In 1996, while serving in the Navy in Washington State, I volunteered to be part of the Command Training Team assigned as a collateral duty to teach a course called Navy Rights & Responsibilities. This was an annual requirement and it was boring as hell. I was wrapping up my master’s degree and was excited to do training and development once I left the Navy. Our first outing was to teach the program at the hospital on Whidbey Island. My partner for this first run was an officer and we had divided the program in half and each took part of it. I studied my part and was good to go. On the morning of the session, I got into the van to drive the 90 minute journey to Whidbey Island. We waited for my partner. Finally, we were told that she had a family emergency and would not be able to teach and so I would have to do the whole program by myself. I hadn’t even studied her part. And I was scared.
When the van pulled up to the training center, about 30 minutes later than planned, I got out and walked into the auditorium. It was packed. Everyone had been waiting. My laptop wasn’t set up so I was trying to get all that done without even an opportunity to mentally prep for the session. And now I was really scared.
But somehow, I managed to leverage that fear into my presentation. The fear was my energy. I had no idea how I did, but at least I got through the material. Everyone filed out of the auditorium. Everyone except for a really mean-looking Navy captain. He looked at me and said:
“Petty Officer Munro, in my 30+ years in the Navy, that was absolutely the best delivery of Navy Rights & Responsibilities I’ve ever seen.”
That’s when I knew that my future career was the right one for me, and that was the last time I was afraid of fear before a presentation. Fear became my ally. I think being afraid makes you try that much harder.
As we finish out the first month of the new year, I’m sure you might have legitimate fears about how you’re progressing on your goals. You might be afraid about the bigger picture of what’s going on in the world. Maybe you miss having a life where some things are guaranteed.
But a guarantee takes away the responsibility to try harder and push yourself. For me, if my partner was doing her part of the presentation, I probably wouldn’t have pushed myself to channel and embrace that fear. And our session would have been just average. After all, it was pretty much guaranteed that Navy Rights & Responsibilities was a snooze-fest. Fear made it memorable.
In a world still filled with uncertainty, fear will always be present. Why not use that fear when you can to motivate you to try harder? It’s a lesson I don’t want to forget. I hope you won’t either.