Creating Passionate Users

Do something scary

Eleanor Roosevelt said "Do one thing every day that scares you."
I don't know about the every day thing, but taking risks takes practice, and if we keep doing the same things we already know, in the same way, our willingness to dare to be different atrophies. Each day, week, month, year that goes by without doing at least one thing we weren't sure we could do, we lose more of our ability to Just Try S***.

Most of us don't want to be labeled "risk averse". We don't want to take stupid risks, but we don't want to be all Who Moved My Blackberry either. So consider this my quarterly reminder (to myself, more than anyone else) to--as Eleanor Roosevelt also said:

You must do the things you think you cannot do.

Just for practice. Just for the confidence you get from knowing that you still can do something you weren't sure you could do. Think about it... think about a time when you did something that really scared you whether it was ski your first black diamond or your first solo flight or your first public speech or the first time you asked someone out on a date or the first time you...

Think about the first time you rode a bike (after the training wheels came off). Talk about a "high".... Unfortunately, this just gets harder every year. The more things we are good at, the fewer new things we feel compelled to try.

This picture is me, three four years ago, in the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Half Marathon. Because the picture is so small (that's the only one I found), you don't see the true look on my face. It is the dictionary definition of pure pain. Because until that run of 13.1 miles (19+ kilometers), my longest run had been HALF that distance. I did it for two reasons:

1) I felt that I needed to push myself into doing something much harder than I thought I could do, and knew it would give me a huge boost of confidence if I could do it.

2) You got a killer t-shirt at the finish.

OK, three reasons:
3) I'm an idiot.

I did manage to run the entire thing, and it did exactly what I hoped it would do--acted as a big metaphor--a motivation for doing other things I didn't think I could do. Like speaking in front of more than 10 people. Like buying and training a horse. Like believing in my book series that was being slammed without mercy (this morning, four of the top 20 tech books on Amazon are from that series-everybody-knew-would-fail).

I am not, by nature, a risk-taker. Even on the little things: I already love my favorite Indian restaurant (Tandoori Grill in Boulder. Yum), so why try another? But virtually everything that's been deeply meaningful to me--from having a child to leaving the security of a job to go it alone and do what I love--has come from doing something I didn't think I could do.

And this is not just a problem for us... we cannot have passionate users unless we can get our users to take risks. At the very least, we're hoping our users (or potential users) are willing to try something new and then--more importantly--to keep getting better at it! Remember, nobody is passionate about something they suck at. I doubt anyone is really passionate about something they're mediocre at, unless they have a motivation to get better. Part of what defines "passion" is the desire to keep learning, practicing, pushing, doing, growing around the object of our passion. It's only when our users are willing to take some risks--to try something they might suck at--that we have a chance of having passionate users.

So, how can we keep pushing ourselves to take risks--to do things we might fail or at least suck at (and be hopelessly embarrased by the attempt)? And how can we encourage our users to try something scary?