Stepping out of your comfort zone

I recently attended a user conference and hear Peter Shankman encourage the audience to step out of their comfort zone in order to grow. Peter's advice and encouragement really struck a chord with me and made me think of very few times that I have done something new in my career. Something that I  initially had some hesitation or concern, but then I just made a decision to do it. Here are a couple of examples and then a couple of thoughts:

• Moderating a Panel - I had never moderated a panel at a conference before and when it was suggested that I do that. I quickly said yes (there is a reason for saying yes quickly...read more about that in the thought section). Afterwards, I had some other things come up and I did want to back out a little bit. But my manager suggested that it would be a good experience for me and I decided to give it a shot. I did some research on moderating best practices. Took some notes about the speakers and questions to start the panel off. 
• Speaking at a conference - I was offered the opportunity to speak at the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) on behalf of my employer on Email Marketing. I had never done that before so I wanted a day or so to think about it. I thought about all the extra work on top of the extra work I was already doing. My mind was racing about all the ways I could get out of it. But then I thought about the Oliver Wendell Holmes quotation "Man's mind, stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions." I decided to give it a shot.

Thoughts

• Prepare, prepare, prepare! - Whenever you do something new, preparation is always the key to success (even more so when you are doing something new). I would research online, take notes, memorize, and I would start my preparations early. For my talk at OMS, I took the slides and took notes on each one. I added additional information that was not presented on the slide (stories, other stats, etc.). Afterwards, I prepared by giving the presentation (I did it several times) to note the duration and got myself fairly comfortable with it. The practice also helped me come up with new ideas to make the presentation even better. When I gave the presentation, I was vey relaxed. I was walking around (not standing behind the podium) and I was interacting with the audience. It was actually a lot of fun. Being prepared is the key difference between mediocrity and excellence. 
• Opportunity knocks - As I have progressed in my career, I've done a lot of reading in an attempt to learn. Most of what I read are business related magazines. I came to the realization that career growth happens for two reasons. First, its all about you and your decisions and your decision to take assignments and projects that force you out of your comfort zone. Say yes when asked. But here's the other part. In order to have the opportunity to say yes, you have to be given the opportunity by someone. Someone has to believe enough in you to give that assignment. It takes two to create a market :)

I hope you find this helpful and I wanted to thank Peter Shankman for serving as the catalyst for this blog post. You can learn more about him here: http://shankman.com/