Face Your Fears: Face Yourself

The following quote by Greek Philosopher, Aristotle is as relevant today as it was when he stated it originally, somewhere circa 350BC.

Last night Tim (of TJ Elliott) and I attended ‘Second Wednesday‘ (or #SecWed) at Antenna in Nottingham‘s Creative Quarter – a monthly creative and digital event involving guest speakers, networking and free beers.

There were two very good speakers on yesterday – Jack Sheppard talking about how technology must be designed with people in mind was very interesting and a talented speaker, but it was Ben Lumley‘s talk “Fear: How It Affects People Like You And How To Kick It In The A***!” that resonated more personally with me.

I’m the type of person who likes to take things head on and not let anything beat me, in fact – if you look a few posts previous to this one – you can see me holding a dirty big spider which terrified the life out of me (I asked my girlfriend Lynne to take a photo – quickly, which she did. But then she said it wasn’t a good one and said she’d take another. My response was “No! I’ve done it! Take it off me! Take it off me now!”).

I also once went up in a cherry-picker to change a lightbulb in the roof of an aircraft hanger, just to prove I could master my fear of heights. This was not a good move. Although I managed to complete the task, by the time I got down I could tell by the looks on people’s faces and the concern as they asked if I was ok – that I didn’t look well.

Ben’s talk about fear and how your brain works under fear and stress was a real eye-opener because I (and everybody else in the room) could really identify with what he was talking about. He brought in his knowledge about fear and stress in the workplace – specifically how it affects people when they are trying to be creative  – and also ways to overcome this fear and be more productive.

You’ll get no spoilers from me – I whole-heartedly recommend you attend one of his talks if you ever get the opportunity as it is an experience best delivered by the master himself, with a knowledge and wit about the subject I do not possess – but it did make me think of that famous quote from Aristotle. I had always thought before that it was these ‘other people’ holding us back, stopping me and stopping you from reaching our full potential. Last night I found out that it is me and you holding ourselves back. We have been holding ourselves back this whole time and I say now it is time for us to be honest with ourselves about our fears and be brave enough to let them go.

Go on.

Who’s stopping you?

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