Safely Leaving the Comfort Zone
(This post is an excerpt from the forthcoming book Three New People: Make the Most of Your Daily Interactions and Stop Missing Amazing Opportunities)
Interestingly, and perhaps somewhat counterintuitively, we need to feel safe in order to be productive outside of our comfort zones.
Psychologists refer to this as “optimal anxiety,” which is a heightened but safe state of anxiety brought on by a new or challenging experience. Operating under optimal anxiety increases performance effectiveness and efficiency. In other words, stretching outside of your comfort zone is beneficial. Reach too far, however, and you might crumble under the stress. Too much anxiety can be debilitating.
The key to finding a balance is to approach new or uncertain situations under controlled conditions.
That’s why it’s easier to meet new people if you’re out with friends. You get to take a leap of faith by chatting up a stranger, but land safely with your friends if it doesn’t work out.
It’s for the same reason that I work very hard to treat audience volunteers in my magic shows with the utmost respect. It is not within anybody’s comfort zone to go on stage and help a magician during a magic show. They must feel completely alone. What’s going on in their mind? Let’s employ our perspective taking technique here.
In order to volunteer in a magic show, you have to believe that the magician is going to keep you safe. Take my show, in which I invited no less than five volunteers on stage over the course of 70 minutes. Being a comedy magician, and a particularly silly one, I have to imagine that my audiences trust I’m not going to put them in harm’s way. But they don’t know that for sure. Plenty of magicians have performed dangerous stunts. Heck, magicians have died on stage, and audience members have been hurt in the process.
So, they must first trust that I’m going to keep them safe from harm, physically. More importantly, however, they have to trust that I’m going to keep them safe emotionally.
At a public show, any potential volunteer is probably in attendance with friends, family, or a significant other. These are all people that they will continue to see on a regular basis, which means that anything we do on stage will have a lasting impact for them. As the entertainer I am unlikely to see anybody from the audience again. It’s wonderful when I do (shout out to my true fans), but rare. It’s easy to forget that if, off-the-cuff, I call somebody a silly name, their friends may continue calling them that name for years, as an inside joke. And it’s completely conceivable that, not wanting to seem like an uptight person, they play along with the joke even though they would prefer not to be called that name.
In other words, something that lasts seconds and means nothing to me could have long term repercussions for a volunteer.
Given that I mostly work for private events like company holiday parties and corporate banquets, there is a good chance that every single member of my audience will continue interacting with everyone else in the room in their daily work life.
If I poke fun at Betsy from accounting, she may have to endure similar taunts from everyone else in the office on a daily basis. That could be annoying for her at best and humiliating at worst.
If instead I take care of my volunteer, treat them with respect and dignity, and gently guide them one step at a time out of their comfort zone, then by the time they go back to their seats they will have had a completely new and unique experience that can be treasured for a lifetime. Furthermore, the (admittedly silly) experience of successfully helping a magician in front of an audience of strangers teaches you that you’re capable of something you might not have even imagined was possible.
That lesson is invaluable. And the more often we learn it, the stronger we become.
Seth Godin writes about the difference between a ‘comfort zone’ and a ‘safety zone.’ One place keeps you safe, while the other makes you feel comfortable; they are very different places. The goal is to align your comfort zone with the safety zone (Godin, 2012).
What happens when the safety zone moves, but we don’t realign our comfort zone with it?
Complacency.
The safest thing you can do, particularly in a world where success is increasingly built on connection, is to meet new people, gain new experiences, and develop resiliency. But what’s comfortable is to do none of those things.
We have an obligation to ourselves to stretch, reach, and tip-toe outside of our comfort zones. More than that, I believe that we have a moral obligation to others to encourage others to step into a new safety zone with us, even if it’s uncomfortable at first.
When I strike up a conversation with a stranger in a way that makes them feel safe to converse with me, I move outside of my comfort zone and they respond in kind.
Suddenly, our comfort zones both shift. We are now each a little bit more comfortable meeting new people.
The zones realign, and we both win.
