Stop playing it safe and unlock your true potential

WEBVTT
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Security is an illusion and
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one that I've succumbed to more times than
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I'd like to admit. In today's episode,
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I'm going to be deconstructing why it's
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an illusion and more importantly, how to not
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be fooled by it.
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I was being interviewed on a podcast the other day,
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and I was talking about the importance of courage. And the host
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asked me, where have I not been courageous?
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And where have I been courageous in my life and business?
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And it got me thinking about my journey up until this point.
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And I've had several moments in
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my life where I had
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difficult choices to make, as I'm sure have you in your life.
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And I wrote a chapter in my first book called
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Security Is an Illusion.
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And the reason I called it that is because I think myself,
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And many of the founders that I coach often
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do things that we believe in some way are
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the safe route or the safe bet. But actually,
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when you zoom out and you look at those actions, they're no
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safer than the thing that we actually want to do. And it
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reminds me of this really famous speech by Jim Carrey,
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his commencement speech, where he's telling the story of his
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dad who was an accountant, I believe.
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And his dad actually wanted to pursue
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a career in standup comedy, but he did accountancy
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instead because he believed it was the safer option.
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And there was a point in his dad's career where overnight he
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suddenly lost his job and Jim Carrey
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and his family were on the verge of being kicked out
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of their house because they couldn't afford to pay the bills.
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And in this speech, Jim Carrey says that you
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can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well
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go for what you do want. And it
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reminded me of these instances in my life,
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and it reminded me of this principle because The more I talk to
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founders, the more I coach founders, the more I see this
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pattern of people doing things that logically seem like
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the safe choice, but actually objectively,
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they are no safer than the thing that they really want to do. And so
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I wanted to just record an episode dedicated to this and
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to talk a little bit about why I think this happens, but more importantly,
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How we can make decisions that aren't
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clouded in this false sense of
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security. So when I look back through my life,
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my first job out of school was for
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a film production studio
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that specialized in TV commercials. And I
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fell in love with that job. It was a kind of internship, I guess.
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And I fell in love with that. And I just
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was so inspired
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and motivated by the creative process and watching
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how ideas were formed, how commercials
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were shot, and seeing behind the scenes of all of that stuff.
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Now, in spite of that, when I went to university,
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and I think mainly because I'd already applied for some
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subjects prior to kind of going on this year
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out after school, a gap year, as it's commonly known in
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the UK, I studied,
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or I was accepted into university to study computing for
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business. And the reason I chose that degree was
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because I thought it sounded good. And I thought
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with a computing and business degree, I could get some high-flying job.
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And if I didn't get some high-flying job, I would learn some really important skills
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and be able to run an amazing business. But if I was honest with
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myself, it wasn't really what I
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was truly passionate about. What I really was passionate about was film and
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photography, but I didn't really know what
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a career in that field looked like, and it felt very
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risky. And I think people around me probably told me that. They probably said,
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you know, film's great, but how are
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you going to get a job in film, and what's that going to look like,
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etc., etc. And I think I caved to this
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pressure of do the thing that is likely to get you the
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best possible job. Now, it didn't take me long to realize that
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it was the wrong move. Firstly, because the computing side of
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things was way over my head. And I
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distinctly remember being in a computing workshop. It was probably
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one of the first or second workshops I was in. And the
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teacher who kind of looked a little bit like the computer guy from
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The Simpsons, if you've ever seen that. Big, fat,
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thick-rimmed glasses, very much overweight, picking his nose as
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he was giving us instructions.
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And he turned to the class and he said, everyone here's at different levels.
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So we're going to start with something really basic. I just want you to open
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the command line and I want you to type these prompts in
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and see what you get back. Now, I had never
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heard that phrase before. So I put my hand up and
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innocently asked, what's the command line? What do you
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mean by the command line? And everyone around me started laughing.
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And because everyone around me started laughing, he obviously assumed that I was joking.
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And he came over to me and he said, you're not at school now.
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If you want to play the class clown, you can just leave.
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And I was really embarrassed where I had
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to kind of say to him, quietly, I'm not trying to play the class clown.
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I genuinely don't know what that is. And the look of
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horror that came over his face, I still remember
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to this day. And it was obvious to me at that point that A,
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I was in well over my head, and B, maybe this wasn't the right
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subject for me. Computing wasn't quite what I thought it was going to be,
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right? Now, I had
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a difficult decision to make because I was encouraged
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to persevere through that first year of university.
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And I scraped through my, the business side
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of the course, but didn't pass the computing side of the course.
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And they essentially wanted me to retake the year.
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And I probably could have done that. I probably could have pushed through and done
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the thing and got the support. But I felt in
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my body and in my soul that this wasn't the right degree for me.
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This wasn't the calling. And I was looking at what other degrees the
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university offered, and I spotted this one called New Media.
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And just by reading the description of this course, I felt the excitement
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moving through my body. It was learning about film, how to use cameras,
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photography, typefaces, building websites.
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It was Everything kind of new media,
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right? And so the
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courage, I suppose, at the time it took to go
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for that option, knowing that if I said I
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didn't want to retake the year and that I wanted to do this degree and
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this faculty didn't let me in, then I'd probably be kicked out of university.
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Because that's not the degree that I was chosen
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for. And so that example
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is just one of many that have cropped up through my life. Now I did
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luckily get accepted onto new media and that was the qualification
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that I left with and I ended up getting a job straight out of university
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for one of the biggest marketing and advertising agencies in the UK
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at the time in London. And so it showed me that
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if I was, I don't wanna use the word passion because
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I think it's thrown around too loosely.
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Like if I was dedicated enough
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and the things I was learning about were interesting enough,
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then there was a way forward, right? And the perseverance
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and the determination and the energy with which
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that I was approaching those things was more important
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than the things themselves, than the actual subject.
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Now, this happened to me several times after that,
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despite learning that initial lesson. I worked for
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that company for just over a year, and the reality of working
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for that marketing and advertising agency was very different to what
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I thought it was going to be. And I left and went
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freelance. And I realized quite quickly that I
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was falling back into these kinds of patterns that I knew.
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So one of the modules at university was building and developing
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websites, which was much more closely related to what I wanted to do,
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but I wasn't really a coder. I was kind of a designer. I was a
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creative, but I'd fallen into this coding world because at the time when
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I graduated, frontend web development was a very kind of sought-after skill.
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And so I managed to get a job for this marketing and advertising agency as
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a frontend web developer, but what I really wanted to be was a creative.
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And when I couldn't find a way into the creativity, I kind of quit
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my job and started freelancing, but very quickly fell
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back into that. I will build you websites and very much back into the kind
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of coding and the web development side of things because it was familiar.
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Because it felt safe, because it felt like the thing that was in demand.
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And so I've been through this cycle many, many times, and no matter how many
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times I go through it, the choices don't seem any
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easier. And the allure to choose the
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most secure thing doesn't seem any weaker. It just seems stronger, if anything.
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All the way up until recently, where I realized that I was kind of falling
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into the same pattern given in a lesser extent,
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but I was gearing my business towards the
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things that I thought the market wanted rather than ultimately what I
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wanted to build a business around and the things that really gave me energy and
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that really lit me up because I was afraid that no one would
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pay for that. I was afraid that it was too intangible to sell.
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And it's just been really
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over the last couple of weeks where I have run some ad
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hoc coaching sessions with some people who have reached out to me.
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And I'm actually planning to release one of them as a podcast episode,
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but it really reminded me of
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this idea or this principle that the energy with
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which you approach something is more important
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than the thing itself. And it reminded
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me how I felt when I coach people around things
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that really light me up. It reminded me how I show
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up to coaching sessions when I'm digging into people's childhood
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patterns, their limiting beliefs, and I'm helping them discover things
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that they've maybe never discovered before or talked to anyone about before.
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And showing them the world that they could potentially live in without these
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limiting beliefs, without these patterns running their life. Like,
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it energizes me so much, and I feel like I could do that every day.
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Now, that stuff is way harder to sell because most people aren't waking up thinking,
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I need someone to help me figure out my limiting beliefs and my patterns and
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et cetera, et cetera. But it's the thing that gives me the energy,
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and it's the thing that I know I can show
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up to with energy.
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And then that reminded me that that's the important part.
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The important part is how you ultimately show up to
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the thing that you want to do. And then figuring out all of the challenges
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along the way. How do I market this? How do I find the people that
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it's most relevant to? How do I position myself in a way that
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generates demand. And so I
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guess this episode really is just a message
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to anybody who has found themselves in
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a position where they're doing things that they don't really want to
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be doing because they believe in some way
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that they have to do them to make money or
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to keep people happy, or because ultimately it's the safest root.
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And it's a reminder that choosing the
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things that you want to do deep down,
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that resonate with who you are, that may seem risky,
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is no riskier in the
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long run than choosing the thing that feels the safest.
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It may seem like it right now, But I can promise you
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in the long run, it isn't because ultimately
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that energy with which you approach that thing changes and
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people around you pick up on that. And eventually that
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thing stops being safe. It stops being
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secure. So finding the
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things that you can show up to with a
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true sense of fulfillment,
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with a true sense of excitement,
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with a true sense of flow,
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is the most important pursuit in your business.
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There is nothing more important than that.
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And so hopefully this is just a gentle
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reminder of that fact, and maybe a
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small piece of inspiration to
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make you examine the things that you are currently doing,
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to make you examine the choices that you're currently making and
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decide to pursue something that feels aligned with
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your soul, with who you are,
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And something that gives you the energy that
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you know you have inside and
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the energy that makes you feel alive.
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My name is Matt Essam. You've been listening to the Creative Courage Podcast.