Risk Aversion

Remember when going to therapy was something everyone kept secret? I don't know why - therapy has helped me jump over MANY hurdles over my almost year here in Minnesota, and it also led me to what I think is my career's most significant project to date! 

Let's rewind to about September. I'd settled into my new apartment, and my new job, but something didn't feel quite right. Besides seeing Dell for 20 minutes at a time during my work week, I didn't have much human interaction, and I would find myself deeply depressed a lot, and sometimes, not even feeling alive. This sort of dead feeling resulted in my finding thrills to remind myself of what it feels like to actually be alive - Russian roulette, dangerous early morning city walks, and many other activities I won't share quite yet. Because I wasn't ready to actually die, I took a little advice from an author I respect and found a local therapist to talk to. 

Our conversations were (and still are) very informative, but not what I expected. There are no tears in my sessions - no anger, no yelling, and almost no emotion. My therapist has a really interesting way of dealing with me in a pragmatic way - an exploration of not issues, but rather, ANSWERS! When I can't answer the question behind one of my life's issues, she helps me see what's in the way. 

When I came to her with my job/life stresses, she gave me a very simple answer: start your own radio station! Obviously I'm not there yet, financially, but she attributed my lack of interest in doing that as being risk averse. Sure, I could take a big jump and try something like that on my own, risking my comfort on every financial hill I've climbed, but because I'm still relatively new in radio, and to Minnesota, I decided to explore the idea of a podcast instead. 

If you've kept up with me, you know that the podcast idea has manifested into an actual thing - Scott Blankenship (who has his own video series) and I are 7 episodes in, and the first of them drops on May 17th!!! I'll have more information on how you can listen to Trilloquy as we get closer. 

My therapist's belief that I'm risk averse is something I think about everyday, and something I thought about A LOT while developing Trilloquy. In the "Overture" of Trilloquy, you'll hear me address this as it relates to the podcast itself. Yes, I could have done this on my own, with a drop date that was on MY terms, uninhibited content that I choose, and interviews that go exactly the way I want. Instead, I decided to take a risk. The joint ownership of this project does indeed offer lots of challenges, but I think the results will be bigger than I could have managed on my own. Shout out to my therapist, and my manager, Julie (who has her own podcast). They have both been INTEGRAL parts of my mental health, and the development of my baby, that I've named Trilloquy. 

​What's the riskiest thing that you feel comfortable doing today? Go do that.