If you know me, you know what a huge fan I am of Michelle Casazza. Michelle is a business and life coach guiding corporate professionals to build aligned and fulfilling lives. I have interviewed her before, so this time we decided to turn the tables. Michelle led our conversation on risk and fear. I’ve been in a lot of challenging (in a good way) negotiations lately and realized I have some very powerful tools in my kit to manage it all. And I’m so thankful to Michelle for helping me to see myself. The picture ain’t half bad! Sharing some of my tools here with you on managing risk and fear to achieve success:
1️⃣ Managing adrenaline is a critical piece of success. “Practicing” fear is how you get there; start small and increment how much fear you’re taking on at once. Michelle and I talked about finding hobbies (for me—flying, for her—sailing) that allow you to step into somewhat scary and challenging situations. Prove to yourself what you can do, and develop confidence as you continue honing your skills.
2️⃣ Connect risk with joy (Versus connecting risk with fear.) This is the biggest one for me! If you can center on something that helps you be calm and joyful during risky situations, then you can tolerate so much more. And I think that being able to tolerate pressure for extended periods of time is one of the things that I’ve tried to ingest, for lack of a better word, from all of the kind of sporty, adrenaline-y things that I’ve ever done.
3️⃣ Pattern matching. Create context for risk. Can you think about all the scary things you’ve done? Think, “Maybe this version of a scary thing I’m doing is kind of like that *other* thing.” You did that, so you can probably do this too!
4️⃣ This too shall pass. Eventually this moment will be behind me and I’ll be on to the next thing. It’s a humbling thought. But it’s also grounding. If I’m in a difficult moment where I feel like I just can’t take anymore, I step back and know that no matter what, the time will simply pass.
Michelle asked me for my best piece of advice to my younger self. I said, “How hard could it be?” See above steps 1️⃣ - 4️⃣. Rinse and repeat.
Check the full interview on Spotify. 🎧
Find Michelle at www.joinmatria.com. ✨
