Luvvie Ajayi Jones On How to Fight Fear, Get Uncomfortable, and be a Professional Troublemaker

Fear is something that we all deal with both inside and outside of work. What is fear stopping you from doing today? Are you not speaking up in meetings because you might say something dumb? Have you avoided asking for a raise or a promotion because you might be told ‘no’? Do you shy away from challenging your manager’s ideas because you might get reprimanded?

My guest this week is Luvvie Ajayi Jones, bestselling author of I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual and the brand new book, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual. For years Luvvie let fear stand in her way, but she’s definitely not anymore. While we can’t get rid of fear completely, we can live out our lives boldly in spite of it.

Today Luvvie shares her personal story of how she overcame fear and became a professional troublemaker--and she gives advice on how we can do the same.

In this episode of the podcast we explore:

• How Luvvie started writing and what most shaped her outlook on life
• Why she argues that being a troublemaker is a good thing
• How to get comfortable with being uncomfortable
• The importance of setting boundaries at work and in your personal life
• How Luvvie deals with trolls and toxic people
• Why leaders can encourage everyone around them to be troublemakers

“Our comfort zones are not the place where big things are waiting for us.They're not the place where the best life that we want to live is waiting for us. Because the reason why it's comfortable is because you've learned all you had to learn. There is nothing in there that challenges you. And there's no way you're going to grow.”-- Luvvie Ajayi Jones