WHY vs FEAR: What Truly Matters? | Dr. Muhammad Ehsan Khan | TEDxAs Sulimaniyah
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XaFMaoE1B8 Video ID: 0XaFMaoE1B8 ============================================================ [Music] 25th January 2013 a transforming day in my life I and two of my friends decided that we're going to track Adam speak in Sri Lanka we were sitting there decided deciding okay let's go tomorrow we took a flight landed in Sri Lanka it was around 2:00 in the morning when we had to start our journey and our vision was okay we're going to track it go up there and watch the sunrise it's almost a three and a half hour tracking so we packed our bags put our tracking shoes on and start the journey Almost one and a half hours in the journey. We sat down, had a nice cup of coffee which we had packed us with us, found some other people who were tracking with us, had a good conversation and continued our journey. It was a little chilly. So we were wearing light jackets on top of us. Approximately 30 minutes post that tea break, I started feeling warm, very warm. said, "Okay, let's remove the jacket." I removed the jacket and I tied it across my waist and at that very moment a chilly wind hit me and somehow it started a spark inside me, a very cold spark and I started feeling very chilly. Normally I would have just put my jacket on and continued my journey. But at that time it triggered an internal emotion inside me. My heart started beating very my breath started becoming shallow. Said what's going on with me. I sat down and I looked at my friend said something is happening to me. I don't know what. Said no it's okay. Drink water. You can continue. No, no, I can't. I I I can't do it. I picked up my phone, started calling my father, uncle, doctors, everybody right in the middle of the peak and it did not stop. Finally, I relaxed. I said, "Let's go back." And then I turned back. I was extremely disappointed internally for myself and for my friends. But I was worried what happened? What what what what what was going on with me at that time. So we went back to our hotel, checked in. The the doctors were almost like 2 hours away. So we said, "Okay, let's relax in." And I watched the sunrise from my balcony right in front of me and the Adam peaks right in front of me as well. I went to the doctor. He said, "You had a panic attack. You you're perfectly fine." Okay. Okay. I came back and at that day 25th of January 2013 I decided this is never going to happen to me again. I need to understand what's going on with me and once I have understood I can do anything. Post 25th January 2013 I did seven tracks with with those same guys. I went to every week in terms of tracking. We had an adventurous time and I thought this whole thing is behind me now but it was not. Three months ago, very recently, in one of the largest tech events globally in Saudi, I was representing one of the largest teleos in Saudi and one of the largest tech companies. I was speaking about smart cities and AI, which is my domain of expertise. And right in the middle of the talk with 100 people sitting in front of me, I went back to my Adam speak moment and I was just shook there. I was frozen. I could not move. But then I thought, "No, this moment is bigger than any of my fears." So I took three steps. I picked up my bottle of water. I came back. I took one sip, calm myself down, went back and continued my speech. 10 minutes down the road, the speech was over. And alhamdulillah, it went very well. I went back to my house that night and I thought, "Oh, same two moments, different results. Why? What is the reason behind that?" And the thing that came to my mind was that at this time my why was greater than my fear. The reason why I had to be there was more important than anything that I could fear at that time. And this sort of it generated interest to figure out what's going on with people generally. And I conducted a survey with 170 people globally. And in that survey almost all of them said that they were not able to fulfill one of the largest biggest dream of their lives just because of fear. In addition to that they were not able to figure out what to do. However, I asked the same question to people who have accomplished something and they said my why was stronger than my fear every time and I knew what was I getting into. And through that I came up with a framework, a three-step framework, acknowledgement, information, decision, acknowledgement that the fear is there. Fear by the way is not a bad emotion. It has kept us alive for millions of years. We just need to understand why the fear is there. And at the same time, we need to acknowledge my why. Why am I doing it? So these two things have to be acknowledged then and there. Number two, information. I need to know why my fear is there. What's the reason? Is it rational or irrational? The second time, the difference between the first and the second time was I knew that this was a panic attack and I had to calm myself down. This was it. Along with that, my why was much stronger. Maybe I did not really want to go to Adam speak. It was not really my vision. We just wanted to go to have fun, but it was not really embedded inside me. But this time it was. With information, with all of this, I was able to take the right decision. Lastly, once you have done that, you take a decision. It can be you to move forward or no, but you decide at that point of time and then you will not have regrets because you did a good analysis before taking that decision. So, please make sure define your why, understand why you want to do it so that you don't have any other adequate moment in your life. Thank you.