Ranjay Gulati

You're not doing it overnight.

And so you're working your way into the fog, not knowing what the consequences of this are going to be.

You know they're going to be negative or maybe not, but you still are moving into the darkness because it's who you believe you are and what you are meant to be.

So, look, what we have experienced, there's two parts to this story.

I think it's a great story, and I'm really grateful that Brad decided to share this with us.

you know, what he has described here is what has been called conditioned fear.

Fear learned through experience rather than logic.

Conditioned fear is a learned nervous system response.

So it's automatic, right?

So the classic example of that is being bitten by a dog and then getting terrified of dogs.

Or, you know, I watched the movie Jaws.

Nothing happened to me, but I am so fearful of getting into the ocean after that.

And what starts to happen when it's activated in the nervous system, the amygdala is firing up before conscious thought.

So the body reacts first.

And avoidance then reinforces the fear.

And the way out of this is either you can let this fear amplify and paralyze your life and maybe you're happy doing that.

Or the other way is to retrain the nervous system.

Right?

Gradual controlled exposure.

An adventure trip doesn't have to mean going through rural China on a bicycle by yourself.