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Take Flight
Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, My favourite junk food is potato chips, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about leaving your perch.
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Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know that November 4th is National Candy Day? The word Candy originated in the late 13th century as a term for sweet treats that were normally reserved for the wealthy. It wasn’t until the 1830s when technological advances simplified candy production and penny candies became popular, especially amongst children. So go raid your kid’s Halloween stash in order to celebrate.
Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
Do you believe in fate? Or Karma? You know, when two completely unrelated events end up somehow relating to each other?
The funniest thing happened to me tonight.
Earlier this evening I was talking with my good friend Wayne Henderson. You may know Wayne from one of his many podcasts, a few of them which he co-hosts with Golden Spiral Media’s podcaster Troy Heinritz.
Well, Wayne and I are part of a mastermind group and after tonight’s meeting the two of us talked a bit on Skype about our podcasts, specifically his Voice Over Journey podcast and my Resourceful Designer podcast, which by the way, Wayne does the intro voice for.
As you know, I launched my podcast a few weeks ago. In fact, episode 9 comes out later today. Wayne recently relaunched Voice Over Journey a podcast he started several years ago but had let fade away.
The two of us were talking about the progress of our podcasts and the grand plans we have for them. Like special episodes we want to do and special guests we would like to interview. Then we talked about why we haven’t done those special episodes yet or why we haven’t reached out to those special guests yet.
That’s when the two of us realized we are suffering from a form of imposter syndrome. I wont go into details of imposter syndrome today, but If you want to know more listen to episode 327 of Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
Wayne and I realized that both of us have this ridiculous idea in our head that our podcasts haven’t reached that imaginary level yet where their good enough for us to interview these special guests. We keep finding excuses like we don’t have enough episodes out yet or we don’t have enough listeners yet, and keep putting off reaching out to the people we want to interview.
It was a revelation to both of us and we both agreed that we were being stupid and that we need to get off our butts and move forward.
When it was time to end our Skype call I mentioned to Wayne that I still didn’t have an idea for my SILY episode but I’m sure I’ll think of something. I wasn’t worried. There are often times when I don’t know what I’m going to say until I sit down to compose the episode. He wished me luck and we hung up.
I decided to go watch a bit of TV before coming back to the computer but first I would check Facebook. Well you know how that goes, what was suppose to be a quick glance turned into one click after the other taking me on wild a journey across the internet. Somewhere along the way I came across a page that had a short story on it and after reading the story I immediately thought of my conversation with Wayne and I knew what today’s episode would be about.
Here’s that story.
The Story of Two Falcons
Long ago, a king received two magnificent falcons as a gift. While one of the falcons would take flight and fly majestically over the palace, the other falcon had not moved from its branch since the day it arrived. The worried king hired men with varying skills from neighbouring lands to help the falcon, but nobody could make the bird fly.
The king called out to the people in his kingdom, asking if anyone else could help. The next morning, he was thrilled to see the falcon soaring above the palace gardens and asked who had helped with this miracle. As a farmer came to stand before the king, he asked, “How did you make this falcon take flight?” With his head bowed, the farmer replied, “It was very easy, your highness. I simply cut the branch where the bird was sitting.”
Here’s what I learned.
We are all destined to fly, but sometimes fear of the unknown and insecurities hold us back and we prefer to just sit on our branch and cling to the things that are familiar to us. The endless possibilities remain undiscovered until something either gives us courage, or forces us to leave our branch.
What’s holding you back? Is there anything in your life that you’re avoiding by telling yourself that the time or condition isn’t right? Or is there another reason for your lack of movement? Ask yourself, will the results be any better if you wait for some future time to do it? If you can’t, with certainty, answer yes to that question, then you need to stop making excuses and just do it. Find your courage, leap and fly.
Wayne and I figured out that there isn’t any benefit in waiting, and that’s why we’ve decided to get off our butts and move forward. We’ve found the courage to leave our branch and take flight
Because after all, in the end, We’ll only regret the chances we didn’t take.
I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.
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