Читать книгу Stop Playing Safe - Margie Warrell - Страница 11

You are capable of achieving inspiring things and living a deeply rewarding life that lights you up and elevates all around you. Yet the instinctive desire for safety — wired into the back recesses of your brain from our hunter-gatherer days — will always pull hard against, well, your desire for pretty much anything else. Let's face it, it's far easier to stick on your current path than to put yourself ‘out there’ and risk making a royal fool of yourself — at least in the short term.

Our brains are hard-wired to avoid risk. We have an inbuilt antenna on constant alert for potential threats that might disrupt our status quo (even if it's a miserable status quo). It's why we're still here and many species that roamed the African plains 100 000 years ago are not. But we're not just talking physical safety. We're talking emotional safety too. Embedded into our psychological DNA is a deep, instinctive desire to avoid social rejection or humiliation and steer well clear of situations that might dint our pride or wound our ego. Our ego is as thirsty as it is fragile.

It's why so many people spend so much of their lives not taking the very actions that would change what they don't like about their lives. Why they stay in jobs they hate or in relationships that leave them lonely. It's also why people in leadership roles often make over-cautious decisions and instead act to shore up their power and protect their pride. I'm sure you've witnessed this as often as I have.

It's also why, before we move any further into this book, it's important for you to identify what you care about more than protecting your ego or your short-term comfort. If you can't do that, you'll never risk it.

For the sake of what will you be brave?

That is, why should you bother pursuing challenges that stretch you? Why stick your neck out, have that brave conversation or make that big ask? Why risk losing the comfortable familiarity of your life right now?

To answer this question, you need to reflect not just on what you want in your career–business–life, but who you want to become by what you do each day.

In today’s superficial selfie culture, where so many get sucked into a daily wrestling match with their fear of being left out or left behind, connecting to a deeper purpose that transcends the trivial and temporary has become ‘mission critical’. Only when we connect to a cause that transcends our ego’s need for status can we evolve to something higher.