Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 82 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom.

Where the Magic Happens

Thank you for joining us for our 7 day a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 82 of our Trek, and now that we know and understand that we need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable, we will expand this concept so that our legacy building will be strengthened and enhanced.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and today finds us making some preparations and finishing up details here as we will be heading back to Marietta and The Big House on Saturday for another three week stay.  In addition to more renovating work that I hope to complete while we are there, we have several other activities planned.

We have a nephew that is getting ordained on Sunday in Lancaster, Ohio, Tuesday is our 36th wedding anniversary for which we have several relaxing day trips planned, and Saturday will be my 59th birthday. Also, I will be speaking at the church we used to attend on September 6th and 13th, and the annual Sternwheel festival is held on the weekend of September 12th. The fireworks display they have at the festival every year is the best we have ever seen, and it draws a lot of people to our small town. It is quite magical.  It will be a busy but enjoyable three weeks, and we are looking forward to it.

As we begin our journey today, we want to continue on the same trail from yesterday but venture out of our comfort zone. When we leave our zone of comfort, although it may appear to be intimidating and less secure, most of the time it proves beneficial for us and our long term growth because outside of our comfort zone is where the magic happens. When we force ourselves outside this comfort zone it allows us to stretch and grow to become all that God has destined us to be.

There are actually three zones where you can live.  However, only one of these zones is optimal for your life in that it will have the most positive impact and allow you to grow and flourish.

Let’s explore these three zones of life in detail.

1. The Comfort Zone

Your comfort zone is a psychological place where you feel safe and in control. You experience low-anxiety, and you’re using a limited set of behaviors. This means you’re not growing or developing any new skills. Essentially you’re stuck on autopilot, and you’re just going through the motions. Clearly this is not the place that fosters growth. It’s in our comfort zone that we feel safe and secure. It’s the zone of routine and the place where we do those things we find safe, comfortable, easy and familiar.

The comfort zone is a place where nothing particularly challenging happens.

Growing up on an apple orchard, I can certainly relate to this quote from Will Rogers,

Scientists have researched the role anxiety plays in performance. They have found that too little anxiety results in poor performance while increasing anxiety increases performance. At the other extreme, too much anxiety reduces performance. The findings from this research show that if we want to maximize our performance, we need to be in a state of optimal anxiety.  Take a look at the visual bell curve example of this below.

The optimal level of anxiety then is found in the learning zone, just outside the comfort zone, but before heading into the danger zone.

Although it may not be very evident, there are significant dangers that lurk in the comfort zone.

Denis Waitley puts it this way, “Life is inherently risky. There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing."