Author, entrepreneur and founder of the “Scare Your Soul” movement, Scott Simon says he is a “hometown boy.” The Cleveland native and Case Western Reserve University alum found his niche inspiring individual and global change through small acts of everyday courage.
His book, Scare Your Soul: 7 Powerful Principles to Harness Fear and Lead Your Most Courageous Life, was published in late 2022. It is a map to unlocking a new way of living despite fear and trepidation.
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He calls Cleveland the center of the “Scare Your Soul universe.” Members of the movement called “soulsters” are part of a community of like-minded fear-seekers. Soulsters start with a weekly newsletter with courage challenges to push members out of their comfort zones. Once subscribed, members have access to special resources, retreats, workshops and community support to “work out their courage muscle.”
We chatted with Simon to learn more about his work.
Cleveland Magazine: In your book, you encourage people to embrace fear and take risks. Can you share a time when facing your fears transformed your life?
Scott Simon: One of the most transformative experiences that I’ve ever had happened when I was 21. I had just graduated college and I was feeling pretty lost and directionless. I was working the alternative music aisle at a record store in Cleveland. This is after having grown up incredibly shy and feeling pretty invisible, I was bullied for most of my young life. I got a call that completely changed my life; it was an offer to teach English to Holocaust survivors in a low-income area of Tel Aviv. I’d never been to Israel before. I didn’t know the language. I didn’t know the family I was going to be staying with. I didn’t know how to teach and I had never met a Holocaust survivor before. It was like everything in my existence was screaming to say ‘no,’ but for some reason, I said yes.
I bought a backpack and a spiral notebook and I got on a flight from Cleveland to New York, and then from New York to Tel Aviv. On the second flight, I had a panic attack and I literally thought I was going to die. I pulled out this spiral notebook and I wrote eight words onto the first page, and those words changed the rest of my life. I wrote “Do one thing every day that scares you,” and I knew immediately that year that was going to be my mantra. That’s exactly what happened every day for the rest of that year. I did one thing that pushed a comfort zone, and they were small but they added momentum and self-confidence and by the end of that year, I came back to Cleveland just absolutely on fire. I’ve kind of been that way since. That experience, which was so surprising and unexpected, literally changed me from a kid who was running away from fear to a young adult who was chasing it.
CM: Courage is a central theme of Scare Your Soul. How do you define everyday courage, and why is it so important in today’s world?
SS: When most people think about courage they think of it as this huge unattainable virtue. We think of Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi or Rosa Parks. People who have done these unbelievably virtuous things, and courage in some ways is a virtue. But, I think more than a virtue, it's a practice. It is something each of us can do that builds on itself. It’s like a muscle: The more you work it, the stronger it gets. Everyday courage is really about doing small consistent things that push our comfort zones and allow us to step into discomfort and come out on the other side. That can be anything from having difficult conversations to trying to push ourselves physically or emotionally.
I’ve now created over 500 courage challenges for people around the world. They’re not like quitting your job and moving to another country or jumping out of a plane. It’s more like smiling at a stranger today and recognizing and celebrating that you're doing it — all of a sudden you start gaining self-confidence. This is so important right now because we need it in a world full of fear and polarization. We fear the other. We fear the unknown. We fear instability, and our phones have tricked us that we have the answer to everything instantaneously.
Courage is about grappling with those things we don’t know in the moment. That means having conversations with people we don’t agree with. It means asking questions versus telling people things. It means reaching out and serving people who may need us even though we don’t know them. It means pushing ourselves to reevaluate how we’re living our own lives, which leads to a beautiful, connected, inspiring world and I honestly believe courage is key.
CM: For people who feel stuck in their comfort zones, what advice would you give to help them take the first leap toward personal growth?
SS: The first and most important step is to start small. Find something in your life that you feel could push a comfort zone and literally devise for yourself what would be the smallest way to take a step towards that action. If public speaking is your fear and you want to become more courageous in it, find the opportunity in a meeting or a conversation and start with just one sentence. Don’t start with an entire speech. If it is about engaging with other people, buy a stranger a cup of coffee. We don’t have to reinvent our lives on Day One. It’s really important to start small and focus on the action and not the outcome. We get so focused on "what is going to happen if I do 'X.' Is it going to work? Am I going to fail?" And it stops us in our tracks instead of just saying, "I’m going to place importance on actually doing the action, not what is going to come of it."
The last thing I would say is consistency. If you decided today you were going to run a marathon in a year you wouldn’t practice four times. You would buy a pair of shoes and start out slow, but you do it consistently. You get out there and run, and as you do you build stamina and confidence. Courage is exactly the same thing.
CM: What has surprised you the most since starting the Scare Your Soul movement, either from the stories you’ve heard or the impact it’s had on individuals?
SS: I am so amazed every day by the stories I hear. I got a call one time from a participant who said that she had a Scare Your Soul baby. I said, “Oh my gosh, what does that mean?” She told me that one of our weekly challenges was to have a hard conversation with somebody, and her hard conversation was with her husband to tell him that their marriage was not working anymore. They ended up getting divorced and in the middle of their divorce, she ended up reconnecting with her high school boyfriend who was really helpful in her navigating this hard time. She ended up marrying him and having a baby. She said to me very clearly that it was the invitation to have a tough conversation that led her to make that decision. We don’t know what the end result will be when we take a bold and courageous action. So, what is surprising? I’m just surprised by the fact that every single day somebody reaches out and says, “I want to tell you the story.”
CM: How do you see fear and discomfort as catalysts for growth, and how do you suggest people maintain momentum once they start stepping out of their comfort zones?
SS: Failure, fear and discomfort as opposed to being things we should run away from are actually signposts. They’re milestones on the way to growth. If something scares you that means it is important and something you need to pay attention to. It’s something that is challenging us at the moment, and I like to talk about the neurological benefits of stepping out of our comfort zone. Most people know that there is something called neuroplasticity, which is our brains creating new pathways, and new neural connections.
You don’t do that by sitting on the couch and watching Netflix. You do it by trying new things and rewriting those stories. We’ve all done it and the more we do it, the more we can change those neural pathways and that means we’re really growing. We’re expanding where we’re bringing new joy and happiness into our lives. Addressing momentum, everybody can try something once. But, to really create a courageous life you need to practice it consistently. I like to encourage people to think of courage very much like they would a yoga practice. You don’t practice yoga once, it is small consistent actions that build on each other, one after the next. Visualizing success, tracking our success and doing it consistently, just like any other practice in our lives is how we build momentum.
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