FEAR IS STUPID

In 2014 I was part of a band called Air Dubai.

We were pretty much on top of the world. Touring on Vans Warped Tour, Signed to a record label, Our music was being played on MTV and in Movies but suddenly - coming home from our Warped Tour experience, I decided to leave the band.

It wasn't a full departure, in fact - I didn't know it at the time but I would be back for a few shows with the band about a year or two later for a small run, and for the most part, the members of the band and I remain friends to this day.

However, that step to leave the band was, at least from what I remember throughout my life, my first major instance of saying FUCK YOU to Fear.

Leading up to my decision to leave the band I remember how deeply my heart would pound and how scary that idea was. What would my band say about me? What would other people think about me? What would our fans think?

Eventually, I came to the realization that none of that mattered. What truly mattered was what I thought, what I needed, and most importantly who I wanted to become.

When you're in a band with 5 other people - a lot of the work is easy to be passed off. I recall when I left the band, although we had all of these systems in place, we were collecting royalties, distributing our music, paying taxes for our band, etc. I didn't really know how to do any of it myself. In fact, my only administrative work within the band was social media. I was really good at that but unfortunately not great at any of the other elements.

In 2015 I decided I wanted to learn how to be on my own. The only way I was going to do that was to leave the band for good.

About a week before I left and became a solo artist I told myself my next chapter would be about overcoming fear. I didn't want to go into my future afraid, so...I did what was at that time, the scariest thing I could think of to kick myself into gear.

I rode the Tower Of Doom.

I think you can tell from that picture how freaking daunting that ride is. Elitch Garden's Tower Of Doom Rollercoaster is a 200-foot drop from the Amusement Park's tallest ride down to the ground below. All in all, I think the ride to the bottom takes like 3 seconds but I was TERRIFIED.

Prior to riding the ride, I told myself I would NEVER, NEVER ride the Tower of Doom. To kick off the next chapter of my life as someone who is unafraid however, that was the thing I had to do.

As we got to the bottom of the ride I remember having tears in my eyes, I was screaming, being a huge baby about it...but I had done it.

I had conquered my fear.

A week after, I told the band I was quitting, and the rest is history.

Fear, although an inevitable part of life is also something that I think as much as possible you should try and work through. Now, when I get that opportunity to be afraid, I think to myself "Is this fear because I'm afraid of what's going to happen next?" or "Is this fear because I need to be aware of oncoming danger" if it's the first choice - I jump at the opportunity to ride that situation's "tower of doom" again.

The second choice, fear for the sake of warning you of oncoming danger however, is something not to be ignored.

I've had various instances where instead of listening to my intuition and following my gut I decided to go along with what I felt wasn't right, 100/100 times that decision came back to bite me in the butt.

All in all, as an artist and as a human you have to learn how to differentiate those lessons of fear for the sake of growth, from the lessons of fear for the sake of protecting yourself from danger.

You'll mess up, you might even miss out on some opportunities, but the biggest thing is you keep getting on that ride. You'll be so much happier when you can look back and say regardless of the outcome, I did it.

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