A few years ago I stood at the top of a waterfall in a wetsuit. The guide told me calmly the way down was to jump. Not climb, not abseil, jump. My brain gave me every reason this was a bad idea in about four seconds. I jumped anyway. It was fine. Ninety seconds later I did it again, because it turned out to be the best part of the day.

I've done a fair bit of this over the years:

• Parachute jumping
• Scuba diving
• Whitewater rafting
• Canyoning

I'm not naturally fearless. I do it because I've become fairly convinced that doing things that make you uncomfortable is one of the more reliable ways to learn something true about yourself.

Why this matters beyond a wetsuit

The discomfort right before you jump is almost never really about the water. It's about the moment just before, where your brain tries to talk you out of something your body can actually handle.

That gap, between "I can't do this" and "I just did that", is where the useful information lives.

The same gap shows up at work

Just with less water involved:

• The conversation you've avoided with a colleague, worried about getting it wrong
• The question you didn't ask, because you assumed everyone else knew the answer
• The moment you noticed someone wasn't themselves, and said nothing

None of these feel life threatening the way a waterfall does for four seconds. But they run on the same mechanism, a brain protecting you from a risk that's usually smaller than it feels.

What I try to bring into a course

Permission to sit in that uncomfortable gap rather than rush past it. Practising an awkward conversation out loud, in a room of people you don't know well, is its own small canyon jump. I've watched people do it and come out the other side looking genuinely surprised at themselves.



A personal note

My own kids get the same lecture fairly often, usually about something far less dramatic: trying a new food, going to a party where they don't know many people, putting their hand up in class. I'm not sure they always believe me when I say the fear is nearly always bigger than the thing itself. I'll keep saying it anyway, partly because I believe it, and partly because I need the reminder just as much as they do.