ComfortZoneText.pdf

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Comfort Zone Video Text

Hi it’s A.J. and welcome. You are now a permanent member of the VIP Program. Yeah!

Congratulations. I’m so happy to have you. So, here is your next lesson set. And, of

course, right now this is your video lesson for the next lesson.

In this video lesson I’m going to talk and I want to teach you something that’s very

simple, but very important. You know so often the most important things are simple,

simply but not necessarily easy. And the problem is a lot of us know some of these

things, but we don’t do them, so you need to hear them again and again. I will be telling

you something that you might know already, but maybe you’re not doing it or maybe

you’re not doing it in every part of your life.

So I want you to think about this today, what I teach you, then use it and do it. If you

don’t use it, if you don’t do it, nothing happens. Just listening is not enough when it

comes to being more confident and being a better leader. You actually have to do

things. You have to take action.

So today’s topic is the “Comfort Zone”, the comfort zone. Now what is that? That’s a

common phrase in English, the comfort zone. And when we talk about our comfort zone

it means the places, the people, the things that we feel comfortable with or comfortable

doing. So, for example, right now teaching an English class that is in my comfort zone

because, you know, I’m comfortable doing that. I have done it many, many, many times,

so I’m not nervous about teaching an English class. I’m not shy about teaching an

English class. So that’s in my comfort zone. It means it’s comfortable for me to do that.

However, teaching a business seminar is not in my comfort zone. I have never done it.

I have some business lessons that I recorded, but I’ve never stood in front of a large

group of people and talked business before. It’s not in my comfort zone. If I did that I

would probably feel nervous, maybe a little shy, especially in the beginning. I know

business, I feel confident in my own business ability, but teaching it to other people, you

know, ah, I don’t know. I might feel a little uncomfortable about doing that, just because

I’ve never done it before, so you can see that.

Now we have social situations that can be in our comfort zone or not in our comfort

zone. So we like to be around certain people and we’re comfortable being around a

certain kind of person, someone about the same education level as us, maybe someone

from the same culture as us, someone who has the same interests as us. We feel

comfortable with those people. We understand them, we think they understand us; they

are in our comfort zone.

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But there are also people outside our comfort zone. You know maybe, for example,

people who are very, very rich and successful. If you’re not rich and successful, very

rich and successful, then maybe you might feel nervous relaxing with Bill Gates and

Steve Jobs and Warren Buffett and all these super, super rich people. If you met them

the first time maybe you would feel a little nervous. They’re not in your comfort zone,

right? They are outside the comfort zone.

So, you know, maybe I would feel that way. I don’t know. I don’t usually feel so nervous

around rich people, actually. I don’t know why, but I don’t. But some people feel the

opposite. They maybe have a good education, they have some money. For example,

my father I think is like this, but he’s uncomfortable around very poor people. Maybe

around homeless people he might feel uncomfortable. They are not in his comfort zone.

Again for me that’s no problem. I used to be a social worker. I worked with homeless

people all the time, so… Maybe because, you know, I worked in an emergency room in

a hospital for a while and I saw all kinds of people and, of course, they were all having

different kinds of emergencies, so I kind of learned to relax about all of that. But, you

know, there are certain situations outside my comfort zone. I mentioned teaching

business to a group of people, for example.

So we all have this, right? We all have a comfort zone, what we are used to, what we

normally do each day, the people we normally talk to, the situations we feel comfortable

in, the actions we usually do or take, right? We all have this and, you know, that’s good,

it’s fine. It’s good to feel comfortable, because when you feel comfortable you also feel

more confident, right? If you are in your comfort zone you usually feel confident. You

know what’s going to happen, you know what to do. You know you can do what you

need to do.

But here is the problem. If we want to grow, if we want to be better leaders, if we want

more success in our lives, if we want more confidence in more situations, we must go

outside our comfort zone. We must push outside our comfort zone. In other words, to

grow we must be uncomfortable. If you are growing you are uncomfortable, I promise

you.

Let me give you a story from my own life and then I will recommend some steps for you.

So in my own life many years ago…let me think, 41 now, 31, I don’t know about 15,

almost 20 years ago, actually, I was very shy about speaking to a group of people, very,

very nervous to speak in front of a group of people. I got very, very scared,

uncomfortable, shy and nervous about speaking to people. I really, really, really did not

like it. I was very uncomfortable. It was outside my comfort zone.

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So at that time in my life I had two choices. I could remain comfortable, but never grow.

Meaning I would never learn how to speak to a group of people. I could just do what felt

safe, what felt comfortable always and if I had done that today I still would not speak to

large groups of people.

So I decided, however, that I want to speak to people. I want to feel more confident

when I speak and if I could speak to a large group of people that would help. I would

really have a lot more confidence and it would help me have more success in my life.

Because I knew to be a leader, to be more successful, at some time I had to speak in

front of people.

So, now, what did I do? Did I immediately go and speak in front of 100 people? No, of

course not, right? Ah, that would have been too much. So to grow we must be

uncomfortable, but not too uncomfortable, right? We want to be a little uncomfortable

not terrified, okay? Not super, super, super stressed, okay? So I knew I needed to take

small steps. I knew that I needed to become a little uncomfortable and then grow a little

bit and then become a little more uncomfortable and then grow a little bit more and

that’s the process.

So what did I do? Well the first thing I did is that I joined a public speaking course by

the Dale Carnegie Company and it was excellent. And let me tell you a little bit about

what they did. How did they teach us? On the first day of the class do you think they

made us come up alone, stand in front of the group and give a speech? No, of course

not, right? That would be too much. That would be more than uncomfortable. That

would be terrifying for a lot of people, certainly for me. That would have scared me a

lot.

So do you know what they did and I thought this was a great idea? What they did is

they let us come up in small groups, so five people came to the front of the class at the

same time. So you were not alone you’re standing with four other people and then you

introduced yourself. You just said “Hi, my name is A.J. I want to learn to speak better.

Thank you. I look forward to this class.” You know, just something very short.

And then the person next to me they introduced themselves and everybody in the little

small group would introduce themselves to the whole group.

Now this was a small step, right? It was a little uncomfortable. I still felt a little nervous

about that, but I was not terrified because I had other people and it was very short and it

was easy, just to say my name and where I was from and that’s about all. So that was

great. What did they do? They helped us become a little uncomfortable, do something

a little uncomfortable, but not too much.

So then what did we do next? Well next we had to do a little speech in front of small

groups; this was the next week. So they divided the class into small groups, maybe 10

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people in each group. And the next week we had to stand up alone this time, alone, but

we stood up and, again, we told a short story about ourselves. It was like one minute or

something, very, very short and not to the whole class, just to a small group of 10

people.

So, again, I felt nervous about that. It was not easy, but I was not terrified. It was

uncomfortable, but not terrifying. So I felt a little more confident after that, right? Oh, I

did that. You know I was nervous and I made some mistakes, but you know it was not

terrible.

So then what did they do the next time? Well the next time they taught us a little

speech formula for a three minute speech. And what did we do? We just told a story

about our own life. We did not memorize something. We told a story about our life,

something we already knew very, very well. And we had to get up in front of the whole

class the next time and tell our story.

Now I was quite nervous about this, but, again, the good thing is it was very short, just

three minutes and it was about a topic I knew very well. I could choose any topic I

wanted, just any story about my life from my past. So I was like okay, well that’s easy. I

don’t need to memorize something, I can just tell my own story and it’s very short. And,

so, guess what? I did it. I was nervous at the end, oh my God, but I did it and I felt

better.

And here’s another secret. At the end of my speech the teacher did not talk about my

mistakes, not one time, never. In fact, at the Dale Carnegie class they never correct

mistakes, never. What did he do instead? The teacher he caught me doing something

right. We’ve already talked about this, right? What did he do? He focused on the

things I did well. He gave me real, sincere compliments. He said “A.J., you were very

energetic. You had a lot of energy when you were speaking. That was great and I liked

your story. Your story was very interesting.” So he told me two or three specific good

things that I did.

Did I make mistakes in that first speech? Of course I did. Yes, I did. I made a lot of

mistakes. I was nervous, but he didn’t talk about the mistakes he only talked about the

good things. Guess what happened? I felt better. I felt a little more confident when I

heard him tell me these good things. I felt a little more comfortable. Oh, okay and I

started to think maybe I can do this. Maybe I can improve.

So now you understand the process, right? Of course. Each week we did a little bit

more, a little more. Every week the teacher only told us good things. So what

happened? I became more and more and more confident. Now this might not surprise

you, but one thing the teacher always told me was “A.J. you have a lot of energy. A.J.

you have a lot of enthusiasm. That’s great. I love that.”

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