Most growth comes from stepping outside of your comfort zone - also known as pushing yourself to say more and be more. We find out what we're made of when we step outside of our comfort zones and into our bravery zones. What are you made of?

1. What Happens When
You Step Outside of
Your Comfort Zone?
Caroline Cummings
Venture Catalyst, Oregon RAIN
@iamcarolina

2. Comfort Zone =
A type of mental conditioning
that causes a person to create
and operate within mental
boundaries

4. Comfort Zones
Define Us

5. What’s it look like?

8. Fear

9. Comfort
Zone
# 5 Deep Water
# 4 Financial Problems
# 3 Insects and Bugs
# 2 Heights
# 1 Public speaking

10. Comfort
Zone
Public
Speaking
Making
Cold
Calls
Pitching
Media
Speaking
to small
group

11. A Healthy
Dose of Anxiety

12. Anxiety can improve
performance…
…but, if you step beyond your
optimal performance zone…

13. Danger Zone

14. Danger Zone
As levels of anxiety or
discomfort increase to high
levels – performance can
decline rapidly

17. If you don’t step out of
your comfort zone
you WILL miss
opportunities

18. Traveling to Cairo
During Social
Unrest…

23. Imagine if these
people had
decided not to
step outside of
their comfort
zones?

30. Behnaz Shafiei
Fighting for gender
equality in motocross
circuit in Iran.

31. How to do it?

32. Unleash Your Inner Hero

33. Defending the
Underdog

34. Kamala Khan
“Ms. Marvel”
Pakistani American
girl living in New
Jersey
Marvel's first Muslim
character to headline
her own comic book
Powers:
Shape-shifting
Healing

35. Convince in Style

37. Kick Ass
Take Names

40. Must be willing to
self promote!

41. Why we don’t self promote…
• Accusations of conceit/arrogance
• We never learned how to
• We don’t think we know how to
• For women, it’s not “lady-like”
• It’s not my style
• It’s “shameless”
• We’re too embarrassed
• It’s too stressful
• We’ll sell ourselves short
• We’ll oversell ourselves

42. Must be willing to
make an ask!

43. If you don’t step out of
your comfort zone
you WILL miss
opportunities

44. Opportunities like:
Raising funds
Winning customers
Landing your dream job
Closing deals
Starting something new
Meeting new people
…

45. Are you ready to
step outside of your
comfort zone?

46. One way I’m going
to step outside of
my comfort zone
is _______

47. Thank you!
Caroline Cummings
Venture Catalyst, Oregon RAIN
@iamcarolina