Ryan Moran

As I looked up at the fifty-foot tower that I was set to climb and then jump off, I wondered how this had anything to do with marketing. The task was simple: climb the tower, balance yourself on the platform with your partner, and then attempt to catch a bar positioned a few feet out in front of you. This required jumping off the platform and trusting your harness to keep you from falling to serious injury.

Heights never really bothered me much – jumping from heights, on the other hand, was never my thing. Jumping into swimming pools and lakes, jumping out of planes, jumping on the bed – all these made me nervous. Standing on heights was no problem – jumping was another story. In fact, my first day of swimming lessons in elementary school was marked by the fear of having to jump off the diving board – I remember it like it was yesterday. I had tried to talk my way out of it to the instructors, because I was so afraid to jump into the water. Similarly, the idea of jumping off this very slender tower that was barely wide enough to one of us was not my idea of a good time.

It was the first full day of Journey Of The Online Entrepreneur, a five day conference put on by Nitro Marketing in Dallas, TX, and the whole thing seemed awfully hokey to me – we had “journey names,” (my journey name was “One”) mandatory silence for three hours each day (I never once cooperated), and 7:00 AM yoga every day (I literally fell asleep during “relaxation time”). For the first thirty-six hours of the event, I was in a terrible mood – this wasn’t my comfort zone or even my idea of fun.

Climbing this tower with the knowledge that I had to jump off of it was also far out of my comfort zone. Furthermore, it had nothing to do with marketing (so I thought), and I resented the fact that peer pressure was going to force me into doing this thing. Instead of waiting around for peer pressure to kick in, I volunteered to go right away to ‘get it over with.’ I figured that if I went early, the peer pressure would be less since everybody else was just as scared as I was.

My partner, Phil, climbed first and waited at the top. I followed and made my way up the platform, which only had a few inches for me to park myself. Some people only made it this far – the platform was so narrow, and the fear of heights so great in some people, that others gave up at this point. I had no fear of heights, however, and my nervousness wouldn’t kick in until I had to jump, so I wiggled my way onto the platform and stood with the help of Phil (almost knocking him off the platform in the process).

There we stood, fifty feet in the air, at the mercy of our harnesses, which were braced by our spotters. If either of them failed, we were dead.

Here, I hesitated. In this moment, I would learn more about myself than I ever expected, and it became one of the most significant marketing lessons that I’ve had.

As fifteen other entrepreneurs, most about twice my age, looked up at us at the top of the tower, fear set in. I hate being scared, especially in front of other people. I looked at the object in front of me – positioned six feet out in front of me was the bar, and all I had to do was jump toward it and catch it.

I looked down and began to calculate the bodily injuries that I might experience if either my harness or my spotter failed. A minute went by as I contemplated whether or not it made sense for me to jump. There was no point to this – I didn’t get a prize for following through, and the only thing keeping me up there was the peer pressure. After all, I was the youngest person there, among the most successful, and I wanted to show that all this hokey journey adventure crap was beneath me.

Still I waited. Phil began to grow antsy, “Count to three and jump, man.” Phil was a coach by nature – I think my fear actually motivated him, even if only for the joy of seeing me overcome my reservations.

Two minutes rolled by, then three, and I was beginning to doubt my abilities. I peered over the platform, and my knees buckled. (I always thought that knees only buckled in cartoons – turns out they do so in real life, too.) After three or four minutes of hesitating, embarrassment began to sit in – I wasn’t about to be the guy who couldn’t jump off the platform.

“You promise that you’ll catch me?” I asked my spotters, as they clung to the rope that was attached to my harness. They nodded.

“Don’t think about it, Ryan, just count to three and jump.” Phil was ready.

As I moved my toes to the edge of the platform and looked straight ahead, I felt my legs twitching, and I hoped that the endless plyometric workouts that I’d been doing had conditioned me enough to be able to jump that far.

I counted, “1……. 2…… 3….. JUMP!”

I jumped a hair before Phil – I caught the bar and clung to it, but as Phil’s hands grabbed it, it knocked me off. Phil was the only person to actually catch the bar and hold on that day. The spotter caught me, and the harness held me. I was safe. I lived. They lowered us both slowly to the ground as our team (or “tribe” as we called it) exploded into applause and congratulations – perhaps because I expressed the fear that they all were feeling and still survived.

As more and more groups of two jumped off the platform, fears lessened and lessened. For me, however, all fear had vanished. In fact, once my turn had passed, it seemed almost foolish to be afraid of what just happened. Instead, I began to calculate what would have to change in order for me to catch the bar on a second attempt (I never did get to try again).

I shared this with one of my tribe mates, Liz, who added, “I’m really disappointed in myself. I was so scared to jump that I didn’t put everything that I had into it, so I barely left the platform.”

That was it. It clicked.

At first, it felt like a lesson in taking action – I was scared to try, but once I jumped, I was able to determine what kind of adjustments needed to be made to succeed on the next jump. That alone was an invaluable lesson; just like in business, you’ll never know what adjustments need to be made or what problems you need to solve until you first take action.

However, what I learned in my conversation with Liz was something much greater. It was a lesson in how I deal with fear.

I took quick action on this task. In fact, I volunteered to go early, and I climbed up the tower with ease. Once at the top, however, I waited, I hesitated, and I almost let my fear prevent me from following through. This is how I react when I am afraid; I wait, analyze, and even talk myself out of it. But once the task has been attempted, the fear evaporates, and I am able to evaluate my successes and my failures.

For Liz, her reaction to fear was to half-attempt the task. She let her fear stop her from giving her all. This was a lesson for her to give 100% and never to let the fear overtake her. For me, it was a lesson in overcoming the fear of moving forward in spite of it, knowing that I can adjust later.

In February of this year, I did the scariest thing that I’ve ever done – I launched my own product. A seemingly simple task for some, I was terrified of it. Those who were in the eTycoon Master Class did not know this, but I was petrified to launch that product. When the fear set in, I fell into what I now understand to be how I deal with fear – I analyzed, and I hesitated. That class almost never happened because of my over analysis due to fear.

I took fast action when I decided to launch it (I think the decision was made in early January), and then steps were taken to make it happen. Days before the launch, however, I was crippled by fear. The material was going to be rock solid, and I had a money-back guarantee that I honored – perhaps even too liberally – and I poured myself into the class to ensure its success. Still, the fear of rejection, failure, and even the fear of success was crippling. It almost prevented me from following through. But I jumped.

Now, it feels almost silly to be scared of such a thing, and I’m confident to do it again. If I had never taken action, it would be impossible to analyze how to make it better or do other products better in the future. In fact, my next product launch is already being planned at a higher price point ($2,000 to $5,000) and in less time than my last (it’s outside of the make money online niche – you’ll probably never see it unfold except through my blog posts about it). And this time, I’m totally confident and cool as a cucumber, and I know 100% that the product’s value will exceed it’s price.

There were bumps along the way of my first launch – some of the early lessons weren’t my best, there were naysayers, and there were imperfections. But in the end, the feedback was better than I could have imagined, and the weaknesses were fixed. Even now, new materials and tools are being developed to make it even better, even though the first students were thrilled with the end result of the original class. And I can do it now because the fear is gone.

Until I jumped off the tower, I never understood how my body reacts to fear. Now, it is clear that I hesitate and analyze when fear settles in – others close to me have confirmed this. I wonder how many times my reaction to fear has crippled me from taking action. How many times have I hesitated to do something that would have been a wonderful learning experience, simply because my fear got in the way? How many times have I analyzed myself into inaction and “logically” talked myself out of doing something wonderful?

Are you like me? Does your body hesitate when it is afraid? Have you prevented yourself from the joy of new experiences because your fear got in the way? Or maybe you’re like Liz, whose fear prevented her from giving her all. Has your fear of success, fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of heights, fear of women, or fear of others stopped you from giving 100%?

I wonder how many times it has stopped me. But since I jumped, I now know exactly how my body will respond, which makes it possible to turn it off, to prevent hesitation, and to know that adjustments can be made after I jump.

And that makes all the difference.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 13th, 2010 at 11:30 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.