#85 - Getting Uncomfortable

I grew up on a housing estate in South London and one of my neighbours was a Nigerian family of four. The two sons were around my age, one a little older, but they never hung around with the other kids in the neighbourhood. We laughed at the fact they played in their back-garden and concluded they were either the prisoners of evil parents or the family was just arrogant; it was several years before I became friends with them. 

The older of the two was studying medicine at the time and one day when I joked that 7 years of study sounded hellish he told me:

"I'd rather be uncomfortable for 25 years and be comfortable for 60 than be comfortable for 25 years and then have to struggle for 60."

He is now a heart surgeon at the Royal Brompton and his little brother works for Mars in Chicago - he recently posted a picture on Facebook of himself with footballer Danny Wellbeck at a pool-party in Florida :)

One of the things I love about public speaking is the adrenaline I feel every time I stand up in front of an audience. I've learned how to channel it now, to transform fear into fuel but there is always an element of the unknown there and that equals some discomfort. I love feeling myself grow as a speaker and a person each time - it feels like one person stands up to speak and a different person sits down. However, I now know that rather than reaching a level of comfort the future will be just the opposite for me. With each step forward the bar just gets higher, I won a speech contest on Monday but that now means competing at a higher level in two weeks. I've also received offers to teach and speak which will again mean new challenges to face, new fears to conquer. 

I have had similar experiences with boxing, the better I got, the better the fighters that wanted to spar with me until I even had a few pros asking me to work with them. The better I got the harder it got. My guess is that the people who are the most successful and fulfilled are actually those that feel fear the most often because they are constantly growing. Constantly getting uncomfortable.