Have you ever wondered what would happen if you stepped out of your comfort zone? Here's what happened the first time I stepped out of mine.

Have you ever watched someone you admired do something amazing and told yourself, 'Damn, I wish I could do that'?
What did you do after that thought? Did you make a change in the way you thought or did things. or did you keep scrolling and go back to looking at cat videos and memes?
What if you actually made the effort once, just once- to do something incredible. What would you do?
The first time in my adult life that I told myself to step out of my comfort zone, I applied to be a Flight Attendant.
I was merely a server at Outback Steakhouse in a small town in Mississippi. I somehow came across a Youtuber by the name of Jenny Ernst (who was an FA) and I started watching all her videos. Every night when I got back from Outback, I'd watch her updates as to where she'd gone and what she did. London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Hawaii every week! It amazed me and I wondered what my life would be like if I was a Flight attendant. I wanted to wake up in a new city everyday too!
I was only 19 and I had no idea who the heck would even hire me. But that didn't stop me from researching.
Looking up things online is one of my favorite things to do. I love researching about just about anything, so it was only a few minutes before I'd found out that there were a couple Airlines I could fly for at the age of 19.
One of them was conveniently based in St Louis, MO where my parents had just moved to, a few months prior. I told my mum what I was planning to do, and she was surprised by the radical career change but she encouraged me to do it. She said I could live with her and see how the job went. Excited, I pushed myself to make it happen!
One month later, in May 2016, I packed my things and I left Mississippi in my beater car and headed up to Missouri.
For the next month, I worked at KFC (yes, really) while I formatted my Resume and a cover letter. My mind kept pulling me back every couple days, telling myself that I had no idea what I was doing and that I should stick to the jobs I knew. I didn't know anything about flying.
I tried to make excuses to myself and to my mother, saying I would apply to be a bag agent first and work my way up. She saw through my excuses and reminded me I
didn't move halfway up the country to fling bags around. I came for a reason and I had to stick to it.
Meep.
After many drafts of my Resume and Cover letter, we had the perfect version in place.
One rainy night in May, in a house in St Louis, I took my leap and applied for the job across 3 airlines.
Over the next few days, I was checking my email twice every 10 minutes to see if I'd heard back. My brain was starting to tell me I messed up and I wasn't going to get the job. Who was going to hire me?
Who was going to hire a 19 year old who had done nothing but serve tables and make sandwiches?
GoJet Airlines. That's who.
One fine day I had an email, inviting me to a group interview at the HQ. I was ECSTATIC.
I went and bought a suit jacket, pants, a tie and a decent shirt from a thrift store and started prepping for my interview. This was me on interview day:

Looking like I stole a clowns shoes and mugged a fashionably challenged businessman. Butttt... I still went to the interview like this. Oof, right?
I had rehearsed my answers to the questions I knew they were going to ask, and had practiced them with emotional conviction over and over again.
Convinced I was dressed to impress, I headed out to the HQ with all the false confidence in the world.
At the interview, it was starting to set in that I was actually there for a big boy job and I had to act the part too. I smiled and looked everyone in the eye, I spoke to other candidates and my nerves were through the roof but I didn't show it.
We went through the group interview and I somehow made it to the one-on-one interviews. It was exceedingly obvious that I was highly aware of every muscle on my face as I tried to converse like a normal man who wasn't constipated.
At the end, the interviewer told me I did good and that I'd have an answer in 3 days.
I went home on cloud nine, excited beyond measure at the possibility of actually being a Flight Attendant.
The next three days, I could barely sleep or eat. I was far too excited to function like normal. But then, Monday morning I had an Email:

I WAS IN.
I found out when I was at KFC, and I flung my chicken across the dining room and out the window in excitement. I put my two week notice in immediately and ran home to tell my parents.
One month later, I started training. You may or may not know a lot about FA training but it's HARD. There's a ton of information you need to remember and it's all safety related. They don't even mention peanuts or drinks until you're actually on the plane for the first time and they say, "Oh don't forget you serve them food and drinks too."
They trained us on First Aid and CPR and numerous other things that we may need to save a life mid flight. As a part of my rigorous training, I had to be able to evacuate an entire plane in 90 seconds. I had one redo in training, if I failed, I was fired. They didn't play around with it. We started with a class of 42 and graduated as a class of 23 two long and hard months later.
The first time I reported for work at the airport, it hit me- I did it. I was a Flight Attendant,
I thought back on the last 3 months, I'd gone from a Server at Outback to being in charge of safety for several hundred people everyday. It wasn't something I ever could've done if I didn't push myself that very first time to get out of my comfort zone.
No matter where you are in life, there's always something better waiting for you on the other side of your maximum fear. that one thing you've been telling yourself you'll do if or when something else happens? Just do it. Putting it off for tomorrow is only an excuse so you don't have to deal with it today.
Tomorrow never comes, but you are here today. Don't lose another opportunity to do something amazing.
As Will Smith said:
" On the other side of your maximum fear, are all of the best things in life. "
Comments