This year's Hybrid World Adelaide played host to Dr Christyl Johnson, Deputy Director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She's responsible for technology development and putting together the investment portfolio that makes sure NASA has all the technologies ready in time for their missions.
During the HWA Lab — a two-day mentoring program culminating in a competitive pitch — Dr Johnson gave the participants a pep talk about conquering fear. Here's the transcript.
One of the most important things that I will share with you — a secret to anyone who is going to succeed in your own company — you must master your understanding of, and your relationship with, fear.
I'm not talking about clear and present danger fear. I'm talking about the fear that makes you stand still, right in your place, and not go after your dream. It keeps you from succeeding in everything that you do. That's because:
Fear is not real. It's actually an acronym. And it stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.
This applies in every aspect of your life. For example, when it was time for me to move to NASA headquarters to take this new position, fear totally overwhelmed me. I have an 18-month-old baby — who's going to take care of my child? And my husband is working too, so what's he going to do when we move to DC? You can't live in Washington D.C., or even close to it, without two incomes to keep up the quality of life we'd been accustomed to. What if I get there and I don't even like the people I'm going to be working with? What if it doesn't work out?
It was one of those things — everybody goes up to that edge of the cliff, and that's when all the fear starts coming in. You hear all the "what ifs" on this side of your brain. And most of the time we kind of back away from the edge of the cliff. Then we have an excuse: "Well, I don't have enough money to do it. I don't have the right people involved yet. I don't know if I'm going to get the right expertise to do this. What happens if, what happens if, what happens if." If you don't master your relationship with that, you will always back away from that cliff. You will never jump off and learn that your wings are strong enough to carry you. You have to master that.
In looking at that, I found that 99% of all of this stuff that you hear never comes to fruition. It never does. Because once you actually jump off that cliff, you'll find — as I did when I moved there — there was a woman who ran a day care in her house right across the street, with a facility with cameras so I could look at my child any time I wanted and see how they were taking care of him. My husband ended up getting his Master's Degree and a job in IT security, which was even better. My son got exposed to so much more in Fairfax, Virginia, than he ever would have in our old home. His exposure, his experience, his training — all so much better, because we jumped off that cliff and just went with it.
So make sure you understand fear when those things are going on in your mind. Write down what your fears are. What those voices are in your head. And then come up with a plan to mitigate each single one of them. That helps keep you rooted, so you're not allowing the fear to control you. If you allow that fear to control you, you'll always back away from the cliff and never jump.
But you're already at the edge of that cliff, and you can't let anyone stop you.
No one can tell you what's possible for you. No one. No one can tell you what your dreams are going to be.
No one can realise your dreams but you. And there is no one in this room powerful enough to stop you — but you. So make sure you know who you are. Know what you bring to the table. Be able to communicate that really, really quickly. And just fly. Just fly.
