The importance of learning to “do it scared”

What if the life you want exists on the other side of fear?

A few decades ago, a friend from the New York Democratic political world took me to lunch and informed me that she thought I should be on TV as a political pundit.

She had been doing this herself but was taking a job that would prevent her from discussing politics on television. She wanted to suggest to the bookers that I take her place. At the time, there was a glut of female conservative pundits, but not many from the other side of the aisle. She wanted me to help change that.

I could think of nothing more terrifying than what she was suggesting. There was simply no way I could ever do this.

Thank you for thinking of me, but no.

People are often surprised to find out that I am terrified of public speaking and that I am a shy person. I hate having attention focused on me so much that at my wedding, I banned all toasts, except for the one I reluctantly allowed from my husband.

I don’t know what this is about, but it goes back as far as I can remember. It’s to a point that I think it’s fair to classify it as a phobia.

If I had to give a presentation at school, I would blush until my face was hot and purple and my mouth tasted like cotton. At a job out of college at a Democratic fundraising firm, two men I worked with nicknamed me “Helen Keller” because of how infrequently I spoke. (Pretty shitty, I know.)

I was always good with my little group of friends and was very outgoing in that context, but when interacting with people I didn’t know, I would go mute.

Over time, I became better at small talk —it turns out this is actually something you can learn to do—or interacting with people I didn’t know well. But even by my mid-30s, when my friend made this suggestion, I had not overcome my fear of being in front of a group or public speaking.

But even as I felt what she was suggesting was an impossibility for me, I made a decision to override my fear. I told my friend to go ahead and give out my contact information, thinking that I’d probably just ignore any invitations should they come.

But why even entertain the idea of doing the most scary thing I could imagine doing?

Because I had learned that so many important things in my life only occurred after I forced myself to push through my fear to find out what was on the other side.