Recently I was watching an old short video by Ankur Warikoo (CEO – Nearbuy, a platform for everything local) and he shared an interesting anecdote (real or not, only folks at Google know) from Google and summarised it with 3 most inspiring words (words that have shaped my career since start, courtesy my mentors), DON’T GET COMFORTABLE.
We get inspired by people who have gone on to do something great with their life. A lot of tech folks are inspired by the likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates etc. Almost every startup office adorns Steve Jobs (and his quotes), Sachin Bansal (ex-Flipkart and an old friend). Ask anyone around who their favorite sports person is, they will take inspiration from names like Dhanraj Pillai, Rahul Dravid, Leander Paes etc.
A behaviour that is common amongst these undoubtedly successful legends has been that they never got comfortable and always challenged the normal. These people (and like them many others) have always pushed the boundaries and never settled for what seems acceptable.
Don’t get too comfortable with who you are at any given time – you may miss the opportunity to become who you want to be
Jon Bon Jovi
Richard Branson (founder of Virgin Group), was never comfortable delivering public speeches, especially the ones where he needed to prepare beforehand and deliver a message to the audience. He reached out to his close confidants and got this advise, “if you’re doing public speaking, just think that you’re having a chat with somebody in your living room. Don’t think about thousands of people out there… just have a chit-chat with somebody”. Learning to send his thoughts across to a group of people was coming out of comfort zone for him.
Melinda Gates encourages new graduates to take risks. She shared her advice for college graduates in an interview saying, “This is a time in your life when a whole host of opportunities will suddenly open up… and if you stay in your comfort zone, you’ll miss out on so many things worth experiencing.” But Gates also made it clear that authenticity, along with being open to exploration, is also key to success. “While you’re challenging yourself to embrace the discomfort of new environments and situations, also remember to treasure the things that make you uniquely you,” she said.
Rahul Dravid, the wall of Indian Cricket was always a tenacious cricketer who like any other player representing the nation will give their 100%. During the early 2000, Indian cricket team was undergoing radical changes and to accommodate additional batsman to solidify the batting, someone had to take additional role of keeping the wickets. Rahul Dravid stepped out of his comfort zone and went on to play the role of wicket-keeper for 71 matches.
There are a lot more examples like Anil Kumble, another cricketing legend who went on to play a test match with broken jaw or Oprah Winfrey, who had to learn to act for an HBO series. Stepping out of the comfort zone, opened up a whole new opportunity, the one, these people probably were never aware of.
Comfort zones are not what the name suggests, i.e. it has got little to do with comfort, but a lot to do with fear. Unless this fear is overcome, the comfort zone persists and limits the growth. There are no sure shot ways of breaking out of your comfort zone, but some pointers that can help make that conscious effort.
- Become aware of the comfort zone, so that it can be broken
- Embrace discomfort of doing thing that were never touched
- Respect failure to teach the success
- Take small steps
- Connect with people who take risk and have challenged their comfort zones
- Skip excuse, commit to the cause
Getting out of comfort zone is a commitment one makes to create a bigger change in themselves and sometimes things around them. I will end with a small story of my own.
For those who do not know me, I am quite a bulky person. One thing that has always excited me is going to mountains. I always treasured it a lot more than sea and the fun of riding on the snaky mountain roads is an invitation to adrenaline and the calm. Since last few years, I always yearned to hike up the mountain and camp for a night stay. Hiking up the mountain for a physically unfit person is an arduous activity.
Last month, I along with other colleagues from FranConnect went for Lamadugh Trek in Manali. Total distance of the trek was close to 14 kms (both sides, give and take), but the gradient was quite steep. Since the start with every step, I was panting and struggling for breath. With the support of all people (who waited patiently for me, whenever they could), I finally limped to reach the camp site, completely out of breath. The return next morning was even bigger ask. By the time I reached back (I was the last one by quite a distance. Others might have been waiting for me for over an hour – easily), I was unable to stand and had bruises on my feet. If someone asked me before I did this trek, I would have not accepted that I could complete this trek. Yet, here I was, completing the trek and following it up with another one (a smaller one though), a week later
I am the one who looks exhausted, out of place and thinking of what I learnt stepping out of my comfort zone.
Wish to challenge yourself and step out of your comfort zone? Want to engage in a dialogue (on this topic or others as such), comment below or connect with me.
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