Sometimes in life we are presented with opportunities that you just have to say yes to and then figure out the details later. The Oxford Talk was one of those opportunities for me.
Have you ever felt that calling that you just can’t ignore? For the last few years, that calling for me has been towards speaking and teaching… only I had no idea who I was meant to speak to and what I was meant to speak about.
I believe that we don’t always have to have a perfect vision of where we are going but we can do the work to get better at it while we wait for the clarity and the right opportunities. Sure, most of the business world will tell you to take that insight and go, go, go. Get into massive action (cue the Tony Robin’s voice), fail 1,000 times until you get it right and find the success that you didn’t even know you were looking for. While there is nothing wrong with this approach, it just doesn’t feel right for me.
I’m much more drawn to the feminine aspect of life, to allowing things to unfold in my life on their own terms instead of forcing them to happen. The acorn can’t force it’s way into becoming an oak tree and neither can we. It can only surrender, trust the process and allow its unfolding to happen in divine timing. That’s the way I want to live my life. I’m still learning, but let me tell you, this way opens your life to so much magic and opportunities.
A few months ago, I was presented with an opportunity to apply to a new “Oxford talk” that would be coming to Washington DC. I quickly clicked the link to apply. My heart skipped a beat. I’m learning to say yes first when I feel that call in my heart and figure the rest out later.
I applied, had my interview and was accepted that day… only he invited me to speak at Oxford University because they still had space and it was months before the event in DC. At that moment, my heart felt like it was going to burst… “you want me to come to Oxford!?” I said.
In the background, my mind was telling a different story. Who am I to speak at Oxford? Nobody even knows who you are Jenn. Plus, you are already committed to going to an event in Tallinn, Estonia 5 weeks before this talk… you can’t go to Europe twice in 5 weeks? How can you invest in something else? How can you go to Europe by yourself not just once but twice? And how could you possibly prepare a 10 minute talk in 5 weeks? Fear speaks oh so loud…
But your calling, your calling silently pulls you, patiently waiting for the day that you wake up and realize that your dreams need to be bigger than your fears.
Luckily for me, I’ve spent years navigating through my fears and how to manage them. I’m not sure if they will ever go away but I do know now to put them in their rightful place and that’s NOT the driver seat of my life. While my fears were screaming, my heart felt like it could burst out of my chest. I knew I had to find a way to push through and say yes.
One of my favorite techniques to overcome fears and make decisions is to fast forward to the future (even as far out as your deathbed) and ask yourself, when I look back on this moment, how do I want to remember it? Do I want to remember that I took a risk and went for it anyway? Or do I want to remember that I took the safe route and potentially regretted it for some or all of my life? I’ll choose fear over regret any day of the week.
The other fear that I really had to work through was the one screaming “who are you to give a talk at Oxford?” People like the Dalai Lama and Albert Einstein have spoken there. You aren’t even close to their league? For me, it was a simple as kindly reminding myself that I was in fact invited to speak there and therefore, in some way I do belong there. So the question then becomes, who are you to turn down a speaking opportunity at Oxford? This could be a once in a lifetime opportunity and I didn’t want to waste it.
I said yes and the rest is history. I wish I could tell you that I completely talked myself out of all the fears, but the truth is I didn’t. They still yelled in the background but I’ve learned to shift my attention onto the thoughts that truly serve who I am and who I want to become.
I want to look back on my life and see that I made it rich with opportunities, that I took risks and listened within.
My talk went live a few days ago and I sat back and watched it feeling so full. I created something… and that for me, is reason enough to have said yes.
You can watch my Oxford Talk below:
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