A lot of things have been going right for me lately. After a span of time where it felt like hard work to make things happen.

You see, I’ve been wanting to collaborate and find a team of people I work well with for a while now, but I had no idea how to do that. I considered trying to build out a team by searching on Fiverr or other freelancing websites, but since I don’t yet have a steady income from Unbound Creation, I didn’t ultimately think this would be a viable option yet, especially since it’d be casting a wide net and hoping for the best. I also joined an online spiritual community and I thought maybe I’d be able to find collaborators through that, but, even though these are really fascinating people and I feel really connected to them on the spiritual side of things,  I didn’t find anyone that I resonated with on a creative level. I eventually even considered collaborating with friends, but I was hesitant of mixing friendship with business because of all the pitfalls that may entail.

Ultimately, I kind of gave up on the idea of finding a team of collaborators in the near future. 

But this is what I find so interesting.  Not too long ago, I let myself recognize my fears and lean more into Surrender and, almost the moment I did, people and opportunities started to crop up in my life. Really cool ones. 

Three weeks ago, around the time when I consciously decided to face my fears, I went to an open mic, as a spectator, just to get out and enjoy myself for the night. As soon as I walked in the door, I was asked “are you one of the performers?” I said I wasn’t, but was nevertheless given instructions as to how I should wait for my name to be called to go on stage. I ignored the instructions, took my seat and didn’t think anything of it.

As I’m sitting in the chair, waiting for the event to start, the host comes up to me, introduces herself and asks: “Are you one of the performers?” I again say no, and after some small talk she starts going around the room again.

Then a woman sits in the chair next to me and eventually strikes up a conversation with me. We’re getting along really well and eventually she asks, “So, are you one of the performers?” Again, I say “no,” saying I didn’t have any material prepared. But unlike the other two women, she didn’t think that was a good enough answer. “You don’t have to have anything prepared. You could just go up there and say something. You never know, you could change someone’s life. You know, spontaneity.” To that I responded jokingly, “Yeah, you could be that person.” But she wouldn’t let up. Eventually, as we’re talking, she asks the host to come over and tells her that next open mic, I would be performing, which was a complete surprise to me. And you know what the host answered? She said, “See, I knew you guys sat next to each other for a reason.”

So did I perform that night? No. But after about the fourth time I was asked if I was performing, I started to think something strange was happening. It started to feel almost surreal, like I was being given a message. And ever since that event, things started changing for me.

At some point during my conversation with the woman seated next to me, I gave her my business card thinking nothing of it. She then told me that her husband, who was busy taking photographs of the space, was a photojournalist who wrote for the local newspaper and worked closely with the people running the venue. After some time, he came and sat at the table with her and she handed him my business card. It doesn’t have my name or number on it and he didn’t seem impressed. 

The weekend passed and on Monday, I checked my business email: 5 unread emails. Who were they from? The photojournalist and he’s inviting me to use the venue where we met to launch UC as a production company and to join a group of two other people who would help me do just that.

This opportunity – which is pretty much perfectly in line with my vision of eventually running a multimedia production studio that celebrates people, life and spirituality, but on a more local scale – is the opportunity I was referring to in my video two weeks ago. 

So without even trying and without even meaning to, I finally found people with whom I can collaborate on a shared vision – people I can identify with on a lot  of different levels and people who are willing to meet me where I’m at. 

You see, these people are professionals. They’ve been doing their thing and their craft for a long time, and they have the knowledge and experience to show for it. I, on the other hand, have only really been doing this for about 2-3 years. I still have a lot to learn, but the super cool thing is that these people are literally experts in the exact fields I want to develop: photography and filmography, podcasting, public speaking, marketing, creating hype around yourself as an entrepreneur, and doing it all authentically – They’re all about authenticity and our interconnectedness as people is at the core of everything they do and teach. 

In fact, the first time I met one of them, we literally sat down for probably close to an hour and just talked. It didn’t feel forced and, even though this person is a lot more established than me, I didn’t once feel nervous or the need to put on airs. It felt like I was talking to a friend, even though she was literally dropping bombs every other sentence.

And what did we talk about? Fear.

It’s funny, because it felt almost like a guided self-inquiry. And no, I wasn’t the one to bring fear up. She was the one who directed the conversation towards that topic. 

The first thing she asked me was, “What are you afraid of?”

And to my surprise, I had trouble coming up with an answer, which I later realized, as I explained in my video last week about Surrender, was because I really don’t have anything to be afraid of. It was all in my head.

But after some time, I came up with an answer, anyway: “of failure.”

And so she asked me: “What is failure?”

And, again, I had trouble coming up with an answer, but eventually I said: “Not getting to where I want to be.”

And so, she asked “and where is it that you want to be?”

And at that point, I was beginning to catch on, so I answered, and genuinely meant it: “I guess there is no destination. As soon as I reach my goal, I find another.”

And to that, she answered: “Exactly. There is no destination, so you can’t fail as long as you try. The only time you fail is when you stop trying. “Mistakes” are just lessons. Every time you try, you either get what you were hoping for or you learn something. But if you stop trying, you don’t get either. You box yourself in.” Then she waited, allowing me time to let that sink in.

It was also during this conversation – as she explained to me that the purpose driving any artist has to be to be of service to those around them – that I began to realize how selfish I had become in my pursuits. She explained that allowing fear to cut your dreams short not only robs you of your future, but also robs other people of their future. Because every action has a ripple effect, but so does every inaction.

Let me give you a break-down of what she said: If you allow fear to make you play small, you won’t take the steps to develop your craft and materialize the seed that was planted within you since birth and because you didn’t take those steps, you won’t be where you need to be when the time comes for you to pass your knowledge, experience, influence, and so on onto someone else. And that is why you deciding to give up on yourself is not only a disservice to yourself, but to others as well.

When she saw my phone on the table, she explained it to me another way. She asked me: do you know how many people’s work, talent and knowledge went into the making of your phone.

Me: A lot.

What if even one of those people decided not to show up and do the work?

Just think about that for a second. Of course, some of you might say that another person would’ve just done the job, but that’s missing the point. What she was really asking was, what happens when we don’t all do our part, whatever the scenario?

I’ll tell you what happens. We break down. Society breaks down. We stop progressing as individuals and as a people. It may not be noticeable at first, but every little thing adds up to something bigger, until you’re past the tipping point.

So, sure. You could decide not to get up and start writing that book you’ve always dreamt of writing or let fear convince you that you won’t ever be an actor on the silver screen. Or let the voices of other people fill your head and lead you down the well-trodden path. And you won’t really notice the impact of those inactions at first. But after a month? A year? 10 years? Don’t let yourself slip so far that you find out what that will look and feel like.

It’s okay to be afraid. It means you’re human. It means you care. But fear isn’t useful when you steep in it. Fear is meant to be transitory, not permanent. It’s a guidepost, but it isn’t the path. Joy is the path.