When I was nineteen I took my youngest brother out rowing on a nearby boating lake. He was only six years old and as I paddled us both across the shallow water he became quite nervous.
I stopped and explained that because this was his first time in a boat, the rocking was completely unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. But actually there was no real danger: the boat wasn’t tipping over in the way he was afraid it might. And even if we did fall in, the water was so shallow that we could easily walk to the shore. Who knows, once he got used to it, paddling about in a boat might even be fun!!
These times of churning that we are living through are a little bit like this: many of the situations we face are unlike anything we have known before. And although the news can bring us scary stories each day, most of the time there is no immediate danger to most of us.
This means that if we find ourselves in a new and unexpected situation, our first task is simply to centre and ground ourselves — to stay calm despite the rocking of the boat.
Then, like Doctor Who, we can start to treat the challenges we face as opportunities for adventure. We can learn not only to cope with what happens but also to enjoy the process, and then to use the experiences we gain to become stronger and more valuable, antifragile.
Have you ever worried about something that then didn’t happen or where the danger was low even if it did? What would it have been like to have lived like Doctor Who instead and to have treated the situation as an opportunity for adventure?
Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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