I used to think that being afraid of everything was a weakness. Then I learned how to use fear to my advantage. Here's how. This is an annotated version of a talk I gave at Hubspot's INBOUND event.

1. FOLLOW THE FEAR
Ann Handley
Author, Speaker, Chief Content
Officer
AnnHandley.com
@marketingprofs

2. #FollowTheFear
This is a talk I gave at Hubspot’s Inbound ‘13.
Instead of dumping the slides here and letting you
piece together what the heck I talked about, I
thought I’d ANN-otate it for you (get it?) in these
boxes.
Thank you Doug Kessler for the
inspiration for this ANN-otation.

3. NO.
#FollowTheFear
When Hubspot first asked me to give a talk on its Bold Talks
stage – a stage that was to represent an opportunity for
attendees to “discover bold and powerful talks from a diverse
group of exciting and influential people….”
This was my first impulse:
Actually, that’s not quite
true.
My first impulse was…

4. NO. NO. NO. NO.
NO. NO. NO. NO.
Just
Hell, NO.
#FollowTheFear

5. Hi.
Ann Handley
Author, Speaker, Chief Content Officer
AnnHandley.com
@marketingprofs
This is the story of why NO was my first reaction.
And how it came to be that I’m standing here now, giving
a bold talk.
Or how it came to be that you are reading
this as a slide show.
As with anything, the content matters more
than the medium. (Media? I always get that
confused.)

6. A lot of people say they were shy children. But I took shy to a new depths: I wasn’t
just shy. I was whatever is beyond shy.
When I was 8 years old I started a running list in my diary of everything I was afraid
of. Of things to avoid.

7. Things that scare me….
It started out with a handful of the pedestrian
fears…

8. Spiders.

9. The dark.

10. Being alone in the house.

11. Stairs that don’t have
a back riser.
…but then it veered into some pretty broad,
open territory.

12. The smell of the cellar.

13. Toddlers.

14. My brother’s teenage
friends.

15. Old people.

16. People in wheelchairs.

17. People with foreign
accents.

18. People.

19. I’d hear the sound of an unfamiliar car engine in the driveway and make
a beeline for my room.
I’d tuck myself into the small, dark space under my twin bed and stay
there, simply wait it out (sometimes for hours), until I heard my parents
calling goodbyes from the driveway, and the coast was clear for me to
emerge.
When my parents had guests over, I would
avoid the entire awkward scene.

20. #FollowTheFear
Fourth grade, in particular, terrified me.
I was 9. I had a loud, brash, outgoing
teacher who believed that children learned
best when they had plenty of room to
express themselves and engage with the
world around them.

21. #FollowTheFear
Our teacher dispatched with the typical
classroom seating arrangement – desks in
rows, children front-facing – and placed our
desks in a large circle, so we could all see
each other.
We could all see who was talking (and
someone always was), because she believed
that ideas were worth discussing in an open,
engaging forum.

22. She was a phenomenal teacher.

23. NO.
I hated her.

24. NO.
She messed with my strategy for school, which was to keep
my head down and do my worksheets. And during group
discussion or class participation, to align yourself perfectly
with the silhouette of the student directly in front of you, so
you effectively disappeared.
For a fear-filled, anxious child, her classroom was hell.

25. #FollowTheFear
So I decided to stop showing up. First, I had to
secure the help of an unwitting adult who had the
power to keep me out of school – in this case, my
mother. I got really great at faking sick so I could
stay home.
You might think this is no big deal – but
remember that I was doing this without
the benefit of Google. Which was
probably a good thing, considering what
disturbing “illness” Google might have
suggested for a 9-year-old.

26. 32 days.
#FollowTheFear
Over a few months, I missed a LOT of school.
My mother never thought too deeply about it. I was
doing this in an era before “parenting” was
invented.
“Self-esteem” hadn’t been
invented yet, either.

27. #FollowTheFear
One day that year, our teacher organized a surprise team-building exercise outside,
on the field-hockey field.
It was to go like this: Half of us got field hockey sticks. When she blew the whistle,
those on the field would give their sticks to those on the sidelines, and the sidelined
kids would take their positions.

28. #FollowTheFear
I’d like to tell you that I was as graceful as a
Princess on the field hockey field.

29. #FollowTheFear
NO.

30. #FollowTheFear
I was slow to claim a stick initially (no surprise there), so I was in the first sidelined
group.
Only when the whistle blew, instead of claiming my spot, I rushed at the jockiest,
most athletic girl in our class, and I told her she could have a double-turn on the
field.
I knew she’d be thrilled at the prospect – and she was! She enthusiastically trotted
back out to claim her (which should’ve been my) spot.

31. #FollowTheFear
I was counting on the teacher not noticing – in the chaos of the switch – that I was
the only 4th
grader to sit out the field hockey game.
It was a tragic miscalculation on my part. Actually, the teacher didn’t notice me. But
she noticed that the jock was back in the game, and she asked her why. The girl
ratted me out.
Next year’s Bold Talk at
Hubspot is going to be on my
historical distrust of female
athletes. (Ha. I’m kidding.)
Or am I…?

32. F.
My opt-out was a huge deal for
a teacher who was trying to
teach accountability, openness,
discourse. My parents were
hauled in. The principal was
involved. For someone
attempting to stay under the
radar, it was a fail on an epic
scale.
At my next report card carried
something I’d never seen before
attached to my name…

33. F.
It hit me hard. If there was
anything I valued more than
going unnoticed, it was my
grades.
My grades were how I defined
myself: I was someone who got
As.
If I got an F, who was I?

34. #FollowTheFear
I was 9 years old. It would be years before I
would read The Scarlett Letter.
But when I did read it I thought back to that F
and thought, “I know exactly how Hester
Prynne feels!”

35. What opting out means.
#FollowTheFear
In the weeks and months and year that followed… it slowly
dawned on me that opting out of things – whether it’s a field
hockey game or something more important than that – means
failure on a scale larger than an F on a report card.

36. If you stay under your bed… if you stay off the field… if you say no before you
consider a yes… you limit yourself. You pen yourself in.
Opting out because you are scared, or awkward, or insecure, or unsure of the
outcome earns you an F not just on a report card, but in life.

37. So what? Can’t we live a perfectly happy life unfilled? Under the radar? Isn’t that
spot under the bed quiet and cozy? Does it matter?

38. I think it does, because to be loved means to be seen for who you are. And to be
who you are means to explore the possibilities of what’s possible.
It means to think about what’s possible for you, right now, before you define what’s
impossible.
So what? Can’t we live a perfectly happy life unfilled, under the radar? Isn’t that
spot under the bed quiet and cozy? Does it matter?

39. “The computer will do anything within
its abilities.
“But it will do nothing, unless
commanded to do so.”
– John Madea
#FollowTheFear

40. “The computer will do anything within
its abilities.
“But it will do nothing, unless
commanded to do so.”
– John Madea
#FollowTheFear
The artist and essayist Debbie Millman says that people are the same. We like to
operate within our abilities. We like to stay in our comfort zones.
But whereas the computer has fixed capacity -- based on its operating system or
memory or programs or whatever – you and I don’t.
“Our abilities are limited only by our perceptions,” Millman says.

41. Years later after that day on the field hockey field, I
can now articulate it, thanks to a quote I read by Amy
Gahran:
“Your comfort zone is your dead zone.”
I limited my perception that day. I did for most of my
childhood. But I don’t anymore.

42. Except when I do. Because the truth is I still fight it. I
still want to give someone instead of me a double-
turn on the field hockey field. I still want to say NO. I
still want to opt out.
But instead of letting it derail me, I instead try to use
the resistance to fuel my momentum – much the way
that a sailboat uses the wind to power its effort
toward where it wants to go.

43. 1. Ask: So what?
#FollowTheFear
So here’s what helps.
There are three things:

44. 1. Ask: So what?
#FollowTheFear
What’s the worst that happen? I make a fool of myself on the field hockey field. So
what?
I embarrass myself here today, in front of all of you. So what?
You go back to your offices and talks about how weird Ann Handley was as a child.
So what?

45. 1. Ask: So what?
#FollowTheFear
What’s the real power of that? I’ll survive. I’ll be ok. I’ll still have friends, family,
people who love me.
I’ll suffer some slight embarrassment at the hands of some, maybe.
But at the same time, others will appreciate my message.

46. 2. Assume people love you.
If they don’t, assume they just don’t
know you well enough yet.
#FollowTheFear

47. #FollowTheFea
I learned this from my dog Simon, who
passed away recently. Simon was a
glorious optimist who greeted everyone
he met with an unembarrassed
enthusiasm.

48. #FollowTheFea
Simon assumed everyone loved him. And if you didn’t love him, he assumed you
just needed to invest a little more time getting to know him. Because in his mind,
he was worth knowing.
Putting yourself out there means being vulnerable. If you assume that people love
you and want you to succeed… well, that makes stepping out of your comfort
zone that much easier.
The room feels warmer
somehow.
You’ve got this.

49. 3. #FollowYourFear
And finally…
(And this is the biggest thing of all.)

50. Because very often when something
SCARES you, it’s the very thing
worth doing.

51. Thank you.
Ann Handley
Author, Speaker &
Chief Content Officer
AnnHandley.com
@marketingprofs