What would you do if you knew you could not fail?

"...to grow up is to accept vulnerability.  To be alive is to be vulnerable."
-Madeleine L'Engle

What woukd you do if you knew you couldnt fail?

This was a question Eric posed to me back in the summer. It resurfaced again this week in Daring Greatly which I started reading per Emily's recommendation. I absolutely love this question. It really gets at our deepest desires and pushes us to be stronger, more daring, and do what we really want.

When Eric asked me this, one thought came to mind immediately. I would move back to Chicago so that I could coach NUT. I also thought on it for a day or so and had other ideas come to me. But this one, this immediate thought, really caught hold. I started putting in real effort to find a job in Chicago. I would get home from work and spend at least 2 hours a night applying to jobs, sending emails to companies asking if they had openings, researching companies that I would want to work for. A few months passed with this pattern and I had gotten a couple phone interviews, but nothing real had come up. I had some conversations with Eric about making intelligent decisions while still striving for what I wanted. He urged me not to leave my then current job before I had a new one. Eventually I got to the point where I couldn't wait anymore. It was going to happen! I was going to Dare Greatly though I hadn't picked up that book yet.

I put in my notice at Epic. I was going to move back to Chicago with no guarantee of a full-time job to pay bills. I had talked to my old boss from college about picking up hours if necessary and he said yes, but that was a weak backup plan at best. I had to go all in. I was going to make it happen! The week before I left for my trip to Peru, I earned 3 more phone interviews because of my renewed sense of purpose. At this point I needed to get a job; it was no longer a want. I didn't have the option of failure. I worked harder and longer to get these interviews. I prepared more fully for them, and i performed better in them. One of these interviews ended up turning into the job offer that I accepted and the job I am now doing. If it hadn't been for that question, I might still be in Madison - unhappy and unfulfilled. This is the first time in my life that I have actually believed the saying "You can do anything you set your mind to". And it's because I acted as though I couldn't fail. And I didn't!

What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?

ARC