Follow the Fear - how one word can make all the difference

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of speaking at the 2018 International TWA Conference in Ontario, Canada. The focus of my talk was, “Follow the fear,” Which is a concept that comes from improvisation, referring to our tendencies to second-guess our ideas and shut ourselves down, before we give that idea a chance to breathe. The concept of “Follow the fear,” encourages us to step into what it is that only we have to offer.

We understand that that the more afraid we are, the more important and brilliant those ideas are, and the more necessary it is to share those ideas or things that you feel need to be called out.

During the talk, I used one of my favorite exercises, One Word Story. It’s pretty self-explanatory, a group of people stand in a circle and tell a story together, one word at a time. It gives participants a chance to practice simply saying the first thing that comes to mind, without judging it. We also notice our natural tendencies to want to have the entire thing planned out ourselves, and spend time thinking about what we’re going to say, rather than being present and listening to our teammates.

The best part is leveraging the creativity of the entire group and creating something together, that we wouldn’t have come up with on our own.

While discussing these insights, a participant made another wonderful point. She said, “If any one of us weren’t here, the story would have been completely different.”

Yes! I wanted to cheer and jump up and down, but that would have been inappropriate.

Your unique insight, creativity and expertise is invaluable.

What are you holding back? Where are you second guessing yourself or keeping quiet because you don’t have every detail figured out yet? How could contributing your “one word” drastically change the story of your organization or your community?

I encourage you to “Follow the fear” and see where your “one word” takes you. I’d love to hear how it goes!