Playing it Safe

“We don’t stop play­ing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop play­ing.” — George Bernard Shaw 

Are you play­ing it safe and hold­ing back from the things you’d like to do? Have you ever asked your­self why?

I find a lot of peo­ple come to a point where they live their lives too safe­ly, who lim­it them­selves by not try­ing any­thing new. I’m fas­ci­nat­ed why some peo­ple lose their curios­i­ty in their 30s and 40s while oth­ers con­tin­ue to expand their lives and expe­ri­ence new things in their 70s and 80s.

I’m an adven­tur­er at heart and come by it hon­est­ly. In fact, my late grand­moth­er Bet­ty Howatt inspired Keep Going for It, Chap­ter 16 of Your Oxy­gen Mask First. She lived her life out loud, even going back to uni­ver­si­ty at age 81 because she was curi­ous about the reli­gions of the world.

Because I was born with the ​‘explore DNA’, I’m always inspired by peo­ple who aren’t play­ing it safe and con­tin­ue to push them­selves, like:

• A friend who went back to Uni­ver­si­ty to study biol­o­gy because he was curi­ous about the brain
• An entre­pre­neur I work with who, in his 70s, still skis 40 to 50 days a year, and is one of the keen­est learn­ers in our Lead­er­ship Edu­ca­tion sessions
• A col­league who stud­ied fine art, in her late 50s.

Every­one is dif­fer­ent, and there’s no right or wrong — unless your brain and body are stag­nat­ing, and you’re not tak­ing steps to get what you real­ly want.

I’ve found that the more I face the dis­com­fort of push­ing myself to learn some­thing new, the more con­fi­dence I gain. Try it! You’ll see its con­ta­gion spread to every area of your life.

The Chal­lenge

• Where are you to tak­ing steps to expand your horizons?
• Where are you hold­ing back and why?
• What’s one step can you take today to move for­ward and stretch yourself?

If you want some inspi­ra­tion, read Chap­ter 16 of Your Oxy­gen Mask First or check out this video: Keep Going for It.