100,000 jobs in its tourism industry are at risk. No, finding scary places is the easy part.

But as is usually the case, the Buddhist wisdom is not about lost jobs and poor performing banking sectors. It is about the inner workings of us humans. This advise is meant to encourage us to move towards those experiences, people and opportunities that scare us the most. Why would anyone do this? Because we are either growing or dying; there is no middle ground. And real growth always has an edge to it; some aspect that scares us.

For me, the edge is always about connecting to people. I tell myself that I hate to network. I tell myself I'm no good at small talk and not great at promoting myself and my work. Yet connecting to other people is an essential action to growing my business. I believe that to do my part to help revive our economy, our country and our sense of self, I need to visit those places that scare me.

I'll let you know how it works out.