I had the privilege of meeting aviator Tracey Curtis Taylor this week. She has just returned from an epic trip, flying solo in her beautiful open cockpit vintage Boeing Stearman plane ‘The Spirit of Artemis’ across Africa.
Tracey was recreating this pioneering journey first made by Lady Mary Heath in 1928. She is an inspirational, courageous and driven aviator with an indomitable spirit and talks enthrallingly about the sheer joy of flying, the odd drama, and risk.
We talked about doing what you believe in and that sometimes you just have to get out there and ‘do it’, whatever ‘it’ is in your world. Many times fear of whatever ‘it’ is stops us or as Tracey confirms, on occasion it’s the fear of the fear. Finding one’s true purpose, if you will, which syncs comfortably with your values can sometimes appear hard, but when we do, invariably everything comes together and it feels easier.
I believe it was Eleanor Roosevelt that said, ‘do one thing everyday that scares you’. And of course the upside beyond the ‘ scary bit’ is that we learn something and that’s almost always a good thing. Kids do this every day be it swimming out of their depth, riding a bike, asking for help or as a little boy I spotted half way up a tree the other day yelling ‘Mummy I’m scared’. He was talked/ helped down and promptly went straight up said tree again but higher! 
The organization Netflix has a very clear and strong set of values; how they operate, how they treat their people and a very clear sense of what works for them. They most certainly don’t fear the hard decisions, such as informing people that they don’t fit, removing products that don’t work and the success of the company is testament to that. Great values and standing by them invariably works.
Overcoming the little hurdles or indeed the big ones broken into chunks, takes steps towards overcoming the fear.
In the words of author of The Alchemist, Paul Coelho “ there is only one thing that makes a dream impossible; the fear of failure”.
Francesca Simon, the author of the multi-million selling Horrid Henry books talks of the getting started bit of writing a book, taking that first step. She says she ‘tricks’ herself by starting in the middle; a few notes here, a few ideas there and voila, a new chapter, literally and metaphorically, has begun.
Whatever it is that you want to do; take a baby step, trick yourself, be bold, be courageous, believe in you and have a fabulous 2014.
And if you’d like a little help, you know where we are.
X fusion 