100 days without fear | Michelle Poler | TEDxHouston

Summary

The speaker shares her journey of facing 100 fears over 100 days, starting with a school assignment that challenged her to confront her fears. She discovered that her multitude of fears could be categorized into seven core fears. By facing them, she learned a predictable process of fear confrontation and developed tools to manage fear. Her project evolved from personal growth to inspiring others worldwide to step out of their comfort zones and embrace life fully.

Takeaways

• 🎓 The speaker started her journey of facing fears during her master's degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
• 🔍 An assignment to write about her best possible life in ten years led her to realize the crippling effect of fear on her life.
• 🏃‍♀️ She decided to confront her fears head-on by starting a 100-day project to face each fear individually.
• 👶 Childhood experiences played a significant role in shaping her fears, such as the fear of dogs and traveling.
• 🔑 She discovered that what she thought were 100 different fears could be categorized into just 7 core fears.
• 🔬 She classified her fears into universal, cultural, and personal values to understand their origins.
• 🌟 Facing her fears led to personal growth, such as getting a piercing and a Brazilian wax, and trying spicy food.
• 🧠 The process of facing fears typically involves stages of discovery, denial, determination, action, and celebration.
• 🛠️ She developed cognitive, behavioral, and emotional tools to help herself and others face their fears.
• 🌈 Fear is a natural part of life, but it shouldn't control us; instead, we should learn to negotiate with our fears.
• 🌟 The project evolved from a personal journey to inspiring others worldwide to face their fears and live life to the fullest.

Q & A

What was the assignment given by Debbie Millman to the class?

Debbie Millman asked the class to write an essay about their best possible lives ten years from now, identify the obstacles that could get in the way of that future, and then pinpoint one crucial obstacle.

How did the speaker realize her life was crippled by fear?

The speaker realized her life was crippled by fear when she was asked to identify the obstacles to her best possible future and discovered that fear was the main thing holding her back.

What was the 100-day project the speaker decided to undertake?

The speaker decided to start facing all of her fears one by one as her 100-day project.

What was the speaker's realization after facing almost 40 different fears?

The speaker realized that she was not facing 100 different fears but rather seven core fears that manifested in different ways.

What are the seven core fears the speaker identified?

The seven core fears the speaker identified are pain, danger, disgust, embarrassment, rejection, loneliness, and control.

How did the speaker categorize her fears according to values?

The speaker categorized her fears into three stacks of values: universal, cultural, and personal. Universal fears are inherent to all humans, cultural fears are shaped by society, and personal fears are influenced by individual experiences and backgrounds.

What is the natural process of facing fear as described by the speaker?

The natural process of facing fear described by the speaker includes the discovery stage, denial stage, determination stage, 'WTF am I doing' stage, action stage, and the celebratory stage.

What tools did the speaker develop to help face her fears?

The speaker developed cognitive tools (positive self-talk), behavioral tools (like counting before taking action), and emotional tools (putting herself in a good mood before facing fear).

How did the speaker's project evolve after it was discovered by the media?

After the project was discovered by the media, the speaker's goal shifted from becoming braver herself to inspiring others to leave their comfort zones, face their fears, and live life to the fullest.

What was the assignment the speaker gave to the audience at the end of her talk?

The speaker asked the audience to think of one fear they would like to face in the upcoming week, face it, and then share their experience to inspire others.

What is the speaker's view on absolute fearlessness?

The speaker does not believe in absolute fearlessness but believes that we can negotiate with our fears to pursue our dreams and open ourselves to new experiences.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Facing Fears: The Journey Begins

The speaker shares her experience of facing her 100th fear, which started during her master's degree in Branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She was challenged to write an essay about her best possible life in ten years, which led her to identify her fears. She realized that her life was crippled by fear and decided to face them one by one as part of a 100-day project. The speaker recounts her childhood fears and how she started to confront them, such as holding a cat for the first time and going a day without her cell phone. However, she noticed that many of her fears were repetitive, often stemming from a fear of pain or embarrassment.

05:02

🔍 Identifying and Classifying Fears

The speaker discovered that she had only seven core fears: pain, danger, disgust, embarrassment, rejection, loneliness, and control. She categorized these fears according to a set of values, including universal, cultural, and personal values. Through this process, she understood that her fears were rooted in her upbringing and cultural background. She learned that facing fears follows a predictable process involving discovery, denial, determination, action, and celebration. By understanding this process, she developed tools to help her face her fears, including cognitive, behavioral, and emotional strategies.

10:03

🌟 Embracing Fears and Inspiring Others

The speaker explains that facing fears is not about eliminating them but about becoming intimate with them and ensuring they don't dominate other emotions. She emphasizes that fear is an ally that keeps us alive, but when faced, it allows for other, more positive emotions to emerge. The speaker's project evolved from a personal quest to become braver to inspiring others to leave their comfort zones and face their fears. She received messages from people around the world who were inspired by her story, showing the contagious effect of facing fears. The speaker concludes by challenging the audience to face one fear in the upcoming week and share their experience to inspire others.

Keywords

💡Fear

Fear is an emotional response to a perceived threat or danger. In the video, fear is the central theme as the speaker embarks on a journey to confront and understand her fears. The speaker identifies and categorizes her fears, such as fear of pain, rejection, and embarrassment, which are all used as examples to illustrate her personal experiences with fear.

💡Master's Degree

A master's degree is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a postgraduate program. In the script, the speaker's pursuit of a master's degree in Branding at the School of Visual Arts in New York City is where the idea of facing her fears is first introduced.

💡Branding

Branding is the process of creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumer's mind, mainly through advertising campaigns. In the context of the video, the speaker is studying branding, which may have influenced her approach to personal branding and overcoming fears as part of her personal narrative.

💡100-day project

A 100-day project refers to a personal challenge or commitment undertaken for 100 consecutive days. In the video, the speaker chooses to face one fear each day for 100 days, which becomes a transformative journey for her.

💡Crippling

Crippling, in this context, means severely limiting or hindering. The speaker describes how fear has crippled her life, preventing her from trying new experiences and living fully.

💡Pain

Pain is an unpleasant sensation often caused by injury or illness. In the video, pain is one of the seven fears the speaker identifies and confronts, such as getting a piercing and a Brazilian wax to face her fear of pain.

💡Embarrassment

Embarrassment is a feeling of self-consciousness or shame, often caused by one's actions or circumstances. The speaker mentions fear of embarrassment as a common fear and shares her experience of facing it by doing karaoke.

💡Rejection

Rejection is the act of refusing to accept, consider, or approve something. In the script, rejection is one of the fears the speaker identifies, and she shares her experience of facing it by begging for money in the streets of New York.

💡Universal Values

Universal values are fundamental principles or standards that are widely accepted across different cultures and societies. The speaker categorizes her fears according to universal values, such as the fear of danger and pain, which are common to all humans.

💡Cultural Values

Cultural values are the customs, beliefs, and attitudes of a particular society or group. The speaker discusses how cultural values shape our fears, such as the fear of embarrassment and rejection, which are influenced by societal norms.

💡Personal Values

Personal values are the individual's beliefs and principles that guide their actions and decisions. The speaker relates her fears of loneliness and control to her personal values, influenced by her family history and upbringing.

💡Discovery Stage

The discovery stage refers to the initial phase of recognizing and acknowledging one's fears. The speaker describes this as the first step in facing fear, where one identifies what they are afraid of, such as being scared of doing stand-up comedy.

💡Denial Stage

The denial stage is a phase where individuals refuse to accept the reality of their fears. The speaker mentions that most people stay in this stage to maintain a comfortable life, avoiding the直面恐惧.

💡Determination Stage

The determination stage is when individuals decide to confront their fears. The speaker sets a date and makes arrangements to face her fears, demonstrating determination.

💡Action Stage

The action stage is the phase where individuals actually take steps to confront their fears. The speaker is currently in this stage while delivering her talk, having faced numerous fears.

💡Celebratory Stage

The celebratory stage is the phase following the successful confrontation of a fear, where individuals feel proud and accomplished. The speaker encourages sharing these moments to inspire others.

Highlights

The speaker is facing her 100th fear as part of a personal challenge.

The challenge originated from an assignment during her master's degree in Branding.

The assignment required envisioning one's best possible life ten years in the future.

Students were then asked to identify potential obstacles to achieving that future.

The realization that fear was the main obstacle in the speaker's life.

The decision to start a 100-day project to face fears one by one.

The realization that many of her fears were rooted in childhood experiences.

The discovery that she had only seven core fears, not 100.

The process of categorizing fears into universal, cultural, and personal values.

The speaker's personal connection to fear due to her family's history and upbringing.

The importance of not letting past or circumstances dictate one's fears.

The six stages of facing fear: Discovery, Denial, Determination, WTF am I doing, Action, and Celebratory.

The creation of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional tools to help face fears.

The idea that fear should be managed, not eliminated, as it serves a purpose.

The transformation from a fearful person to one who is open to new experiences.

The impact of sharing one's fear-conquering journey on inspiring others.

The project's shift from personal growth to inspiring others to face their fears.

The call to action for the audience to face their own fears and share their experiences.

Transcripts

Translator: Sarah El_Gayyar Reviewer: Marta Palacio

Today, right here, right now,

I'm facing my 100th fear.

(Applause)

It all started when I was doing my master's degree in Branding

at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

And Debbie Millman, the director and founder of the program

asked the class to look deep into our souls

and write an essay about our best possible lives

ten years from now.

This exercise was both terrifying and liberating.

We had a free path to dream big.

As soon as we were all ready to go after our biggest dreams,

we were asked to think of all those possible things

that could get in the way of our best possible future.

But then we were asked to identify one crucial obstacle.

When I learned and I realized

that my whole life was crippled by fear

and I was missing on every new experience because of it

I was paralyzed.

That's when the third part of this assignment was unveiled.

We were all commissioned to start a 100-day project of our choice.

For me, the answer was way too obvious to ignore.

I knew that I had to start facing all of my fears one by one.

Since I was a little girl,

my life had always been crippled by fear.

I remember when I was little, my uncle bought a huge dog for his house

and my family dinners went from being happy memories to terrifying nightmares.

Or when I passed on a backpacking trip to Europe with my friends

just because the thought of having to sleep at a hostel

or in a train station would make me tremble.

And like that I never tried any substance that could mess up with my system.

I was comfortable that way,

and the easy answer to all these things was always "No, thanks!"

Being the fearful person that I was,

I thought that I had easily 100 fears and more.

I started by accepting the challenge to do this project as my first fear.

I went on and held a cat for the first time ever,

I tried all kinds of food.

I went one day, an entire day, without my cell phone.

And I went on and on until day 39 arrived

and something remarkable happened:

I was about to face my fear of donating blood

when I realized that I was congratulating myself

over and over again for having faced almost 40 different fears,

when in reality I was facing the same fears over and over again.

I wasn't scared of needles, I was scared of pain.

I wasn't scared of doing karaoke, I was scared of being embarrassed.

I wasn't scared of begging for money in the streets of New York,

I was scared of being rejected.

That's when I realized I did not have 100 fears,

I had 7 fears.

Pain, danger, disgust, embarrassment,

rejection, loneliness, and control.

For example, to face my fear of pain, I did all sorts of things,

from getting a piercing, getting a Brazilian wax,

trying spicy food.

(Laughter)

I tried acupuncture, I jumped off a cliff

and all those things that reassured me that indeed I don't like pain.

But hey, I really love my piercing and my husband loved the Brazilian wax.

(Laughter)

As a way to better understand the difference between all of my fears

and find their origin,

I decided to classify them according to a stack of values,

values that define who we are and why we do the things that we do.

And this is something that I learned from my SVA professor, Dr. Tom Guarriello.

We're all born with a set of universal values,

and little by little we develop cultural and personal ones.

By categorizing all of my fears this way,

I realized that all of the challenges that I was facing

related to danger, pain, and disgust fell under the universal stack.

If we asked anyone to try oysters for the first time in their lives,

their reaction would probably be something like this.

(Laughter)

Same if we asked them to pet this,

to swim around these,

or jump from here.

All of the challenges that were related to embarrassment and rejection

fell under the cultural stack.

Society shapes us and gives us guidelines

so one day we all become well-behaved rational adults.

We all know the "do" symptoms, right?

Don't do this,

don't touch this,

and don't walk around wearing this.

And finally, all of my challenges related to loneliness and control

were deep embedded in my personal stack.

I come from a family of World War II survivors

where half of my family were killed by the Nazis in concentration camps.

My grandparents were lucky

and they were able to escape and start a new life from scratch,

but their fears never went away.

In fact, they were carried from generation to generation.

My mom was raised with lots of fears, and so was I.

Additionally, I was born and raised in a country full of natural beauty,

delicious food and amazing people.

But as beautiful as Venezuela is,

it ranks among the most dangerous countries in the world,

where kidnappings, robberies, and murders are part of people's daily conversations.

And where having your car taken but your life not, is seen as a blessing.

People in these countries face their fears daily.

But if I learned one thing,

it's we cannot keep blaming our past or our circumstances for our fears.

That's not going to fix our future.

What we can do about them is face them

and try to change our relationship with them.

By doing all these fears,

I learned that there's a natural sort of predictable process

to facing fear.

It all starts in the "discovery stage",

here's when we identify that we are scared of something like:

Hum! I guess I am scared of doing stand-up comedy.

Then we immediately move into the "denial stage".

Here's when we ignore the fact that we are indeed scared of this thing.

Most of the people stay in this stage

making their lives easy and comfortable.

A few percentage of the people make it to the next stage

which is the "determination stage".

Here's when we make all the arrangements necessary,

we set a date for it and we're ready, we're ready to face our fears.

So before getting to the "action stage",

there's this hard-to-avoid stage I like to call the "WTF am I doing stage".

(Laughter)

You can't avoid it.

This is when you really overthink your decision to face your fear

and you think of every possible outcome turning it into the worst-case scenario.

If you make it past this stage, congrats,

because you will learn in the "action stage" -

that's what I'm doing now: "action" -

and here's when it doesn't matter how much of a non-believer you are,

you turn to God

asking Him to be with you in that moment, and you go for it, you face your fear

and that will take you to the "celebratory stage".

Here's when you want to share with the world what you just did.

Hashtag "I did it".

You experience what feeling proud of yourself actually feels like.

Then, a new feeling creeps in,

a feeling of embarrassment

because here's when we really regret our behavior during the "WTF stage".

And I'm telling you, after facing 100 fears,

not even one time

the actual challenge was worse than what I had in my head before.

So, WTF are we so afraid of?

These six steps repeat themselves over and over again.

It doesn't matter how many challenges you've faced.

To go from the "WTF stage" into the "Action stage",

I built a set of tools for myself.

First, I have some cognitive tools.

These are the things I like to tell myself like, "It'll be over in ten seconds",

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"Everybody has a destiny", and all of these things.

(Laughter)

I have also some behavioral tools.

These are things I do differently

like when I couldn't jump off this cliff until I decided to count: 1, 2, 3, jump.

And I did it.

And finally, I have some emotional tools

like when I try to put myself in the best mood possible before going on stage

so I can only bring positive energy into the room

and really engage with my audience.

These three tools will not necessarily lead you to overcome fear

but they will allow you to become intimate with the fear.

Actually, we don't want to eliminate fear.

Fear is our ally, it is there to keep us alive.

But when we face our fears, we allow other emotions to jump in,

emotions that I never even experienced before doing this project.

The important thing here is to make sure fear is in its place

and not let it spill over into the other emotions.

When we change our approach, when we change our relationship with fear,

we will ultimately change our approach to life itself.

In my case,

I went from "No, thanks!" to "Let me try".

For some people, it takes them 100 challenges to get there, like me.

For some, 10 will do.

And for some people,

only one challenge will change their lives.

I don't believe in absolute fearlessness,

but I do believe that we can negotiate with our fears

as a way to pursue our dreams and open ourselves to experiences

that we never even considered.

By day 40 my project was discovered by the media

and this is when I realized the power that I had

by sharing all these experiences.

I started to receive messages from people all over the world

thanking me for inspiring them.

And this is when the goal of my project shifted.

It went from becoming a braver person myself

to keep inspiring people to leave their comfort zones,

face their fears and start living life to the fullest.

Who knew facing fears was contagious?

(Video) Hey, Michelle, my name is Marcin, I'm from Poland,

and I faced the fear of writing to a girl

with whom I haven't spoken to for a very long time.

I faced my fear of birds.

Rejection.

Sharks.

Skydiving.

Zip-lining.

Cliff-diving.

To get this pixie haircut.

Dance like nobody's watching.

Traveling solo.

I decided I wanted to do something more meaningful.

(Music)

I felt accomplished and limitless.

It felt terrific.

[And I feel proud]

Awesome.

Beyond amazing.

I feel so good now.

So grateful.

I learned to love myself as I am.

Now it's time for my big fears.

(Video ends)

(Applause)

So I have an assignment for all of you.

I want you to think of one thing you would love to face

in this upcoming week.

Whether it's asking for a raise at work,

asking someone to marry you,

or doing something crazy like jumping out of a plane.

I want you to face that fear, give it a shot,

and then share your experience,

inspire someone else.

Thank you very much.

(Applause and cheering)