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Interviewing Richard was an experience out of my comfort zone! He definitely challenged my thinking.
“Since about 2012, I’ve put myself into a whole bunch of adventures, and they vary dramatically from something more recent, which was I lived on the streets in India pulling a two-seater hand-pulled rickshaw. It’s a two-seater wooden cart that generally a very old wiry man pulls on, and they often do that barefoot, and they are in extreme poverty. They live on the streets, eat from the streets, sleep with the rats. So basically, what I did as a bit of a social experiment was live with work with those guys for a whole week, just mirroring that their life completely in every aspect.
“Then if you go right back to the start, I’ve done things like ran around the base of an exploding volcano in Sumatra while being rained on by rock and ash. I’ve been in a war zone in the middle of Israel with missiles flying overhead. I have pushed myself doing a hike to such an extent that I put myself in hospital and nearly came close to amputation, and that’s just a few of the things.”
When I asked Richard why, he shared Mount Hiei’s marathon monks’ story – who challenge themselves to circle the mountain every day for 1000 days. And if they miss a day, they take their own lives, regardless of the reason.
Richard thinks “it’s more to do with a feeling or an emotion. I’m not a big believer in a purpose or a mission statement, or a goal, per se. And the reason for that is that goal, I guess, are only guidance; they don’t drive us. So you’ve always got to look for what the driver is. And I think that has to be emotionally driven internally; it’s unique to every single person. When you have that feeling, I believe you are on the right path. I think intuitively, people probably know what direction they are supposed to go in. “But I think that the strange thing about intuition is that it tells you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. So you’re looking down a path that can be very scary and a bit daunting. And that doesn’t seem right. But, generally is the right way.
“I think whatever that feeling is, you know you’ve got the why when you have a love-hate relationship with it, because I love what I do, but equally I hate what I do. I think the why has to be something that is almost not controllable. I don’t think you can have it as a mission statement, or this is why I do what I do.”
Richard spoke to me that being uncomfortable can be dark and miserable and should not focus on the positives. “It sounds counterintuitive to focus on the negatives, but you have to because that’s the only stuff that’s going to stop you from moving forward and pursuing whatever it is you want to follow, not the positive stuff.
“The positive stuff takes care of itself. It’s the stuff that gets rid of the positive stuff that you need to focus on. The anxious feeling, the overwhelm, there’s a whole array of stuff that comes along the path to any goal, and you need to focus on that stuff. If you feel that you’re willing to take that stuff on, then that’s okay, but if you’re not, don’t do it. But don’t fool yourself and go, ‘well I’m going to give this a crack; it’s going to be amazing, and then at the first hurdle you go ‘it’s all too hard, or it’s too scary, or it’s too whatever.”
The last part of Richards advice I am going to share is about fear “the exciting thing about fear is that if I am in the middle of a war zone, for example, or I’m about to stand in front of a camera for 2000 people the feelings the same. It’s kind of cool if you can work out how to step into fear. You’ve conquered most things in life because every situation feels the same! “Also, remember that fear and excitement feel the same. You could almost think yourself well, let me flip my thinking to excitement, and I’m feeling no fear at all.”
Thank you, Richard, for your unique thoughts on stepping out of your comfort zone!