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Transcriber: To Kiet Tuong B
Reviewer: Phan Thi Dan Nhi B
It's 1988. I'm working
as a senior account executive
in one of New York's top PR firms.
I'm sitting in my office
in Rockefeller Center wearing pearls
and sensible pumps. I have a small
window that overlooks midtown Manhattan.
Makes me feel kind of important.
And I'm on the phone
with the director of marketing for Z100,
the largest radio station
in New York at the time.
And I'm enthusiastically pitching
him a promotion for one of my clients.
And the director stops
me and he says, Tricia,
I am not remotely interested
in that promotion.
But you have an amazing voice for radio.
If you come down to the station,
will make you a demo reel for free.
You really ought to be on the radio.
Now, this man, I've never met
him before in my life.
He doesn't know
who I am or what I look like,
but he lives in the world of voices,
and he hears potential in mine.
And I say, no, thank you.
I say no thank you
to a powerful radio executive
who believed in my abilities enough
just by hearing my voice that he offers
to make me a demo reel for free.
And for the next 35 years,
I wonder what would have happened
if I had said yes to that offer.
Because the truth is, I wanted to say yes.
The idea of thousands, if not millions
of people hearing my voice thrilled me.
But I had been raised
to follow the well-worn path,
and radio was not on that path.
What was on that path were
careers that provided stability.
Business person, homemaker.
If you were really frisky, lawyer,
logic, practicality, and security were
the criteria that I was taught to use
when making decisions.
I wasn't surrounded by risk takers,
lovely people, not risk takers.
So when I was presented
with something new or unexpected,
I didn't have the imagination
or the courage
or the encouragement
to veer off the safe path
and to step into the unknown
for the next seven years,
I stay exactly where
I am in public relations,
billing my time in 15 minute increments,
working for clients like
retail banking, traffic reporting,
hazardous waste recycling,
being a voice for other people
instead of being a voice for myself.
And on the surface it looked great.
I was well paid. I was respected,
and I was miserable.
I can remember thinking,
if I do this work for much longer,
I'm going to die slowly,
but I'm going to die.
And around about that time,
I was talking with a priest at my church.
He could see that I was struggling
with where I was in my life
and was thinking about
going someplace different.
And he said, well, you know, Tricia,
everyone will tell you the cost of going.
No one will tell you the cost of staying.
And that sentence
cracked my world wide open,
because I realized how much
of my life had been shaped by
avoiding risk without ever calculating
what that avoidance was costing me.
Like the time in college
when I said no to learning how to edit
videotape even though I really wanted to
because I was afraid of making a mistake.
I mean, who knows,
I could be a filmmaker now
or the time I spent nearly a decade
unhappily married to the wrong man
because I was afraid of staying single
and waiting for the right
person to come along.
I had used logic and practicality
and some distorted view of security
as my only criteria for decision making,
and suddenly I could see the blind spots.
Those criteria were very good
at keeping me safe,
but they also fueled regret.
Maybe you've tried to keep yourself safe
and said no to decisions that would push
you out of your comfort zone.
And maybe you have some regrets, too.
I had done that over and over again,
and I didn't want to do it anymore.
So I adopted a new rule for myself.
The riskiest thing I
can do is play it safe.
And I went all in. And over the next
few decades, I tested that rule.
And small and big ways.
Small way. I dyed my hair
red bigger way in my 30s.
I quit my job, cashed
out my retirement savings,
and moved to Ireland to become an artist.
Now, I'm not suggesting everyone
take that kind of radical action.
Made sense for me at the time.
For you, moving out of your comfort
zone might mean picking up that guitar
after all these years,
or starting a side hustle,
or maybe running for the school board.
Not playing it safe looks
different for everybody.
Over time, I learned
to create instead of comply.
Putting my voice out there in ways
that scared me, but exhilarated me too.
In my 40s, I wrote and performed
a one woman show.
In my 50s, I appeared
on stage with The Moth,
the live storytelling organization,
and through it all,
one regret followed me.
That time in my 20s, when
somebody had heard something in my voice
and I was too timid to see where
it might take me a few years ago.
And at this point,
I'm in my 60s, the moth calls,
and they tell me they want to run
one of my stories on the radio.
I'm like the radio. I was thrilled,
and they said, you know how we run
a bio at the end of each story?
And I said, yeah. And they said,
what do you want us to say about you?
And suddenly, without thinking,
a sentence flew out of my mouth
that absolutely was not true yet.
Tricia Rose. Burt is the host
of a popular new podcast.
And I hung up the phone and I thought,
what have you done?
I didn't own a microphone.
I never taken a class.
I didn't have the first idea about how
to produce a podcast,
but I was not going to miss
the opportunity to redeem myself
for a decision I had made out of fear
and I had regretted for the past 35 years.
And I was going to miss the opportunity
for more than 2 million people
to hear about my podcast,
even if it didn't exist yet.
I had created an opportunity
for myself that I had to say yes to.
That bio was going on air in three
months time to make my own demo reel,
so I buy a microphone.
I take a class. I buy a book about how
to produce a podcast.
I try to get as smart as I can,
diving into a medium I know nothing about.
And every time I think,
what are you doing? This isn't logical.
This isn't practical.
There's no security guaranteed.
People are going to laugh at you, I think.
Do you want to regret saying no
for the next 35 years?
Or do you want to step
into the unknown and see what happens?
I'm happy to report that this year
I'm launching the fifth
season of my podcast.
And I even won an industry
award along the way.
But producing a podcast can be a grind.
It's exhausting. Sometimes it feels
like you're just putting stuff out
into the air Unless
you hear from a listener,
you don't know if you're making an impact.
And at the end of season four,
I said to my husband, it's too hard,
I'm too tired, and I'm not
sure it's worth all the effort.
And right after that conversation,
I checked my emails and I got
one from a listener and she wrote.
Thank you for the impact
that your podcast has had on me.
Each episode has given me some form
of creative input and encouragement.
I finally feel like I'm
wielding my talent and passion.
Thank you, Tricia, for having
the audacity to do this podcast.
Now, those were lovely words to hear,
but that listener also
taught me an important lesson.
When we stay in our comfort zones,
when we use logic and practicality
and security as our only criteria
for decision making.
We not only rob ourselves
the opportunity to grow
and have adventure more often
than not paying the price of regret.
We also rob ourselves of the opportunity
to be of service to other people,
to make a difference in this aching world,
even if it matters to just one person.
And for that reason alone,
the riskiest thing any of us
can do is play it safe. Thank you.
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