Is Your Worst Fear Survivable?

"The best way out is always through." — Robert Frost

Bottom Line: Why surviving the hard thing might be the beginning of your greatest confidence, not just the end of your worst moment.

This week marks the 13th anniversary of one of the most public mistakes of my life.

I was giving a TEDx talk — a genuine bucket list moment.

My co-speaker Jen and I had prepared for six weeks. My mentor Maria Sirois had flown in from Boston to drill us.

Our talk was built around thirty-seven slides, meticulously designed, timed to the beat of every sentence.

The screen behind us was the size of a stadium Jumbotron.

I walked onstage ………..

….. and forgot the clicker.

One minute and fifty-two seconds in, I felt the emptiness in my left hand.

Seven hundred people looked up at me.

Cameras rolled.

I remember thinking: everyone can see exactly what is happening to me right now.

My brain began coming apart in real time — live, in public, preserved on the internet forever.

Here’s what happened next: I survived it.

I slipped backstage, grabbed the clicker, returned. The talk continued.

13 minutes later, we were leading a full-on rave with the audience, glow sticks lighting up the auditorium.

Nobody died.

I survived.

But something unexpected happened after surviving it — I felt more capable than before I’d made the mistake. Not despite the blunder. Because of it.

I’d seen the worst case arrive, look me in the eye, and pass.

Here's The Talk

There’s a simple framework - taught to me by BU’s Moshe Cohen - I return to whenever fear is running the show. Three questions:

1. What am I afraid of happening?

2. What is most probable?

3. Is it survivable?

That third question is the whole game. We spend enormous energy avoiding the hard thing … the conversation, the risk, the stage … because we’ve already decided we won’t survive it.

We picture the worst case so vividly it becomes the only case.

But we survive nearly everything.

Even forgetting the clicker on a stadium Jumbotron in front of 700 people and the entire internet.

What are you avoiding because you’ve already decided you won’t survive it?

Run the three questions. Be honest … really honest … with the second one.

And then ask yourself: what if you’re wrong?

Because here’s what I know after 13 years of sitting with this story: the other side of the hard thing isn’t just relief. It’s something closer to electricity.

A aliveness you couldn’t have manufactured any other way.

The kind that makes you want to leap off a stage and dance with strangers.

You are built for this.

You are more capable than your fear is telling you right now.

PS — This microdosing courage framework? It's yours.

Get A Free Copy