The audience erupts with applause. As you clap, you’re smiling nervously as you contemplate your immediate task. You crave the charisma and charm, the ability to approach the person you admire with ease. Then, you stall. Chat with your friends, look around the room and strategize the perfect moment to reach out. Breathing becomes difficult. Your friend pushes you to the front of the room and gives you a short and sweet script, but you’re not listening.
“Hi! How are you?” she asked.
Word vomit. You try to remember everything you planned to say in your head but it’s coming out so quickly you can barely catch yourself. Breathe. Why are your arms moving so weirdly? It’s just a conversation with someone who’s had the exact career trajectory you hope to have, no big deal.
As I near the end of my college career, ambition has become so much more than being successful or reaching for the top. I associate ambition with the same anxiety and excitement that I feel when I put myself out there, like when trying to network.
I don’t know who said it – apparently there’s been some debate – but some dead poet said, “Do the thing you fear the most and the death of fear is certain.” This idea sums up my definition of ambition perfectly. When I am at my most ambitious, I am also the most afraid.
I can be nervous speaking to anyone for the first time, let alone approaching my idols. I simply forget that they, too, are human and we may even share similar experiences. Networking is probably one of the most essential skills for any adult, especially one fresh out of college – it’s not what you know, but who.
While rehearsing perfect pitches or questions beforehand is helpful, these conversations never happen in a bubble. You might have to wait in line or run after her, she might be in a rush or exhausted, she may be uninterested in what you have to say. A friend of mine recalled asking one of her idols for her email address and she replied that she would be too busy to ever reply.
Live and learn, right? I often have to just push myself to talk to someone regardless of the hundreds of possible bad scenarios. One good introduction could outweigh five bad ones. The anxiety rests in my throat and chest while I prepare myself. While speaking, I can feel my cheeks reddening and I must go a mile a minute.
Yet, the fear and adrenaline can be more helpful than hurtful in my experience. It all depends on how you use it, how you harness that fear for a more productive outcome. In Audre Lorde’s essay, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action,” she argues that we all need to speak our truths despite our fear. She claims, “While it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me strength.”
Putting fear into perspective gave her strength. It is such a simple and beautiful statement that I was surprised by how much it made sense. We have to think of fear as yet another tool for success. In that way, the fear we might feel when trying to get a business card or during an interview could actually give us strength. I know now that the when I feel my heart beat faster and butterflies tickle my stomach, I’ll be on the right path, following my ambition.
