When you are afraid, but you do it anyway.
In our house, there’s only one show that the whole family watches religiously the moment it’s available and that’s Snake City.
Snake City is a show that follows a South African snake catcher (Simon Keys) and his assistant/girlfriend (Siouxsie Gillett) as they drive around Durban catching poisonous snakes. (Durban is loaded with venomous snakes!) Simon and Siouxsie are experts at what they do (caching venomous snakes), but they are also very aware of the danger involved. Simon recites all the ways that the venom of the snake he’s currently hunting can kill him while he searches for each snake. It makes for an edge of your seat tension in every episode.
But Simon has taught me about more than snakes; he’s taught me about facing fear.
Though Simon has caught hundreds of venomous snakes with a pair of tongs and his bare hand, his fear is real and palpable in every hunt. He often comes out of whatever basement, hole, or junk-filled garage the snake was hiding in, with sweat dripping from his face, the snake in one hand, and his other hand shaking like a leaf.
He’s an expert. But his expertise could very easily send him to the hospital or even the morgue.
He knows the danger, but he does it anyway.
We talked in our last conversation about how one of the keys to getting unstuck is to get moving. Even if you are going in the wrong direction, the movement gives you information. Once you get started, you learn things that you wouldn’t find out if you keep your head down and try to tough it out. But when you are afraid, when you are mostly aware of what you don’t have, how you’ve failed before, or what it’s going to cost you if you screw up, taking the risk to get moving seems like the last thing you want to do.
What do you need to get started making the changes that you need to make? What’s stopping you from getting started today?
