After a bunch of introductions, paperwork checks, exchanges
of stories (2 people only found out what they were doing when they arrived!),
and late arrivals we headed up to the roof of the 7-story building.
Troy was our main instructor, with 2 people working with him
(I know they were Troy’s son and a person on their first day but sadly their
names didn’t stick in my overwhelmed brain!), and he delivered our safety
instructions as well as some history of rap jumping. I think SAS was mentioned?
I do recall that it allowed our armed forces to shoot as they rappelled rather
than be vulnerable going down backwards. And it was known around the world as the
‘Aussie Rappell’.
There were white lines painted on the roof, a set of 4ish
black wooden steps leading up to the wall on the edge of the roof. A single
rope was thrown over the edge of the roof, attached to a frame in the concrete.
We were told where we could and could not stand without specific direction (the
purpose of the white lines) and then sent over to the row of 9 harnesses.
I hesitated physically for the first time as they showed us how to step into the harness. Once I had it on this would be real. Was I really going to go down from this roof face first attached to a single rope? I decided I was willing to commit to wearing the harness, but must have had that terrified look still as the person helping me tighten the three buckles checked in on how I was feeling. I think my response was ‘sick’. And not in a youthful ‘this is awesome’ way. He warned me that as I came down the wall the harness may press on my stomach so to be aware of that. Luckily the ‘sick’ feeling was more in my head than my belly.
Next we put on out helmets and gloves then lined up parallel
to the rope. You would think the mention of how many tonnes the rope could
support would reassure me… but it didn’t help much to be honest! At the
question ‘who is the most nervous’ I was happy to put up my hand. I doubted
anyone else was more scared.
The benefit of being the most nervous was that I was the one who got to test the braking mechanism – hold the rope to brake, let it slide to go – while leaning forward at 45 degrees on the safety of the roof. It held me easily – and even walking forward without it ‘braked’ was an effort.
It was shortly after this that it was time to start. We had
a demonstration, it looked easy, but I doubted it was! Walk up the steps, put
your left leg over the wall, sit on the wall, put your right leg over, lean
forward, walk down the wall. Simple right?
Unlike my willingness to volunteer to be the most nervous, I
did not volunteer to be first down the wall! Luckily a few people went before me,
but then, by mutual agreement between myself and Troy it was my turn. So up I
walked, with shaking knees, to take my turn.
As you may have seen from my part 1 blog on rappelling, from when I saw the gift voucher for this activity I was extremely nervous – feeling lightheaded and nauseous nervous.
So in the week leading up to R-day (aka the day of rappelling) I told many people. I committed publicly any time that the opportunity arose – and in some cases just posted online regarding my plans – and my terror!
Up until the night before I had not done any research. I just knew I was going face first down the outside of a building.
Then the panic really set in. I read the FAQs on the rap jumping site. I measured my waist circumference to ensure I was within the limits. I planned my outfit (dark colours recommended), I wondered why dark colours were recommended! I looked at the images posted of smiling faces as people walked down the wall.
With my time of departure planned, my chosen dark clothing laid out, and my alarm set (just in case!) I went to bed on the Friday night.
And slept soundly until 4am… at 4:15am I was googling instructions for beginner rappelling – most of which were rope tying instructions! At that stage (assuming that I would not be tying my own ropes) – reminding myself that the activity was safe for children as young as 7 – I went back to bed and slept fitfully while dreaming of all the ways I may be expected to get off the roof and onto the wall.
I headed off Saturday morning with plenty of time, found a car park nearby and arrived 15 minutes before the ‘arrive 15 to 30 minutes early’ request. To an empty meeting spot.
We were to meet in the car park, and I spent the next 15 minutes peering around the edge of the building, relocating myself to try and find the perfect position of comfort, shade and visibility of the car park to spy anyone else arriving. R-30mins arrived and I was still alone in the carpark (other than the hostel guest who came out to his car 3 times and gave me odd looks – it is possible the whites of my eyes were showing) so in a panic I called the 1300 number to make sure I was in the right car park. I was. They were on the roof doing their safety checks and would be down soon.
In an unusual move this post has two parts! I have booked in to do rappelling this Saturday and have decided to document here how I am feeling right now.
To put it bluntly I am terrified. To the extent that part of this post is a public commitment to going ahead!
When I got the gift certificate for Christmas I was torn: I felt excitement as it was new, and definitely involved adrenaline, but I also felt terror. Walking face-first down a building is a long way out of my comfort zone.
I am confident I will love it once I have gone over the edge and made the first few steps down the building.
But my stomach is churning and I feel light headed just thinking about those first few steps!
So this is my public commitment to going ahead. Part two to follow next week.
I started my conversation with Tanya talking about her amazing business – Girl Shaped Flames – but then she mentioned a time she stepped out of her comfort zone and it didn’t work out. And she kindly allowed me to focus on that part of her experience – but I will start by saying Tanya has had success outside of her comfort zone both before and after this particular experience!
When Tanya was 24 she got a role as a film production manager in the UK with very little experience and was very good at it! 2 years later and one of her contacts wanted to work with her on a film he was the 1st assistant director on.
“And he called me up and said, ‘I’m working on another film and It’d be so cool if we could work together again. They already have a production manager on the job, but I wonder if I could find another role for you to come on as.’
“And, as it turned out, he managed to wrangle me into a second assistant director role, which is very similar to production manager because essentially you’re in charge of organising things, but the difference is that you’re organising people (and let’s be honest egos. I was more used to managing resources, crew, logistics etc.”
“I sort of went into it a little bit naive thinking I can figure the differences in the roles out. I’m sure it’s fine. But very quickly, within a few days of me being there, I started questioning whether I actually knew how to handle the nuances of the job or not. That partnered with a pretty unsupportive production manager on set who was frustrated that the 1st AD had hired someone inexperienced for the role. I certainly went in just trying to do the best job I could, and it was fairly challenging circumstances. But the whole time I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach that I wasn’t sure whether this was all going to plan.
“We did six weeks of prep, and then we were supposed to have a six-week shoot, but about three and a half weeks into shooting things just dissolved to a point where I was really struggling in the role. I imagine it was partly a conflict of my skillset not being quite right as well as the challenges presented clashing with the PM.
“But there came one day where I basically had not been able to give the lead actress the attention that she needed while she was waiting to be called to set, because I was just overwhelmed with other work and I lost track of time really. She was in a very fragile state. She was away from her family. She’s had very emotional and draining scenes in the film, and she had a bit of a meltdown, essentially.
“And this was a situation that was really my responsibility to keep under control, and I hadn’t. It all came crashing down on me.
“So off the back of that it presented a good time for myself and the film to ‘mutually part ways’, which is the polite way of saying that I was pretty much fired because if I hadn’t chosen to go, they were going to have to fire me anyway.
“That was hands down the most confidence shattering experience that went against all of the beliefs I had in myself and the world. The world where I thought ‘you can take on any challenge, you can throw yourself into anything. If you work really hard, and you try really hard, you will find a way to make things work and succeed’. And the fact that I had done all those things yet it had still not succeeded really shook the foundations of how I functioned as a human being. Two days later (which happened to be my birthday) I got on a plane and flew back to Australia and I hid out at my mum’s house for five weeks, refusing to go back to London because I was so distraught over what this meant – my film career, and my dream, felt over.”
Tanya has found that processing is critical in recovering from an event like this. “We’re all really quick to say ‘Don’t worry, brush it off, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Keep going, it’s all good.’ But that’s not how we work as people. It’s not how we work mentally or emotionally, really, we do need time to process and we need time to cry and be angry and it’s almost like you go through the stages of mourning: denial, bargaining etc until finally you come out the other side of it.”
Tanya started slowly and, with lots of support, got back into the producer and production manager role that she was confident in.
I asked Tanya if this experience changed her willingness to set out of her comfort zone, and the answer was that it didn’t necessarily change her willingness, but she is less emotional when she decides to do so “it has definitely made me think a little bit more, consider a bit more thoroughly.”
But she’s determined to continue to promote confidence development and risk taking within the younger generation coming through. Tanya gives the below advice to high school girls on her Girl Shaped Flames program:
“What’s really important is developing a very clear understanding of yourself and trying to understand what excites you, what terrifies you, what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, what you like and what you don’t like as early as possible.
Because the more you do that, and the more you understand yourself, the greater your belief in your capacity becomes – and whether that’s capacity to succeed in a professional environment, or whether it’s capacity to survive in an adventure opportunities. Because when we believe, when we understand our own capacity, it positions us in such a better place to say yes when opportunities that sit outside of our comfort zone arise.
“One of the talks I give the girls is about your ‘line of perceived ability’. We talk about how you might think that your line of perceived ability is here. If you try this new thing that is over that line, and you don’t reach all the way there, but you reach part way you move your line a little bit further out. That line doesn’t come back. It’s not elastic, it doesn’t snap back, that line stays out.
“So once you’ve spoken in front of 100 people, you spoke in front of hundred people, no one can take that away. It might not have been 1000 people but it was 100. That is what you know you’re capable of doing.
“So I guess my advice to people around stepping out of their comfort zone is yes, 100%: do it. But the more you can spend time and effort really developing a solid understanding of yourself and your strengths and passion points, then when you have the opportunity to expand the line further and further out. So eventually so many more things are IN your comfort zone!”
Awesome advice Tanya!
A bit about Tanya:
Originating from regional QLD (Yeppoon) Tanya Meessmann is an internationally-experienced Communications, Branding and Film professional and the founder of Girl Shaped Flames: a Brisbane-based organisation connecting Secondary girls with Extraordinary Women across a variety of industries for experiential opportunities that help them identify the fire within and break through limitations to reach their full potential. Over the past 2 years months she has connected over 2500 girls, parents and educators with over 170 strong, female role models through more than 80 live events across the state.
“More concerned about the success of others than their own personal gain” are the words that caught Julie’s attention in the job ad, and I am not surprised as that describes her accurately!
The fact that Julie was living in San Francisco and the ad was posted by a friend in London about a job in Sydney, it was all too far fetched? However, the idea of getting the job had Julie dreaming about Sydney summers. Quickly followed by ‘who do I think I am? I can’t do this. I’ve never been a tech founder. I’ve worked in start-ups, but you’re crazy.’
Serendipitously, Julie then read an HBR article about men applying for jobs when they only have 2 of the 10 criteria, so she decided to at least have the conversation. And ignore the imposter syndrome rearing it’s ugly head.
Julie has a name for her ‘imposter voice’. I think we all have that voice that says we are not good enough? Julie has named hers Beatrice. Well, Julie quietened Beatrice by taking things one step at a time. ‘You know what, I’m still going to have this conversation. I’m going to talk to Annie. I wasn’t really looking to move or take this job and I was just having the conversation. So, I just kept saying yes, and here I am.
‘Annie flew me down here [Sydney] when I had my interview. She turned on all the works. It was January so the sun was out. We walked from downtown to Rose Bay and I went stand up paddle boarding in the bay with the Harbour Bridge behind me crystal blue water. She flew me up to Brisbane and I met with Steve Baxter aka Shark of Shark Tank, I had no idea who he was.
I just decided to show up as myself. We were talking about investing in start-ups and I said “there’s market-based solutions for social impact. We can we can do good and make money at the same time.” And again I did not know Steve Baxter at that point. And I couldn’t understand why everyone was on the edge of their seats hanging on my every word! Steve said “No, no, no, we make our money first, then we give it away”. Which was fine. I’m glad that I showed up in what I believe but also knew not to have continuing argument with him. Steve and I are good friends now.’
This was not the first (or last) time Julie stepped out of her comfort zone! Julie helped set up the Salesforce Foundation after meeting Marc Benioff and making such an impression with her advice about his plans that he offered her the role! She moved from Atlanta, where she had been a student, teacher and technology specialist over the span of 12 years, to San Francisco based on the regrets she would have if she didn’t. ‘There is nothing I have to lose’.
Julie has found that being around the right type of people and energy is really important to her resilience but learning to not try and control things and focusing on seeing the glass as half full help her to bounce back when she finds herself ‘curling up’.
I asked Julie what drives her to step out of her comfort zone, and her answer was as beautifully original as she is ‘Knowing that there’s support and trying new things. Creating new synapses. Being able to be creative and try that try new things. Being unique. Trying to be the only one doing it so I’m not compared to anyone else. So you don’t have to have that judging. And not being afraid to ask…..’
‘When I was in school I was a technology specialist in the middle school. I was the only tech specialist in that school amongst all the teachers. You couldn’t really compare me to anyone else. That’s maybe a safety mechanism. I’m protecting myself. There’s no other bar. I have to set the bar.’
I think that is fabulous motivation for trying something new!
Julie finished off with her passion about celebrating failure.
‘I’ve become more comfortable [with failure] and when I do talks I get people to be more comfortable with the little tiny mistakes and being okay not to be judged. Think about your body when you make a mistake and what happens – you physically curl up and you change your whole body. Think about times when you won a race or completed something – your body goes big.
‘It’s a totally different feeling and you can move on and continue. So, next time when you make a mistake how crazy and odd would it be to trick your body into celebrating and throw your arms wide open? It is counterintuitive, but if you physically celebrate your failures you feel differently about them and are more able to go on.’
Thank you so much Julie for sharing your story and viewpoint.
It was this time last year when I had some forced time off work, and found myself in ‘planning mode’. That is what I call what happens to me when I have time to think. It is not always a good thing! I came out of the 5 weeks juggling too many items. But it can be awesome.
One of the fabulous things that came from those 5 weeks was this blog.
This blog gives many things to me. A chance to hear amazing stories of courage. A way to step out of my own comfort zone every time I ask someone to be interviewed. I am even getting used to rejection! It provides me a platform for sharing some of my own experiences. It can be a networking tool. And a place to give a voice to those that want to share.
Thank you to all who have supported me during my first year – especially to those who agreed to be interviewed before the blog even existed! And a particular mention to those brave enough to share their story with me and then to have the courage to say actually they did not want it published.
Please keep sharing your stories. And I look forward to the next year of climbing lava!
Photo by Leon McBride on Unsplash Words by me (Fiona) based on an interview with Lynne Cazaly
Often I interview people who are regularly stepping out of their comfort zone. Lynne fits firmly in that category. Our chat covered many fabulous subjects – including her starting helicopter lessons!
Lynne started by telling me about one of the first time she recalls doing something outside of her area of expertise – facilitating a workshop for the Australian Junior Chamber. “I was getting more and more into speaking and then someone said, ‘Oh, would you facilitate a workshop we’ve got coming up’ and I said yes, thinking it’s probably just like emceeing, right. Once I started looking at what is facilitation I realised ‘Oh, my God, what have I got myself into’ and many times I wanted to ring up this guy and say ‘You know what, I’m not doing it. This is so not my area of expertise. I don’t know what I’m doing. This is not for me.’ But I had this incredible pride as well. I thought how can you bail out on something? It’s like someone’s seen potential in you or is giving you an opportunity and here you are saying no.” Lynne went ahead. And nailed it.
Facilitation is now very much within Lynne’s comfort zone these days, so she seeks out other opportunities. Like a helicopter flying lesson! “I’ve been a massive plane aviation geek for a number of years, and a few weeks ago, I had my first lesson in a helicopter. I love a helicopter ride, but I’m usually more interested in sitting in the front seat watching what’s happening rather than looking at the scenery. So my 2020 step out of my comfort zone (or fly out of my comfort zone) will be getting a helicopter licence.”
Lynne is motivated to spend so much time out of her comfort zone because “we don’t usually feel achievement without challenge”. As Lynne described her first lesson her face lit up with joy. “Even in that first lesson, I learned so much about what makes the helicopter go up and forward and sideways and I was doing all that very quickly. There was an incredible learning curve and incredible achievement in just the first 90 minutes!”
Lynne and I chatted about other times she has recently stepped out of her comfort zone – such as talking to CPAs in 6 different Australian cities. Then we talked about how she feels leading up to something new “Usually a couple of days before I will be thinking about it a lot while I’m doing other things. And I tend to imagine, do some sort of mental rehearsal. [On the day] I feel pretty good in the morning and then about half an hour to an hour before I get really nervous. That only lasts for a little while and I take some deep breaths and as it’s getting closer and closer to the time I really love that feeling of the anticipation. Instead of nervousness, it’s anticipation. That’s what I would call it.”
I asked Lynne about what she would tell someone about the benefits of stepping out of their comfort zone if they were reluctant to do so “It gives you a different perspective and a different experience. If you imagine you go to a restaurant or cafe and you order the same thing all the time, because that’s what you like getting from there. The next time you go, your job is to order something different. And that’s stepping out of your comfort zone right there. It’s looking at the menu and saying I’m going to try something else. And from that moment on, everything’s different. The anticipation, the lead up, the eating the meal, and afterwards, that’s all new. The benefits start immediately from the fact that you made that decision to try something different. I imagine that our brain changes, the neuro plasticity in our mind changes, and the way we see the world starts to change. And we become ready for many, many better things that are ahead and shit things that are ahead too.”
We also talked about how you know where your comfort zone ends if you never test it or push it. It is something that changes with our experiences. Even within the one flying lesson: “When the training pilot says ‘you have the controls’. I have to respond. ‘I have the controls’. So now I’m responsible? I’m flying it, that is [completely] out of my comfort zone. And I’m experiencing it. I’m going ‘ohhh shit this is scary’. But I did it. And then I gave the controls back to him. And when we did another manoeuvre and he said, ‘okay, you have the controls.’ And this time I thought ‘I’ve done this. I’ve done this before’.”
Finally, we talked about the areas of people’s lives they are willing to take risk in, I think we agreed logic does not apply! “What about blogging? How many people are saying ‘I want to blog, I want to blog, I’ve written blogs’, and they don’t press publish. But they will go and ride in the backseat of a taxi in South America or they’ll put themselves in high risk situations, with regards to personal safety, but they won’t do something that might advance their career and make them more confident in the long run.”
And I will leave you with that final thought to ponder – are you avoid risk in the wrong places?
About Lynne:
“Workplaces of today need to be increasingly agile, responsive and adaptive. People want to be part of a smart team doing great, meaningful, awesome work!” – Lynne Cazaly
I’m obsessed with helping leaders lead their teams through transformation and change.
This is about business agility, about helping people apply their ideas and adapting to what happens when those ideas are put to practice. Leaders become more capable, boost engagement with their staff and make decisions quicker.
I heard Tessa speak recently and I immediately found (stalked?) her online and asked if she was willing to be interviewed for this blog. To my excitement she agreed – and the interview did not disappoint me!
Tessa believes that stepping out of your comfort zone helps you grow. And that sometimes you need to do it to get where you want to be in life.
“I’d worked in marketing for some time, probably for about 10 years of my career. My comfort zone got pushed, but I’d say moderately, such as when you learn a new role you step up.
“I had this conversation with my GM of HR at Spark Digital. And she said, ‘What is your ambition? Where do you want to go?’ And told her that one day I’d love to be a CEO of kind of moderate sized organization. ‘I’m trying to work out the skills I need to get there. And I think I need more commercial skills.’
“And you know, that moment where you put something out into the universe, but you never expect anyone to act on it? Probably within about three days, she came up to me: ‘We’ve had this business manager resign in our enterprise sales team, one of the sales managers, I’m putting you up for the role’.”
Tessa wondered what she could add as the leader of a team much more experienced than she was, particularly in sales. But her GM encouraged her (strongly!) to take the jump, to get those skill she needs. There was a full interview process and testing, and Tessa got the job!
Her new boss told Tessa that she needed a marketer in sales, a big thinker. Someone to shake up her leadership team.
The announcement of her new role – alongside an internal promotion announced at the same time – was really hard “It was deathly silent, you could have heard a pin drop. And then there were a couple of people who knew me from marketing who started to click. This was the most embarrassing moment of my life. I was taking on sales in a big portfolio. And I had a room of 80 people who had no idea who I was and were confused as to why a marketer was given one of the most preeminent positions in sales.”
Tessa realised that she needed to focus on coaching her team as a leader, not trying to coach them in sales. This she realised would stand her in good stead as a CEO – after all you cannot be the expert in all aspects of the company you run.
It was not easy! “About the 10-week mark, I had a complete meltdown. I didn’t know how to coach these people. They were much older. They were older than me, and more experienced than me in sales. I ended up back in my GM of HRs office in floods of tears. And with my GM of Sales basically picking me up off the floor because I said ‘I can’t do this, I have to leave. I’m not the person you need. I’m not doing anything.’ And they quickly got support around me. They listened and then said, ‘Okay, so how do we move forward?’
“And they gave me a leadership coach who helped me to separate fact from myth. I had a whole lot of language in my head. I suppose that voice that you talk to yourself with was really highly critical. And that voice kept saying to me, ‘you’re getting this wrong and you don’t know that, you don’t know this’, and I couldn’t hear the things that people were actually saying to me. I had a person on my team, who said to me ‘You’re a breath of fresh air. You just bring something different. I love watching you in front of customers.’ And I couldn’t hear that I could only hear. ‘I don’t know what to tell them to sell and I don’t understand the system well enough to sell it.’
“My coach helped me to grow my understanding. ‘Listen to the voice in your head and write down what it says and then see if there is any data that supports it. Is there anybody said that directly to you? Is there anything that backs it up?’ and then ‘Okay, now write down the facts. What are people saying to you?’ Understand that difference between fact and myth.
The lessons Tessa learned in her first 12 months – that it is ok to ask for help, and that sometimes you don’t know what help you need until you hit rock bottom being two of those lessons – aided her in putting up her hand when Spark Digital decided to go Agile.
“I learned at that point that ambiguity is fine. And I don’t know what I don’t know and no one else does either. So we’re going to learn and I think the year of sales had taught me how to learn again, taught me how to walk into something that’s really uncomfortable and realize you’re going to be okay. My husband said to me at one point ‘What’s the worst that can happen? You leave sales and get another job? Is that so bad? You know, there are worse things.’
“And sometimes I think we compare up too much. We imagine if this was better, or if only this was like this. Instead [we could be] saying ‘at least it’s not like this. I haven’t got an illness, at least I’m not struggling to make ends meet at the moment. I’ve had a successful career so far’. And I think sometimes comparing down is a really helpful technique to make you realize that you’re okay. You’re just learning, and learning can be uncomfortable when you’ve been really good at knowing everything.
“It did fundamentally shift me as a person and my ability to then take on the next challenge, and to now help other people take on bigger challenges.”
Finally, Tessa advises to remember why you are doing what you are doing. What your north star is. That can help in tough times.
Thank you Tessa for sharing your story with us!
About Tessa:
As Product Director Tessa is responsible for designing and delivering products and service experiences that customers value. Tessa is also responsible for shaping Spark’s investments and maturing capability in digital, IT, data and experience design to deliver on future business needs.
She joined Spark in November 2015 as the Manager of Brand, Communications and Events for Spark Digital before moving on to become Business Manager. In 2017, Tessa joined the team that was responsible for successfully transitioning Spark into an Agile organisation, and is regarded as one of New Zealand’s leading Agile and product development practitioners.
Tessa brings to the role more than 16 years of experience in information and communication technologies, having previously held a variety of roles at Vodafone New Zealand. She has a Diploma in Communications Studies from Manukau Institute of Technology.
