Real Success is Always Beyond Your Comfort Zone

October 2020

What do you do when you’re asked to do something important that you’ve never done before, when the result will impact hundreds of people, and there is a tight deadline?

• Do you shrug your shoulders and think confidently to yourself, “No sweat. I’ve got this”?  

• Do you take a deep breath and hope like crazy you can pull it off without looking too foolish?

• Or is your first inclination to make an excuse—like you’re just too busy right now—and refer the opportunity to someone else?

Chances are, if you’re like some people, your answer is somewhere toward the end of the list.

I learned long ago that I don’t know how to do everything. Never did, never will. I also learned long ago that the only way to grow in ability—and truly create a WOW success—is to try new things. You’ve got to put yourself out there. You’ve got to step beyond your comfort zone.

More importantly, I learned along the way that whenever I try new things, I usually manage to pull it off somehow. In fact, for me, the higher visibility the task, the more exciting it is! So, with few exceptions, I usually go for it.

Looking back, I’ve always been this way—within limits. Although, I will admit there have been certain things I simply said No to. When my son and daughter-in-law tried skydiving, and they urged me to try it, too, I politely declined. My husband wasn’t too keen on me spoiling our perfectly good life.

But ask me to take on a seemingly impossible business project, one that has the potential to have a huge beneficial impact on the company, or a client, or for the broader community, then I’m all over it—as long as my efforts won’t negatively impact my loved ones. If I have their blessing, I’ll go for it.

If you had asked me twenty years ago whether I would ever become an author, I would have said no way. I would have seen no benefit in it back then. But when I launched Business World Rising and needed a way to quickly get all of our leadership development clients—from first line managers to CEOs—on board with my leadership philosophies, writing a book seemed like the perfect answer.

Honestly, I had no idea what it would take to write and publish a book—and maybe that was a good thing—but I jumped in with both feet and figured it out.  And not only did I not fail, my first book, The WOW Factor Workplace: How to Create a Best Place to Work Culture, published just nine months ago, has already won no less than seven awards, including a gold in the Business—Non-fiction category from the 2020 Global eBook Awards.  

Moreover, I won two of the three 2020 awards in the Business category from the Florida Author’s & Publishers Association. My newest book, Heartfelt Leadership: How to Capture the Top Spot and Keep on Soaring,published just six months ago, took silver, while The WOW Factor Workplace took bronze.  Just imagine what readers around the world would have missed out on if I had never attempted to write a book?  

My advice is to just say YES the next time you’re given the opportunity to try something new, something important, something that could beneficially impact hundreds, or thousands, or millions of people. As long it won’t negatively impact your loved ones, what have you got to lose?

This Covid thing has caused a great many of us to push beyond our comfort zones. What are some of the scarier business challenges you’ve undertaken since March that you’d never attempted before? You’ve obviously lived to talk about it.  

Even before my first book, The WOW Factor Workplace, hit bookstore shelves last December, I was asked to be a plenary keynote presenter for the ASHP Conference for Pharmacy Leaders on October 19, 2020 in Chicago (the American Society for Health Systems Pharmacists is a professional membership organization with nearly 50,000 members). Having given plenty of keynotes to professional organizations over the years, I welcomed the opportunity, thinking “No sweat. I’ve got this.”

Then Covid hit.

Months later, the ASHP decided to cancel the live event in favor of holding a virtual event. The ASHP event planners now had to do something important that they had never done before, impacting hundreds of people, under a very tight deadline. 

They asked me to transition my keynote from a live, interactive format to a pre-recorded video in monologue format. “You mean you want me to make a video where I’ll just talk for 45 minutes straight, without an audience to interact with?” I asked.

I couldn’t imagine doing such a thing. I had honestly never given a keynote address where I couldn’t see anyone or hear any reactions—no laughter, no applause, no nothing—just me talking to a camera. For a brief moment, that seemed a daunting task. I’m used to reading an audience. I respond on the fly to audience reactions. Now I couldn’t do that. Woah. 

But I couldn’t back out now on something so important, with such a tight deadline. No, the show must go on. I would simply have to figure it out.

I was disappointed, to say the least. I looked forward to speaking in-person. I love to meet attendees ahead of time so I can personalize my talks on the fly and better connect with the audience. And, of course, I love to autograph my books for those who wish to purchase them. A virtual event meant I couldn’t do any of those things. C’est la vie.

But, you know what? I figured it out—and I learned some new skills. In the end, I actually found making the video was kind of fun. Piece of cake!

On October 19th, following my pre-recorded keynote, I’ll be doing the live Q&A from the comfort of my living room via Zoom. I’m confident it will be a real success ... even if it was, initially, beyond my comfort zone.

Lesson learned: Never let an opportunity to WOW the world pass you by. Go out and give it all you’ve got.

If you have a story about stepping beyond your comfort zone, I’d love to hear it.