Translator: Queenie Lee Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
I want to talk about anxiety.
I have anxiety. I've always had anxiety.
I was a born worrier.
If I have nothing to worry about, I'll worry about that.
So you can imagine when the good people of TEDx
reached out and invited me to be a guest speaker here today,
truth be told, I thought it was a joke,
and then I freaked out.
My thought process went a little like this:
[1] Wow! This is amazing;
[2] Is this a joke? They can't be serious;
[3] I can't do this. There is no way.
I hate public speaking. Doesn't everybody hate public speaking?
[4] Actually, maybe I can do this; and [5] Wow! This is amazing.
This is amazing, being up here, doing this talk, it is great.
But you can see my thought process here.
It went from really excited, to fearful, back to excited again.
And I think a lot of us go through this thought process
when we are presented with opportunities that are outside our comfort zone.
Being here on this stage, on the other side of the world,
is definitely outside my comfort zone.
But I'm not just here because I have anxiety.
I'm here because the way that I view my anxiety has changed.
I now view my fears, my worries, and my anxiety as a good thing,
and I use it to my advantage.
When anxiety is at its peak for me, it can mean a number of things.
Mostly, it can mean a difficulty in sleeping;
it can mean difficulty in eating;
and it can mean sitting up in bed at two, three, four a.m. in the morning,
obsessing about the tiniest of details
and role-playing different situations or scenarios in my head
about how the future may or may not play out.
Now, the ironic thing with me is that in my professional life,
I own and run a PR agency back home in Australia.
And when I put my work head on, my professional head on,
my anxiety and my fear, it completely vanishes.
I feel very strong and confident in the work that I do,
and so I have this struggle.
I feel like I have this dual personality thing going on
because the way that I am in my professional life
is very different to how I am in my personal life.
And to be honest, I feel like I've probably hidden behind my career
for such a long time
because if I'm working - and I am a workaholic -
if I'm working,
it can mean I can avoid going out to different social events,
or I can avoid going out in general.
And so I started my own PR agency when I was 27,
and many people told me that I couldn't.
It couldn't be done, and that I didn't have enough experience.
And for me, I think there is a lot of power in "No."
And I live my life like this; I get told "No" a lot.
I remember being at school,
and my teachers told me that I probably wouldn't amount to much,
and I would certainly struggle to go on to university.
Let's just say I was no scholar, I was shit at school.
(Laughter)
When the teachers would tell me these negative comments,
it drove me to work harder to not only prove them wrong
but to get to where I actually wanted to be.
I did go on to university and I graduated with honors.
And then I went out and scored my absolute dream job,
which was working for the biggest record company in the world.
It was an incredible job,
and I was the national publicity manager there.
I was working with all sorts of bands and artists,
anyone from the Foo Fighters - one of my favorite bands -
to people like Celine Dion.
So it was very diverse, and it was an incredible job.
I was there for eight years,
and then I started my own PR company.
I've had my own PR company for the last five years,
and we're going from strength to strength.
Just recently I realized
that my whole life I've been fighting "No,"
and I realized that I haven't actually been fighting my fears.
and maybe this has something to do with my anxiety.
And so, I want to look at fear for a moment.
Now, research has shown
that 40% of the things that we worry about
never actually happen;
30% are in the past and they can't be helped;
12% involve the affairs of others,
so it's not even our business to worry about them;
10% relate to sickness, either real or imagined;
so, that means that only 8% of the things that we worry about
are only ever likely to happen.
There are two ways of looking at fear.
One is to do absolutely nothing and just remain in that bubble of comfort,
and this is how I approached my fear: I didn't approach my fear.
I rarely stepped outside that comfort zone
and looked at the issues that I was having in my personal life.
All I did was work - I was a workaholic.
I was comfortable working, working, working,
and I was comfortable when I was in the office.
But now, the way that I approach fear is different.
I take on fear like a warrior,
and for me, this has given me unlimited opportunities
and also unlimited happiness, as well.
So speaking of happiness,
I want to speak about my husband for a moment.
This is my husband; his name is Phil.
He is a professional musician, and he's a great guitarist,
and he plays to thousands of people in his professional life.
But outside his work life, he's like a professional hobbyist as well.
He has so much stuff going on in his life,
from surfing, to cooking, to gardening, to fishing.
This guy has it all going on.
My husband is the happiest person that I have ever met,
and it can't just be because he married me.
I'm sure that plays a really big role in his happiness,
but that can't just be it.
So when I looked at my husband's life,
I realized that, hang on a minute,
he's conquering fear on a pretty big level
almost every day in his professional life.
He goes out there, and he plays guitar to thousands and thousands of people.
But in his personal life he is also attacking fear, too.
I mean, the things that he does would freak me out,
I mean, he'd go surfing, and he's a karate expert.
And so, I took inspiration from my husband,
and I thought, "OK, I'm going to get myself a hobby,
and I want my hobby to address some of the fears
that I'm having in my own life as well."
So I refer to this as my fear project.
I created a hobby, and it addressed one of my fears.
So what was my fear?
What was I scared of?
Well, one of the things -
there are lots of things I'm scared of -
but just one of the things that I was scared of
was being in front of the camera.
And for me, again, this is funny
because in my professional life that's what I do for a living.
I put other people in front of the camera;
I put the spotlight on everybody else that I'm working with.
But when it came to me,
well, that was a whole other thing.
So, I created a YouTube channel, and I created a YouTube channel
because it would address my fear
because I physically have to be in front of the camera.
I'm my own host on my YouTube channel.
And secondly,
it would give me this creative outlet to get outside of my work head -
because I was very much within my own head
and very much focused on work, work, work -
and so it would give me a creative outlet
to talk about something else that I was passionate about.
So what was I passionate about outside PR?
Well, one of the things that I'm passionate about -
and I must admit I'm a little bit nervous to talk about this at a TEDx Talk,
but it's all about addressing your fears -
so one of the things that I'm passionate about
is designer handbags.
(Laughter)
Yes ...
You did not see that coming at a TEDx Talk, did you?
No, but it is materialistic, absolutely,
and it's superficial, I agree with you.
It is, I'm guilty of it.
Some people go skiing in Aspen for fun.
I don't have time for that.
So, I buy designer handbags,
and to me, they're like little pieces of art,
and I love them.
So on my YouTube channel,
I talk about designer handbags, talk about other things as well.
I talk about fashion and travel, and I do these really fun Q&A videos,
where my viewers write in and ask me questions,
like: what is it like to be a girl boss?
How can you afford a 3,000 dollar handbag?
And how do you justify that to your husband?
So as you can see
I'm really tackling the big issues on my YouTube channel.
(Laughter)
But the greatest thing in having this fear project
is that it's actually conquered one of my fears in addressing them.
And this is really the idea that I want to get across today
is thinking about the things
that you worry about or that make you anxious
and creating a project to tackle those fears head on.
Now, my YouTube channel has had hundreds of thousands of views,
and that's awesome.
But in stepping outside my comfort zone
and attacking one of my fears head on,
like a warrior,
has actually presented a lot of amazing opportunities.
In fact, the reason I'm here today is because one of the TEDx organizers
was a viewer on my YouTube channel.
So being here was something that I could never have imagined
prior to tackling my fear.
So now the greatest thing
isn't that I have thousands of subscribers on YouTube channel,
the greatest thing is that in conquering one of my fears,
my anxiety levels have actually decreased,
and my happiness has increased across the board,
not only in my professional life but also in my personal life, as well.
I now like to refer to myself as a fear fighter.
This is really the idea that I want to share today.
It's all about creating a fear project,
the things that worry you, make you anxious in your life,
taking them head on and becoming a fear fighter.
When I stopped worrying about everything in my life,
my life got so much easier, and my life got more productive.
You'll see in this photo, I'm jumping up and down on a beach
looking very happy and looking very free,
and this is how I feel when I'm conquering my fears.
I don't always look like this.
I certainly did not look like this before this TEDx Talk today.
I guess you could say that this TEDx Talk has been like a fear project for me
because it's certainly outside my comfort zone.
And when I feel anxious or when I feel worried,
I go ahead and I create another fear project,
and I will probably have another 200 fear projects to go.
My call to action is this:
take on fear.
Don't always take "No" for an answer.
Create fear projects and become a fear fighter,
and use fear to motivate you and energize you
to actually get on and do the things that you want to do in your life.
Be the warrior, not the worrier.
Thank you.
(Applause)