Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics used by the world's most successful people to get so much out of their day. I'm your host, Doctor Amantha Imba. I'm an organizational psychologist, the founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and I'm obsessed with finding ways to optimize my workday. This episode is another my favorite tip episode. The title's probably pretty self explanatory. It's about my favorite tip from each of the interviews I conduct so on today's show,
my guest is Michelle Poehler. While doing her Masters in branding Back in twenty fifteen, Michelle started a project where she would conquer one hundred fears in one hundred days.
This master's project turned into a global movement that has impacted millions of people and receive coverage on the NBC Today Show, Fox News, cbscnn's name a few Since that project, Michelle now travels the world speaking to people at companies such as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Netflix, Microsoft, Coca Cola, and many many more about getting out of their comfort zone. And Michelle's just released her first book, Hello Fears, which teaches readers about how to create their own one hundred
days of fear project. So when I spoke to Michelle, my very favorite tip that she had was the key question she asks herself that helps her overcome her fears. So on that note, let's head to Michelle, how did you prepare for those fears? Like, did you have any kind of a you know, pre fear ritual that you do or was it just like, you know, just jumping in and going for it.
Well, so now I think I have a better system, now that I understand a little bit better.
Would it means to face a fear? Back then?
It was just shock therapy because I didn't have much time to think about it. It was every single day fitting a different I couldn't say no because I was already committed in this project and I had the help of my husband, so he would tell me what fears I was facing next according to my list. But he was taking care of the planning. So he was like, Michelle, I already talked with this place. You're going to learn how to fly a plane tomorrow. Okay, so you have to grab a train.
Go two hours away from New York to this place. A man will pick you up. He will teach you how to fly a plane and then you'll fly a plane. Okay, I'm like, what I'm doing?
Well, So I had no time to think about It was just every day I would wake up and say, oh my god, I'm still in this project.
What am I doing today? So it was very very scary time.
But now I have one tool that really helps me before I'm about to face a fear, and it's a question that I asked myself. So you know the typical question that people ask you when you're about to face a fear, which is what's the worst that can happen?
Right?
Yeah, So I got that question a lot because I was facing my fears a lot, like every single day, and so people will tell me that, And every time they would tell me that question, I was like, for some reason, that.
Doesn't help me.
Like kids, you're asking me what's the worst that could happen? So I think, oh, right, I'm not going to die. Okay, maybe I don't die, but I will embarrass myself. I might fail, I might get rejected, I might hurt my ego and my self esteem.
So there are many things.
That can go wrong whenever we take a risk, and that question only brings up the worst gaate scenarios.
So I realized that we have.
To change that question around, and if we actually want to face a fear and do it with the best attitude, we have to ask ourselves what's the best that can happen instead of what's the worst. When you think about the best that could happen, only the best gay scenarios will come to your mind and will remind you the real reason why you in the first place thought that
this was a good idea. And it also will give you the certainty no maybe certainty because you don't know the future, but it will give you the idea at least or the vision that good things may come out of this. Because whenever we're about to take a risk, all of these negative thoughts start to pop into our head and we tell ourselves things like you're not good enough, don't even try it, you will regret it. Who do you think you are? Right?
Those are typical thoughts that like I don't know, pop into our heads. But when we.
Ask ourselves what's the best that can happen, we start to see the other side of the coin, and we're like, what if I do a good job, What if this actually resonates with people?
What if I make money out of this What if actually I don't you know, I don't know. I get a yes from the person I want to ask this question.
So our best life is They say that that it's in the other side of fear, right, But we need to do it in a way that we feel confident and that we can see the best that can happen out of the situation.
That is it for today's show. If you found this episode useful, why not share it with someone else that you think could benefit. And thank you if you have been spreading the news about how I work. It is greatly appreciated and helps the show grow. So that's awesome. Still, look, that is it for today and I will see you next time.