Let me explain. I live near a very busy intersection, which is the southern arterial into Melbourne CBD. An 8 lane high road (4 lanes each direction), which I daily walk cross, but never without great awareness and caution.
Apart from the thunderous roar of 180,00 cars, trucks and bikes daily the intersection has traffic lights to give direction to right and left turning traffic and, to when is safe, for pedestrians to cross. Even when I take guide from the 'green man' when to cross I do with the utmost of caution as vehicles run amber and red lights showing almost fatal disregard to others in a race across town to their destination.
To underpin my caution I unconsciously put my senses of hearing and sight on notice for danger as I cross for the unpredictability of drivers and riders.
Often I see this young blind girl with a white cane girl tentatively but confidently feel her way by a guiding her cane, hearing, and feeling her way.
How does she and many like her have the courage to do that? Have you ever seen someone like that and asked yourself? What if they get it wrong? Taking just one false step could be fatal.
With all her courage and risk involved in just getting to work or school( the Blind institute possibly her destination 3 kilometres away) she could show us a thing about how we could get from our own life. You see whilst she in conjunction with a 'seeing' guide would have repeatedly covered the route in preparation for her first solo trip and note key points to navigate future occasions, many we would be unawares of like the 'lego" pavement signalling to her she is approaching the intersection, and also using her sense of smell for trees and flowers to indicate her location.
But this young girl, and the many others like her can teach us a thing about life and how to be more adventuresome and successful.
But as good as her senses and helped by the many digital tools she obviously cannot know all the details and steps how to get from A to B. She takes risks just by venturing out of home in the belief they have the preparation and skills to get from one side of the city to the other.
But often in our setting of our goals we hesitate to take action and step forward until we see al the steps to the destination. We suffer bouts of procrastination and falter to take action because we cannot see all the steps in high detail.
So our goals are on the wimpish side. We are risk adverse.
In these circumstances, if we stretch at best, our goals will be just outside our comfort zone. If this had always the case we wouldn't have a man on the moon and someone like Richard Branson would be a record store owner. Christopher Columbus would have taken 15 century tourists on day jaunts off the Spanish coats and Australian PM , Tony Abbott still a concrete plant manager(which in this case may have been a good thing.)
In our goals we must accept to make great progress in our life, we may not see all the detail or steps along the way. But trust our ability, our learned skills and hone our senses to pick up on the clues and the talisman along our route to our destination.
Life is risky. Our goals have options of risk and failure. Just as Columbus did to take the risk of his life and leave the safety of the shoreline. But the risk makes the achievement so much sweeter. Kennedy would never have made the statement in 1960 to go where no man has gone before if he thought it would not have motivated and galvanised a nation. (He was to pay the ultimate price in his goal to unify his presidency when he travelled south to Dallas that fateful day in November 1963.)
A critical characteristic of entrepreneurs is they have a scotoma which is a partial blind spot in their vision. I know in ventures I have started there were blind spots that latter when I realised, I shuddered and say to myself "what was I thinking?"
One major venture I started in a recession with limited promise of clients. I do wonder if i new then what I know now, I would have taken the punt and ventured past my own shore.
Inspirational speaker Denis Waitley nailed it when he said: "A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown.
Our comfort zone can be our greatest challenge to our ability to achieve our destiny and promised greatness. Setting goals within our comfort zone can at the best promise that we can ever achieve above 'good'. We are likely to die with songs unsung, books unwritten, sporting records unchallenged and egos unfractured.
But if we do?
Can be summed up by Tan Le; "I have stepped outside my comfort zone enough to know that yes, the world doe fall apart but not in the way we fear."
