Tim Ferriss: Smash Fear, Learn Anything

I chose Tim Ferriss who is a a New York Times best selling author, lifestyle design coach, and venture capitalist. the name of his speech on Ted.com was called Smash fear, learn anything. Tim Ferris inspires me to live my life to its fullest potential. Through his teachings and principles that I have applied to my life I have become a better entrepreneur, aspiring world traveler, and have an increased thirst for life! Tim is one of my favorite entrepreneurs to follow because of his straightforward approach to life. He is constantly assessing himself, and uses his weaknesses to his advantage. 

 

    This presentation was about how he overcame his fear of swimming, language learning, and ball room dancing. Tim starts off with a picture of himself at 3 years old. He said that he thought he was the incredible hulk. Later, he had an incident where he went tubing as a kid and thought he was going to drown. He had an almost life long fear of the water after that. Almost 30 years later he faced his fear and ended up swimming 1 km in the open water.  

    Tim also shared his experience of living in Japan and trying to learn the language in a high school where he was the only American. He said it was only when he changed his method to a more practical one that he took off with language learning. At once he thought learning another language was painful. Now he is a fluent spreader, reader writer of 5 languages. 

     The last example he gave was of his experience in Argentina when he overcame his fear of ballroom dancing. Tim shared that he had a tragic event happen to him in college. He stepped on his partners ankle while dancing and was extremely embarrassed. While in Argentina, Tim took up Tango lessons and ended up winning the tango World championship.  

     This speech taught me a lot about fear. Fear is a tool to be used and as Tim stated, it teaches us more about what we should do than what we should not do. Often times we limit our experiences because of fear. In the entertainment industry, often times it seems as the barriers to entry are so hard to get through that many people don't try to face them. There are these invisible "gate-keepers" that seem to always separate us from our dreams. I feel that the take away here is that when you are willing to face your own fear, nothing is impossible. Tim Ferris went from being afraid of almost everything to conquering many trials and adversity. How many times do we doubt ourselves and stop our own progress before we even get started?  Have you ever overcome any of your biggest fears? If so, how did you do it?