On Becoming Fearless: Welcoming Arianna Huffington's Newest Edition

As we mentioned earlier this week, today is Fearless Friday and we are posting as part of MotherTalk's blog bonanza. Here is the description of what this means:

During a Blog Bonanza, bloggers everywhere write about a single topic on the same day, and on that day we’re able to click from blog to blog, reading our friends thoughts, finding new wisdom, having as close to a major conversation as blogging might allow. On a Blog Bonanza day, we can really feel the close community we’re creating as moms, parents, women, writers who blog.

Fearless Friday is about On Becoming Fearless, and sharing our experiences with fearlessness.

I've always been seen as a fairly gutsy gal. Which frankly has made my own mother fearful for me on many occasions. I've heard "Devra, do you really think that it's wise to do that?" or "Devra, maybe you should say it differently so no one gets mad?" or "Devra, what if that person doesn't like it?" but the one fearful question that stuck out in my mind and spurred me on to be utterly fearless was, "Devra, aren't you scared you might get fired?"

When my mother posed that question, and I heard the answer right away in my head, I realized that my mother and Miles from Risky Business were responsible for my fearlessness. How the hell does that work? Read on...

My mother was often fearful of the unknown and expressed to me her own hesitancy in regard to decision making. She understood she herself had learned to be fearful from her parents. Immigrants who came through Ellis Island who feared that anything they did achieve could be stripped from them if they made the wrong decision or angered the wrong person. My grandparents had escaped Pogroms, they knew a little bit about what happens if the wrong person gets angry. A person could get themselves killed.

Fear kept my grandparents alive, it got them to safety. Allowed them to begin a new life. But those scary experiences made it difficult for them not to wash over their children with their own fear. Yup, that "Land of Opportunity" we have come to recognize as the United States of America, was also a hotbed of fear for my family.

When I I received my first job straight out of grad school, my mother recognized this as a wonderful opportunity and would secure my future as having earned an advanced degree meant I had an excellent chance of supporting myself. But now as I explained the decision I had made regarding my job and how I was willing to put it all on the line I believed the time had come to stand up for what was right. Right for the situation, right for my clients and right for me. But my mother felt horribly wrong about what I was telling her.

Which brings us back to that question she asked me, "Devra, aren't you scared you might get fired?" Her fear was based in reality, because she may have been channeling the fears my grandparents had passed on to her, and adding those to her own fears of me losing my first great job and possibly screwing my chances for a new one. I had told my mother about my supervisor's threat "Anyone asking for a transfer will be fired." He didn't sound like he would be open to negotiations. Period.

I wasn't scared at all. No fear whatsoever in fact. Deep down I knew I would never be held back by anyone else's fear. Not even the well intentioned ones of my own mother. And what helped to cement my decision to be fearless? Oddly enough one of the factors factors contributing to my fearlessness was , despite my mother's fears, she had always encouraged me to make informed decisions and had not washed me over with her own fear. She always made it quite clear that the fear she expressed to me, belonged to her. She established a clear boundary of where her fear ended and my fearlessness should begin. She gave me freedom to do my own thing, even when it scare the crap out of her to give it to me. Which now brings me to the other factor in my becoming fearless.

In the film "Risky Business" Miles says the following to Joel :

Joel, you wanna know something? Every now and then say, "What the fuck." "What the fuck" gives you freedom. Freedom brings opportunity. Opportunity makes your future.
Say "what the fuck."... If you can't say it, you can't do it.

When I heard that line, bells and whistles went off in my head! YES! This is true! THIS is what will be my mantra. And it was this mantra that I chanted on my way to ask my supervisor for a transfer. "What the fuck."

"What the fuck. If I am fired from a job that is making me miserable, then I will have the freedom to find another job that will give me the opportunity to do the kind of work I know I am capable of doing and this in turn will not only benefit me, it will also benefit the clients I will serve in the future."

And then I said it again "What the fuck. If I don't get fired, then I will be transferred and will then enjoy the freedom of knowing I am a valued professional and my supervisor will have demonstrated he believes I am worthy of a different opportunity and I will know my future will be just fine."

Miles was right. Sometimes you just gotta say "What the fuck." I got that job transfer and my mother and I both learned a valuable lesson On Becoming Fearless.