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    What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?: Living Your Dreams While Quakin' in Your Boots
    What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?: Living Your Dreams While Quakin' in Your Boots
    What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?: Living Your Dreams While Quakin' in Your Boots
    Ebook174 pages2 hours

    What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?: Living Your Dreams While Quakin' in Your Boots

    By Diane Conway

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    About this ebook

    For this book, author Diane Conway approached a police officer, a waitress, a politician, a lawyer, a cab driver, and many others, and asked them each the same question: "What would you do if you had no fear?" The results, chronicled in this book, were both surprising and enlightening. Her respondents told her their secrets, their long-hidden dreams, and their fears. Their dreams included quitting mind-numbing jobs, applying to medical school, buying tickets to South America, finding true love, quitting drinking, or having an affair. The distance between dreaming and doing, according to Conway, is surprisingly short. In What Would You Do If You Had No Fear? her fresh voice and "Studs Terkel in drag persona" challenge readers to stop, open their hearts, and truly live. Included are self-tests, quizzes, growth exercises, and inspiring quotes for realizing one's fear-free potential.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNew World Library
    Release dateOct 1, 2010
    ISBN9781577318187
    What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?: Living Your Dreams While Quakin' in Your Boots
    Author

    Diane Conway

    Diane Conway is a popular speaker, occasional comedian, self-proclaimed “do-over queen” and author of What Would You Do If You Had No Fear? and What Would You Do For Love If You Had No Fear? She has appeared on television and on stage, and has been leading workshops for twenty years, helping many to break through fears and go for their dreams. She lives on a houseboat in Sausalito, California with Brian, her husband of twenty-two years, and their Cavalier King Charges spaniels. To visit her website go to www.dianeconway.com.

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    • 3/5
      I have a large collection of what I call self help or motivational books of which this would be consider one. This is very easy read filled with inspirational stories. Sometimes they are over simplified and too short. The author interjects much of her own life experiences and personal success philosophies. Overall it's a good to add some encourageemnt and feel better about yourself.

    Book preview

    What Would You Do If You Had No Fear? - Diane Conway

    Lamott

    INTRODUCTION

    Take the Dare!

    "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

    To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits

    in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."

    HELEN KELLER

    In some mysterious and profound ways, asking and answering the question what would you do if you had no fear? produces a divine flash that sets in motion assistance from out of the blue.

    I first began asking this question to participants in my workshops and retreats. Many found themselves naming their dreams and desires for the first time—and the results stunned them. No sooner had they spoken their heart’s desire out loud than serendipitous meetings and incidents began to spring up in their life. Some people applied to medical school, others quit soul-numbing jobs, and still others took trips they’d dreamed of for years. A fireman called with the jubilant news that he was taking flying-trapeze lessons. An interior designer fulfilled her life long dream and moved to Rome.

    The feedback to this simple question stuns and surprises people. A circuit court judge, aboard a ferry on San Francisco Bay, began to laugh when he heard the question. After half an hour of trying to answer, he’d run the gamut from grim to joyful and decided: You know, I’d resign my appointment and explore a tribal justice system like the Maoris in New Zealand.

    Those who read and ponder this question seem to gain a temporary reprieve from the limits they ordinarily place on their lives. They begin to explore the life not lived and that alternative set of choices that linger in the recesses of the mind. Why do our desires and dreams linger? They beckon us, call our name, because they are waiting for us to inhabit the life we were meant to live. They are waiting for us to listen to our highest calling.

    The stories in this book relate that life-changing flash when you stop wishing, get off the sofa, take a shower, and mail the manuscript, or when you’re honest with a lover while crying and laughing with giddy abandon. As you read, you’ll learn more about the courage it takes to be human and fully alive. You’ll witness everyday miracles. And with any luck, you’ll make some of your own. Following the stories, you’ll find some suggestions called Life Challenges, ideas designed to engage your mind and move you toward greater fulfillment as you ask yourself, What would I do if I had no fear?

    I wrote this book and I grapple with this question because I have been crippled by fears and doubts all my life. It’s been said that we teach best what we need to learn. Interviewing people and hearing the stories of ordinary heroes have profoundly changed me—their experiences have spurred me on, even though there were many times when I would cry out in despair, thinking that I didn’t have what it takes to see my own dreams through.

    The miracle of this book is that it exists at all—after a number of rejections I’d abandoned the project to a bottom drawer. Still, I knew that it had merit and I’d send energy to it and pray about it. Then my friend Karen, the woman whom I do retreats with, asked if she could show it to a friend who worked for a publisher. I said, Yes, but don’t tell me what they say. I can’t stand another rejection. A week later I met with the publisher, and here it is.

    To have my dream manifest in such a magical way has been amazing. It is sweeter because it came about in a way I could never have predicted. The saying you can’t get there from here comes to mind. The message I wanted to convey to readers from the start was that when we have a dream it is a real, living thing with a life of its own. We don’t always have to be super achievers, or even know how it will come into being. I am a woman with lots of dreams but frequently shaky faith and truckloads of self-doubt, and my dream came true. If mine can, I know yours will also. Don’t quit before your miracle.

    Take this journey with me, your slightly neurotic guide. Let me believe for you as others have believed for me.

    PART 1

    What Would You Do?

    What would you do if you had no fear?

    I don’t think I’m creative, but I want to be. I’d take painting and writing classes, preferably in Tuscany. —WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT

    Buy a piece of land and build my own home.

    —THERAPIST

    Stop obsessing about what others think of me.

    —GRAPHIC DESIGNER

    Take my dog and go to the lake a friend told me about. —OVERWORKED COUNTER PERSON

    Act as if my life is going to work out. —CEO AT AIRPORT

    Start selling the jewelry I design.

    —EMPLOYEE AT A BEAD STORE

    Give a $100 bill to someone who has said or done something to inspire me, like the waitress who was kind when I needed it.

    —MEMBER OF A SUPPORT GROUP

    ‘The need to find meaning in the universe is as real as the need for

    trust and for love, for relations with other human beings."

    MARGARET MEAD

    The hard questions in life send most of us to the freezer for Ben and Jerry’s. It takes courage to ask ourselves questions like: What should I do with the rest of my life? Am I making a contribution to my world? Am I following my heart or only my head? Am I on the right path?

    We get so caught up in the daily grind, the million and one things that are on our To Do lists, that we don’t stop to listen to the whisperings of our heart. Life gets away from us. Occasionally, we need to stop, ask, listen, and shake things up. Then we can move toward making our lives more livable, more joyful, and more real. The chapters that follow contain stories of people who have taken the time to ask the big questions. May they inspire you.

    But first, go get your Chunky Monkey ice cream.

    CHAPTER 1

    Who Would You Be?

    "All my life I’ve always wanted to be somebody.

    But I see now I should have been more specific."

    JANE WAGNER, THE SEARCH FOR INTELLIGENT

    LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE

    Freedom to Choose

    To choose is also to begin.

    STARHAWK

    We think of our lives as being determined by the grand choices we make, the earth-shaking decisions such as: who should I marry, what house should I buy, what the devil am I gonna have for dinner? But a lot of life is in the details, the small moment-to-moment decisions and choices we come to all the time.

    I’ve always had a hard time making up my mind. It actually seems as if there are several minds in my head and none of them can agree. There’s infighting, relentless lobbying, and squabbling galore. Some people call this state of mind the committee.

    When we want to make a big life change, the fear of the unknown often lurks around the corner. The task seems daunting, and at moments like that, I like to think of the construction of the Pyramids; even such magnificent structures could only go up one brick at a time. You don’t have to carry the entire pile of bricks at once—when choosing to do things differently, you only have to make one choice at a time, and one choice is frequently magic. We decide to take a different route to work. We choose to say no to an activity or commitment that brings no joy. We pick out a fabulous pink top. We take a day trip somewhere new. The freedom from fear happens one action, one thought, one choice at a time.

    Ever try on a sexy pair of shoes and just know you’ll walk away a different woman, more confident, full of Yeah, Baby, I’m cute sass? I’ve seen a man put on a sharp suit that totally changes his demeanor. When we make a decision, it’s good to grab an object that will symbolize the choice and anchor it. You could carry a little metal angel in your pocket, wear khaki shorts that scream Safari!, or sport a fabulous new haircut. Symbols, lucky charms, and talismans are a great way to remind us how far we’ve come and where we wish to go.

    I got my ears pierced and drank a Fuzzy Navel, says Deanna of her declaration of independence at age twenty-six. These served as her lucky charms.

    Deanna’s face looks like the very illustration of a luscious, wild woman: her mop of go-to-hell red hair and green eyes make you wonder why God created any other color combinations for humans; her green rhinestone sunglasses match her eyes; her vitality and love of life hit you like a bright, fluffy pillow.

    Hard to imagine this vibrant woman was ever anything but independent, but Deanna was not always this way. For nearly half of her forty-two years, she felt paralyzed. The fear of making mistakes was what kept her locked in a life she hated. She was terrified of even the smallest choices. I would get a panic attack anytime I had to choose, even off a menu. I would just close my eyes and point like a child.

    Her parents belonged to a fundamentalist sect that did not allow much of anything, and certainly not freedom of choice.

    She says that for years she did not even know what kind of clothes she liked. She and her sisters wore whatever her mother brought home from the Goodwill that fit. It cracks her up that the people she knows now always say, What a great sense of style you have. And Oh, that is so Deanna! Just as Gertrude Stein once infamously quipped, There is no there, Deanna says that for years of her life there was no her there.

    When she left her first marriage at age twenty-six, it was the first time she’d ever been on her own. Her parents and then her husband had controlled every single aspect of her life. Until then, like a fish in a fishbowl, she didn’t realize how small her life was. Her husband made all the decisions just as her parents had, and there was no room for dissent.

    When she told her mother about the abuse in her marriage, her mother said, Oh, Deanna, what is forty years of misery for all eternity? Her mother’s meaning was clear: Deanna should stay in that marriage forever, no matter what. That comment finally pushed her over the edge and out of the marriage. Her first act of independence was getting her ears pierced; when lightning didn’t strike, she was amazed. Next, she drank a Fuzzy Navel, flavored with Peach schnapps, and again she wasn’t struck down. Her

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