Evening. Cough, cough. I was prompted to do this post tonight, because… You know how you get Facebook memories? I got this Facebook memory, which is a gorgeous picture of my daughter Elodie, the first time I took her to the snow, 10 years ago. And I just remember this face and this excitement when she saw snow for the first time and laid down and did a snow angel, and all that stuff. And it made me remember the first time she jumped on a puddle, and the first time she saw rain, and so many different things.
It got me thinking, why is it as adults we tend to stop doing things for the first time? That’s pretty naff, right? So as I do, I had a bit of a Google, as you do with anything these days. And there’s a five steps to doing something for the first time. Think about what you want to do, research it, get the right equipment, do it. I think that’s too complicated. If you do something for the first time, just fricking do it. But I found this great page on Bored Panda, which is one of those virally picture pages, which has a whole host of, how many was it, let me Google it again quickly. It was 175 times people did things for the first time and had great reactions. There’s things in there like a blind person holding a cat, people hearing for the first time, people walking for the first time, snow, virtual reality stuff, so many, water, all sorts of different things.
And it just shouldn’t be that hard. Like we get stuck in these, I’m not going to say boring, because I don’t like the word boring, but we get stuck in the rhythm of our lives and I think that’s a shame. I think there’s just endless opportunities to try new things and do new things. Whether it’s a different kind of class, whether it’s a language, whether it’s… I’ve had, I think, three friends this year that have done stand-up comedy for the first time. How awesome is that? Pushing you outside your comfort zone is going to increase your confidence just tenfold, just by the act of actually doing it. As well as the excitement and the adrenaline lash and the endorphins and the dopamine and all that stuff, we’re actually doing something new.
The first time you try a new food, you might spend your life really scared, “Oh, no, I’m never going to try that, I really don’t want to eat that.” And it might just be because your parent didn’t like it. That’s a really lame ass reason to not actually try something to eat. And when the first time you actually try it, you’re like, “Oh wow.” Elodie for example, when she was little, wouldn’t eat mushrooms, I didn’t mushrooms, I don’t like mushrooms. And I said to her one day, “Why don’t you like mushrooms?” and she was like, “I don’t like mushrooms”. Then later she tried a mushroom and she was like, “What are these mushroom things, these are fantastic.” She’d just been saying she didn’t like mushrooms, because her older brother didn’t like mushrooms. So it was like [inaudible 00:03:19] and now she’s a vegetarian, eats mushrooms all the time.
So we limit ourselves if we don’t try new things. Kids aren’t afraid to jump on something. Kids aren’t afraid to try a new outfit. Kids aren’t afraid to experiment with life. Some of those experiments and some of the things kids tried for the first time, some of them don’t end up so well, I got to say, but they still trying. We get stuck in these patterns about life and safety zones and this is what I know and this is who I am and that’s all I can do. It’s not good enough people. We need to push the boundaries, we need to get out and we need to do something new. Something for the very, very, very, very, very first time.
Now I think I’ve talked about this a little bit before, so apologies if it’s a bit of a double up, but it really hit me today and it made me think, what am I going to do next for the first time? Doing this live thing was something new for the first time. I’m contemplating, I’m tossing up a few themes. Over the years I’ve done pole dancing. I’ve never done standup comedy. I don’t think I’m going to do that, though. But there’s heaps of things I wouldn’t mind trying.
So I’m going to have a bit of a think in the next 24 hours about something I want to try for the first time. Oh, that piece was [inaudible 00:04:48]. And I’m going to come up with something and I’m going to tell you what it is I’m going to do for the first time, because I’m excited about doing it.
Thanks, but messy. The higher the hair, the higher closer to something, I don’t know. So that’s your challenge. The next 24 hours, come up with something that you’re going to do for the very, very, very first time. Send me a message and let me know what it is and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do too, okay? Have a good night.