Leadership Motivation Melbourne - Overcoming Fear

As a young boy my father would encourage me to get up onto the roof of our house to clean the spouting. Our home backed onto a large paddock which I think must have had at least a dozen large pine trees, which were forever filling our spouting and ultimately blocking it.

So my dad, unsteady on his legs at this particular time in his life, sent me up onto the roof. Yes I was afraid each time I got up on the roof, the experience seemed to be the same and just as intense, profusely sweating, nervous, moving very carefully on my bottom, sliding along the tiles as I got up on the roof.

So it was in later years that I choose the 3rd Royal Australian Regiment Parachute Battalion. So it was one thing to be scared up on the roof of my father's house but it was another thing to jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane. At the time i thought it was a good idea and it wasn't until I went to Nowra which is where the parachute battalion training school was that it became evident to just what I had agreed to do.

It was evidenced by many of my fellow colleagues that I was absolutely petrified, and they were taking bets that when it came to final jump when you are standing at the back of the plane and you need to leap out, the fear would be so great that I wouldn't jump. I would turn around and let the fear overcome me.

So upon hearing this I sore it as a great challenge and you know one of the things about fear that I recognise now having had that experience is that when I confront those fears when I face them "head on" and I actually mentally and physically embrace the experience, and just "jump" that I am truly fulfilled. Because when looking at overcoming fear, most of us try and push that experience aside instead of embracing the challenge that lies ahead.

It wasn't until I jumped out the plane that I realised just how free I truly was when I faced that fear.

So I landed safely, I collected the money from my buddies and its that experience that I use on a regular basis when ever I confront a situation where I feel that sense of trepidation where I experience that fear, and its now that I look at fear and overcoming fear, and I love it. Its that time that the fear is giving me an opportunity to experience another part of me that I had been surpressing.

Face those fears, and they may not come to pass but you certainly will enjoy the experience more completely.