Go confidently in the direction of
your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. – Henry David Thoreau
The year was
1947 and to date no one had broken the sound barrier. Most believed that it
could not be done. Some argued that the sound barrier was a literal wall that
once hit at 760 mph would destroy a plane. But despite the skeptics and critics
there remained a committed group of people devoted to the cause of breaking the
barrier.
A young
pilot by the name of Chuck Yeager was invited to be the one to break the sound
barrier. Colonel Body, his superior, said, “Nobody knows for sure what happens
until somebody gets there. Chuck, you’ll be flying into the unknown.” On
October 14, 1947, Yeager broke the sound barrier. He later wrote, “I was
thunderstruck. After all the anxiety, breaking the sound barrier turned out to
be a perfectly paved speedway. After all the anticipation it was really a letdown.
The ‘unknown’ was a poke through Jell-O.”
Comfort
zones have a tendency to lull us into thinking that out fears are justified and
average is acceptable. “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form
of every virtue at the testing point,” said C.S. Lewis. Comfort zones are the
testing points of leadership. As a leader, here are four things you will never
learn if you remain in your comfort zone.
The depth of your talent. You will never fully discover the
depth of your talent if you are not willing to grow to a place where more is
required. If your talent brought you to the place where you are today then
contentment will keep you there. Is that acceptable to you? The better practice
of leadership is to discover the depth of your talent by embracing the advice
of Brian Tracy who said, “You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward
and uncomfortable with trying something
new.”
The reach of your potential. The greatest obstacle to breaking the
sound barrier was not engineering but attitude. It was the perceptions of
comfortable people. You will never fully reach your potential so long as small
thinking makes you comfortable. The better practice of leadership is to be
surrounded with people who believe that breaking barriers and overcoming the
odds is all in a day’s work.
The reward of your risk. History records the names of
risk-takers (Chuck Yeager, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, Bill Gates,
etc.) who, in the face of overwhelming odds made a determination that the
restrictions of the comfort zone was just not for them. Risk-takers are a
peculiar people who had rather fail at something big than succeed at something
small. The better practice of leadership is to count the cost of exceptional
leadership and dare to change the world.
The power of your dreams. Comfort zones tend to put a lid on
dreams. Why dream if you are not willing to take risks and explore the depths
of your talent and abilities to achieve it? However, when you unleash your
dreams you open yourself to new possibilities reserved for those who have
escaped the predictable and the expectations of the ordinary. The better practice of leadership is courage. When
others discourage you or talk about invisible walls that do not exist, you can
go confidently in the direction of your dreams and live the life you have
imagined.
The
challenge for you is to get uncomfortable with the comfortable and comfortable
with the uncomfortable. Your growth as a leader depends on it.
© 2012 Doug
Dickerson
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1 comment:
That's a great analogy Doug. Pretty much everything is never quite what we thought it would be (either positive or negative) and your point about getting out of the comfort zone is spot on. I've worked now in 11 countries all over the world. Each move is always a jump into the unknown but it is never quite what I expected. You only do great things when you take that leap of fath.
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