How can you be braver?

We all have idols, people we look up to.  Whether those people are our teachers, our instructors, our industry experts, or leaders in the community, we all have at least one person who inspires greatness in our hearts.  I have a few, and I met most of them this week.  The entire reason I bought tickets to the Movement Summit was that two leaders who I look up to were on the list of speakers; Cris Rodriguez and Melody Johnson.  They did not disappoint.  One of the greatest letdowns in life is realizing that your idols are not as great as you thought they were, or they don’t truly live and breathe the values that they preach.  

My anxiety constantly gets the best of me when it comes to speaking with people who I look up to.  I’m afraid that they are going to look down on me for not being where they are, or that they are going to be indifferent towards me, or that they are just not going to understand what my goals are and why I look up to them so much.  So most of the time I just admire from a distance, and then kick myself later for not being more open and seizing the moment before it passes.  One of my personal goals for 2022 is to be braver.  We talk to our students about bravery all the time, and how being brave means doing things even though they make you nervous.  Every time I say it to a student who is scared to go onto the workout floor for the first time, I realize how hypocritical that is of me because I don’t always do the things that make me nervous.  2022 is going to change that.  I went out of that comfort zone this week, and went up to and talked to two of the people who inspire me.  And I was not disappointed.  My admiration of these two powerful women in my industry was reinforced by how authentic they really were.  Their kindness and openness made it easy.  I started this week strong, but I ended it even stronger.