[acb-hsp] High Dives and Roller Coasters

[peter altschul]

What High Dives And Roller Coasters Teach Us About Getting 
Comfortable With Career Risk
  By Seth Godin January 23, 2013
  In "The Icarus Deception," Seth Godin teaches us how to 
overcome common fears that may be holding back our careers or our 
lives.  Here's what he learned from conquering his childhood high 
dive.
  I (at least part of me) was lucky enough to grow up at Camp 
Arowhon in northern Ontario.  Deep in the north woods of Canada, 
I spent summers confronting what it meant to do what you wanted 
to do.  That was a loaded obligation, because it meant you had to 
commit and then execute, without being able to blame the 
predicament of your choice on anyone else.
  A highlight of the lake was the 24-foot-high diving board.  
Looking back, I think the diving board might have been as low as 
twenty-two feet, but regardless, it was incredibly high.  Icarus 
high.
  Painted white, made of almost-rotted wood, and ascended via 
twenty-one slippery steps, the diving board was a beacon to every 
kid who saw it.  It was dangerous.  Awesome in the best sense of 
the word.
  The deal was simple: If you climbed up, you had to jump off.  
It was too tricky (physically and emotionally) to climb down.
  Day after day, new initiates to the cult of the big leap would 
bravely climb up the tower.  Then they'd get to the top and stop.  
They'd freeze in place, unable to move.  Sometimes for hours.  
One kid once sat there for fourteen hours.
  Here's the key question: What happened between the time a kid 
started climbing the ladder and the internal system failure that 
occurred at the top of the board? Was there new information 
presented? When that kid was at the bottom, he was thrilled and 
excited.  At the top, frozen.
  Perhaps something changed.  At the top, the newbie jumper saw 
something he hadn't seen from the dock.  Nothing visible changed, 
of course.  What changed was the volume of the argument in the 
leaper's head.
  When you're standing on the dock, part of the brain insists on 
going up.  It'll be fun/bravestheroic/daring/wonderful, the 
adventure-seeking frontal lobe says.  The other part, the part 
that worries about things like belly flops and dying, that part 
is not sufficiently aroused to stop the jumper from going up the 
ladder.  Later.  Later, the lizard brain says, I'll worry about 
this.
  At the top of the tower, though, the dialogue changes 
dramatically.  Death, after all, is apparently imminent.  Now the 
other part of the brain, the one that's often more powerful, 
speaks up and insists (demands) that this nonsense stop.  It's 
high.  This is dangerous.  This is insane.
  Amazingly, after that first jump, the deflowered leapers always 
do the same thing.  They get out of the water, run to the steps, 
climb right back up, and do it again.  Safety zone adjusted, 
comfort zone aligned.  For now.  And the opportunity is to make 
it a habit.
  ininThe Truth About Roller Coasters ininEveryone knows that 
you're not likely to die on a roller coaster.  It's far more 
dangerous to drive to the amusement park than it is to get on the 
ride.
  And yet.  And yet even though we know how safe it is, a good 
roller coaster terrifies us from the first frightening hill until 
the relief at the end.  That's because it's designed to do so.  
The twists and turns and noise and speed are designed to bypass 
our rational brain and go straight to the amygdala, our 
prehistoric brain stem, the part of our brain that's hardwired to 
avoid danger.
  We've built a culture that's filled with virtual roller 
coasters.  The security theater at the airport is a cultural 
roller coaster, with the TSA using uniforms and hassle to (they 
hope) incite fear among some travelers and comfort among the 
rest.  The senior prom is a very different kind of roller 
coaster, one designed to get a different response, to fill the 
not-quite-popular kid with just enough shame at the prospect of 
missing the event that he'll go anyway, because it's safer than 
not going.
  Or consider the job interview, a high-stress situation that 
would be more effective if it had no stress associated with it--a 
lion isn't going to eat you, and your fight-or-flight reflex 
isn't particularly useful here.  But that's precisely why some 
misguided interviewers create the stress--they believe that it 
shows how you'll perform at work.
  The biggest cultural roller coaster of all is the one that 
pushes us to keep our heads down and comply, the one that is 
short-circuiting your art.  This is the unspoken threat (the one 
we're reminded of from first grade) that youbre just one misstep 
away from being fired, ostracized, thrown out, and exiled from 
the community.  It's not true, but your lizard brain doesn't know 
that, any more than it knows that a roller coaster at Six Flags 
isn't going to kill you.
  None of this is rational.  All of it is effective, because it 
touches our fear and shame.
  Excerpted from THE ICARUS DECEPTION: HOW HIGH WILL YOU FLY? 
Published by PortfoliostPenguin.  Copyright (Do You Zoom, Inc., 
2012.
  Copyright B) 2013 Mansueto Ventures LLC.  All rights reserved.