Reaching out of your comfort zone

Recently I read this article suggesting that reaching out of your comfort zone has a great potential for exciting magical experiences. This seams to be a profound understanding. When out of comfort zone we feel uneasy and vulnerable. In fact we are ready to work hard and generate creative excuses just to get back into the comfort zone. Yet, truly exciting life lies OUT of the comfort zone. Even more you should take other people out of their comfort zone for them to get excited about whatever you are doing or making…

I married Anna after finishing my PhD, after the exit of the startup which technology I helped to develop, after doing several other things I was proud of. At the beginning I had no interest to learn speedreading with Anna. I tried different methods twice before, I read several books on the subject and I was pretty sure I cannot get speedreading right. But Anna needed to find students and I volunteered to help. I was challenged out of my comfort zone pretty much immediately to the point when Anna suggested me to change almost all of my learning habits [Anna was much younger and less experienced back then]. If Anna was not my wife, I would probably quit the course and demanded refund. Instead I went through the course finding myriads of mistakes in Anna’s methods [these comments were later incorporated into the structure of the course]. When I finished the course I was less than impressed with my reading speed and retention. And we decide with Anna not to raise this subject again for a while. I continued with my work, gradually increasing the workload. Anna silently observed this. After ~6 months Anna asked me to read a text and check its retention. I said that I do just the opposite of what she taught me. She insisted, and when we measured my speed was ~2000wpm and 80% retention. This is how the advanced course was born…

Anna had a similar magic experience with Jonathan, transforming him into a superlearner. This excitement of finding a new way of looking at things can be seen from the way he teaches the course on Udemy, and is a huge part of the course’s success. Occasionally some of the students ask if they could acquire the superlearning skills gradually, without a tremendous leap of faith. Not only I do not know how to do this, but I think it will reduce the magical excitement you get when you acquire a life-changing skill.

I am not brave enough to say “there is nothing to fear”. Fearing is a good way to survive. Yet occasionally, say 2-3 times a month, I do suggest to try something you do not expect you would like. Who knows what magical and exciting thing await for you there!