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Find your way to the smallest room in my home. You’ll have to navigate Juni, our 9-month-old mini Bernedoodle, who will want to tangle in your footsteps as you walk.  

But you’ll find it. It is a tiny space, a converted closet. 

It barely has room for one lamp and enough space for a laptop, a journal, and a pen. 

But look upward, and you will see shelves rising all the way to the peaked roofline. Shelves FULL of books. 

This is the place where I write at home. And this is where I keep my dozens and dozens of books on courage.

You may be curious, so I will list a number of them below, but if you fed to sodium pentothal and forced me to tell you which one was my favorite, that choice will be simple:  

“Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway” by Susan Jeffers. 

If ever there was a book whose title best describes its innards, this is the one. Jeffers, in simple, honest prose, details the greatest permission slip to courageous acts I have ever read. You will never, NEVER, she says, escape fear. You won’t conquer it, outgrow it, or evade it. It will want to stop you from doing things beyond your comfort zone. And you have but one job in life:

To feel the fear, and do it anyway. 

I can quote Jeffers all day long. Or you can find some for yourself.  But all you really need to know is contained in the title. The rest, as they say, is commentary. 

…  

Here are some of my other favorite books which give me courage. 

Some may be familiar. Others may not. All of them are powerful. 

1. Fire Starter Sessions by Danielle LaPorte

2. Tiny, Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed

3. Do Hard Things by Steve Magness 

4. The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron

5. Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Feiler 

6. The Fear Cure by Lissa Rankin 

7. Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

8. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown 

9. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz 

10.  The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer 

11. The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck 

12. Courage is Calling by Ryan Holiday 

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Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.

Steven Pressfield

I almost puked on Madison Avenue. 

It is one hour before I have to arrive at the studios of Hachette Audio (one of the greatest audiobook companies in the world). It is my first day recording the audiobook version of the Scare Your Soul book. As I threaded the morning Midtown crowds on my way to get a tea, I could barely function. 

I had fought hard to be able to do this. 

I even had to send in an audition tape. 

This is scary. And I want this. 

If Daring Greatly and The Artist’s Way had a baby, the Scare Your Soul book might very well be its beloved infant. It is a mix of stories, science, writing prompts, and real-world challenges. And it is personal. 

Like, VERY personal. 

In it, I share:

• How I spent much of my childhood feeling unworthy, a shy kid bullied and lonely 
• How the epiphany that I had on an airplane changed my life 
• The death of my idol – my first cousin – and the impossible event that freed me from its grip
• The truth of how my first girlfriend cheated on me, and how I moved to forgiveness 
• How a train-wreck of a first date led to one of the deepest relationships of my life 
• How a near-disaster while giving a TEDx Talk led to a massive boost in confidence 
• And so much more

The initial feedback I got from Hachette was hard to hear.  They liked my tape but were concerned that I wouldn’t have the stamina to narrate for four days, six hours a day. I can’t blame them. And it would have been easy to just say OK. 

Let someone else do it. 

But I couldn’t. It seemed CRAZY that someone I didn’t know – no matter how velvety their voice was – would voice these personal moments. It seemed CRAZY that – no matter how scary the experience would be – that I wouldn’t give it everything I had. 

So I pushed. I called. I lobbied.

And, now, here I am; sitting at a Starbucks, trying to steady my frayed nerves. Not to mention to try to avoid puking on Madison Avenue. 

It immediately calls to mind something I read from the Farnum Street Blog:

“There is nothing that gets in the way of success more than avoidance. We avoid hard conversations. We avoid certain people. We avoid hard decisions … Sometimes we muster up half the courage. We have half the conversation we wanted to have. We do half the hard thing. We acknowledge the evidence but convince ourselves this time is different. We see the person we’re avoiding but don’t really talk to them. We start but don’t commit to the project. 

And here’s the interesting thing. Half-efforts tend to make things worse, not better.”

I don’t want to lead a half-effort life. 

And neither should you. 

So, I ask:

• Where are you avoiding the hard thing right now? 
• Where can you lobby and push to get what you want?
• What seems so hard and scary that your stomach can’t handle it, but you NEED to do it anyway?

As Anais Nin once said, “And the day came when the wish to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” 

Push against fear. 

Push hard. 

It’s the indicator that you’re doing what you need to do. 

“Getting lost along your path is a part of finding the path you are meant to be on.” - Robin Sharma 

One night after dinner, my daughter surprised me by suggesting that we go for a drive. 

“Where to?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Anywhere. Let’s just get lost.” 

She was a high school senior at the time, my only child left at home… and, in many ways, a soulmate. We had always possessed an indescribable connection which I treasured. She is kind, quick, funny, and eclectic; a lover of vintage clothes, late-night baking, and horror movies. And I found myself already worrying about the hole my heart would experience when she left for college in a few months. 

So, seizing on the opportunity, I left my phone on the kitchen counter and we hopped into the car. 

We pulled out of the driveway and into the dusk. From that point on, I took one unplanned turn after another. Before long, we were in unfamiliar territory. 

We paid close attention to our surroundings. Our senses became heightened. Without the usual touchstones of daily life, we opened up to one another. We talked. We sang along to her Spotify playlist. We ended up parking in an unknown spot and watched the sunset die into the horizon.  

We loved the experience so much that getting lost on evening drives became our tradition. 

With Tyler the Creator and Childish Gambino as our official musical co-pilots, we’d marvel at impossibly beautiful stretches of greenery as we sang and talked. 

Getting lost had led us to discover parts of town – and ourselves – unknown to us before.

If you stand at the very base of 5th Avenue in New York City, right where it connects with Waverly Place, you look directly into Washington Square Park. 

The park has played many roles over its tenure deep in the center of Greenwich Village: it has been a cemetery and a parade ground. A gathering spot for avant-garde artists, NYU students, and drug dealers. A battleground for chess players and a playground for dogs and kids. 

For me, Washington Square Park marked the spot where my fascination for getting lost began.

Although I am an Ohioan by birth, New York runs through my veins. From the very first time I visited, its energy, grit, and majesty fulfilled something strange and powerful within me. I loved to take long walks, taking in the sights, sounds, and smells. 

One day, after traversing the Park, circling its fountain, and crossing below its famous arch, I decided to take another long walk. But, this time, instead of remaining on 5th Avenue uptown towards Central Park, I created a game for myself. I began to cross the streets guided only by traffic lights. 

As I approached an intersection, I would turn and walk in whichever direction the walk sign allowed. That meant following a new path, one that was left more to fate than reason. 

It also meant that, after a couple of hours, I found myself in a place where I had never been before. That’s when I pulled out my beat-up Nikon from my backpack and recorded what I saw. 

Those photos were proof of the beauty and power of getting lost that day. And I would get lost, camera in hand, starting at 5th Avenue and Waverly Place many, many times. 

Have you ever been in a strange city, unfamiliar with the grid, and gotten lost? It could have all gone terribly wrong, but instead, you found the perfect view or a most hospitable café. 

At the heart of many great adventures, the beauty is in getting lost. Embracing uncertainty takes courage, but its rewards are great. So, I ask you: 

How often do you let fate guide your way? 

How often do you let yourself give up a sense of control and open yourself up to surprise? 

How often do you silence your internal GPS that always needs to know where and how you’re going? 

And how often are you truly courageous enough to just get lost? 

…

Note: all of the following photos were taken on one of my “getting lost” walks uptown from Washington Square Park.  

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