Hell Yeah! Life®: When Scared Real Danger Seems Safe

Recently Coach Greg and I talked about the “bridges of incidents” that we face periodically through life on our podcast, Healing Community. Healing Business.” That episode really stood out to me, and I wanted to dive into here on this episode of Work Your Biz Like A Boss.

Bridges of Incidents

What exactly is a bridge of incidents. Coach Greg (who is super smart and has all the letters after his name) said that the bridge of incidents is when you are faced with the choice to cross over to “the other side” and live your dreams (or what I call the Hell Yeah! Life) or to turn back to what you know and what feels safe. What makes this a bridge is that you’re faced with decisions that are challenging and involve risk similar to those who are scared of heights crossing a bridge.

Let me give you a couple of examples from my own life. The first one involved preparing to launch my business, Genius Communication. Some of you have already heard the story but let me briefly repeat it. I was in my prayer time one day facing tons of debt, uncertainty, and a lot of stress. As I was praying, this idea dropped into my head to create an online course that teaches people how to persuade using personality styles, body language, charisma techniques, and emotional intelligence. I initially named it, Genius Communication, but changed it to Persuade Like A Boss this year.

I spent five months developing the material, crafting my brand (as well as I could since I had no idea what I was doing), taking courses on Facebook ads and building an email list, and reading books to help me out in this new venture. And then I came to the bridge of incidents at what seemed an innocent lunch date with a good friend.

He asked me what I’d been up to. I began to excitedly share with him all that I’d been doing. He invited me to speak about it for 10 minutes at a local Chamber event. Here it was—the bridge. I could either cross it or go back to what was less risky (although the reality is that facing the debt we were facing was riskier but when you’re scared real danger appears safer). I decided to cross it and have never looked back. I realized later that all those months of staying focused and wondering if all of it would be a waste of time had actually prepared me to stop onto the bridge of incidents

The first major fail

Not long after that I decided to launch my first Facebook ad. I had done all of the due diligence—learned how, figured out who I wanted to target first, created my content. I was expecting huge results! I knew (and still know) that I have a product that is absolutely phenomenal and that helps others tremendously. I still remember to this day the excitement and fear I felt. Excitement that I had done it! Fear that it might not work. My greatest fear came true. All I got was crickets.

For fives months after, I camped out at the bridge staring at it paralyzed. I didn’t know what had me paralyzed but I literally could do nothing until I was in my prayer time again. I was asking God what on earth was wrong with me and why I couldn’t seem to get past the infamous Facebook ad. Suddenly, a whisper on the inside alerted me to the fact that I thought I should have mastered Facebook ads right from the start. Part of the reason was how good I was in school. I was a straight A student without much effort at all. That level of success deceived me into thinking I’d experience it here. I was in my ego and needed to get over it, give grace to myself, and do another ad. I did and I’ve not looked back.

What the bridge really is

I don’t know if you see it by name, but the bridge of incidents is made up of the internal intangibles—fear, pride, anger, complacency, etc. You might think some external situation is the bridge but it’s really how are you going to respond to the external.

To bring it home, let’s look at taking care of your body by feeding it fuel and exercising it. This is the most common dilemma we face. We start off with good intentions and stick with it for a few hours, days, weeks, or even years and then suddenly we look around (or at ourselves in the mirror) and realize we’ve gained weight, we are old, and we are tired.

The reality is that there isn’t some external force that did those things against your will. You faced the bridge of incidents—past habits, mindsets, apathy, and complacency—and went back to what you know and what you really want. Let’s be honest. You always get what you really want. The fact that you’ve not reached your health goals should tell you that you really wanted to eat what you want and didn’t really want to train.

Or maybe it’s a relationship. You’re facing a bridge of incidents that will either challenge you to walk away or challenge you to stay. I faced one of those three years into my marriage and decided it was worth it. I’m so glad I did. We’ll celebrate 30 years in March. I’ve helped others who were facing the challenge to walk away because that was the only solution. Some did and some didn’t.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW

The bridge of incidents truly reveals your core values and personality constraints. Core values can be good but when triggered bad. Take, for instance, my Facebook ad experience. My core value of competency almost sunk me when I didn’t feel I was competent. And I wasn’t. But that was expected with something so new.

A personality constraint might be impatience or a resistance to change. A constraint can also be a strength overextended like being so over accommodating that your spouse walks all over you. Like someone once said, “Know thyself.”

I always take an inventory to see if my personality is actually causing me problems. I look for core values that might be sabotaging me.

just be honest

Whether you cross the bridge of incidents really comes down to one question—how bad do you really want it? If you don’t want to eat healthy and exercise, be honest. Don’t blame time, kids, or work. If you really don't want to learn how to be single again, then be honest and reconcile with the fact that you’ll stay with that person. Blaming anything else and others for your refusal to cross the bridge just isn’t anchored in reality. There are too many people who have gone through things the same or worse than you that cross the bridges as they come across them.

You have the power. Take it.