Heather Hansen O’Neill is an international speaker, author, adventurer, and entrepreneur using her action-packed experience to Fire Up audiences to be adventurous. She stimulates vibrant energy, focus, and action for those who want to collaborate effectively, lead change, and achieve massive results. As host of the From Fear to Fire podcast, 2x TEDx speaker, and behavioral change expert, Heather’s research and programs help individuals and companies’ breakthrough fears, judgments, and blocks to break limiting generational patterns and reach sales and leadership success.
http://heatherhansenoneill.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherhansenoneill/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtib3bk9yJ64theJ8dFX6EQ
REMARKS
Today’s guest, Heather Hansen O’Neill, has tried the kinds of activities that most of us only dream– or maybe have nightmares about. Sky diving, rock climbing, — public speaking. She makes it her business to help people overcome fear. Each of her experiences has taught her something about herself, and she leads programs to help others find their own insights.
I share her belief that opening yourself up to new adventures makes life richer, and that stretching yourself to go outside your comfort zone doesn’t have to a huge drastic step. One of the reasons I like living in Italy is that even the most mundane activities like going to the dentist or phoning the plumber can be major accomplishments when you only understand about ¾ of what’s being said to you.
What does being Adventurous mean to you? We’re not all meant to mainline adrenaline, but that secret desire you’ve wanted to try is easier than you think and achieving it will change your life.
Here’s the interview.
TRANSCRIPT
Liz Sumner
My guest today is Heather Hansen O’Neill. Heather is an international speaker, author, adventurer and entrepreneur using her action packed experience to fire up audiences. She’s described herself as an adventure junkie. Welcome, Heather.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Hi, thank you so much, Liz. It’s great to be here.
Liz Sumner
So when and how did your adventure junkie side originate?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Oh, goodness, it’s been with me. So very long, I can’t even remember exactly when it started. I have always been a little bit crazy. I like to push my own boundaries. I don’t expect it from other people. But I love it. And what started happening is that when I when I did these adventures, I would learn something really cool about myself, or about the world. So I just kept doing it.
Liz Sumner
Were you ever chicken as a little kid, and then you push yourself or did it just always feel energizing?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
It always felt energizing. However, there are certain adventures that are way easier for me than others. So I’m, I’m bizarre, where I have no problem jumping out of an airplane at 14,000 feet. However, I don’t like being in a sensory deprivation tank. So that caused me more fear. You know, so there’s everybody’s got their thing, right? Everybody has that that point? And I don’t want to make it sound like it’s easy. It’s not easy, because that’s, that’s why I do it is because it’s not easy. But I enjoy it. So it makes it worthwhile.
Liz Sumner
What happens to you afterwards, after you have accomplished a new adventure?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Well, you know, it’s always different. I always get this this sense of joyfulness, the sense of accomplishment, the sense of peace actually sounds a little bit bizarre if you’re, if you’re flying on the trapeze, and you feel peaceful afterward, but I do. But the biggest thing is that the lessons are always different, depending on what I do. I learned something else, either, like I said, about myself or about the world. And it’s just so fascinating. And so I get spurred to write directly after an adventure, because all kinds of ideas and creativity comes through me.
Liz Sumner
And do you publish what you write?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
I do, I have a couple of published books. And I have lots of articles and things in blogs. But it’s not always about doing it, for that. I write to get it out of me, so that I remember the lesson. And then sometimes I go back and use it for something else.
Liz Sumner
Do you find that you need to increase the level of excitement or adventure in order to because it’s not exciting enough anymore?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
No, you know, and that’s an excellent question, because I can definitely see that and I know, I know people like that. And so when you do something, there is a little bit of a oh, I either want to do it again, or I want to do it better, I want to go higher, I want to do this. There might be a little bit of that. But because I like the variety of different types of adventures. I am not feeling this incessant need to perfect the adventure. It’s about the the comfort zone pushing past the comfort zone more than it is becoming a professional rock climber. You know, that’s and that’s fantastic. I know there are a lot of people out there that that do that they pick one type of adventure one thing that they do really well and or that they don’t yet but they want to and then they keep doing that and bettering it, but that’s not really where I come from with it. It’s the experience and the lesson.
Liz Sumner
Interesting. Okay, so tell me some of the highlights. What did you start with? What are your some of your favorite things that you have challenged yourself to do?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Sure, sure. Okay, let’s see. I’ve got so many good ones. So Well, I would say one of the most fun ones that I have is flying on the trapeze. Because I learned it in California. I was encouraged to do it as part of a mastermind that I was involved in. And I fell in love with it. I was just like, Ah, this is so amazing. But the reason why I pick that one is because that is one of the ones that I have done more. Because there’s so many interesting facets of it. And I’ve actually used flying on the trapeze as a graduation ceremony for an eight week breaking through fear workshop that I do. And it’s so much fun to see people experienced the same things that I experienced the first time, and to be able to bust through that fear because you can overcome it in one session.
It’s not like you, you have to do anything extraordinary or you don’t have to release, you don’t have to fly through the air. But just simply letting go of the platform. And holding on to the bar is big enough for it to be very impactful for people to just simply fly back and forth a little bit, you don’t have to go upside down.You don’t have to do crazy tricks. But just leaving the platform and it’s very symbolic of, of leaving, what we hold so tight to whether it’s a fear or limitation a judgement and assumption. And being able to once you let go, then you can fly. You know, that’s when all the great stuff happens. If you want to fly in your business, if you want to fly in your relationship, there were things that you have to let go of, which is why the trapeze is so much fun for me. And such a great exercise to do with other people.
Liz Sumner
Where does one go to fly on a trapeze?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
It’s not one of those things that’s easy to find. That’s for sure. So the first time I did it, I mentioned I was in San Diego. So there is a place where they have it there. And then I came back to where I was living at the time, which was Connecticut. And I was seeking I loved it so much. And like, oh, I want to do this one again. Is there any, you know, facilities are any opportunity to do this nearby. And I found in New York City, which was only an hour away from me when I was living in Connecticut, right on Chelsea pier. So they had a great location. So you could they had it all set up. When you were flying, it looked like you were flying out over the harbor. In in Manhattan, it was so amazing. I loved it. But I will tell you for any of your listeners who are thinking, Hmm, that’s interesting, you may want to do a little recon, because not every city has a trapeze.
Liz Sumner
So you would just search for… amateur trapeze?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Because they have it’s it’s fascinating, it’s far more popular than people think. So there there are places, if there’s a circus nearby, there may be a place to fly the chat. If it’s a, it’s a big location where people go for vacations, or for the there’s there are ones in Club Med or you know that. So we’ll find them, it just takes a little bit more research than it is to find some of the other adventures.
Liz Sumner
And anything else that a person needs to know ahead of time before trying it.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
That you can, that you can definitely do it. And that when you do, it’s not just the trapeze that you overcome. It’s whatever limitation you are feeling or putting upon yourself. So I believe that it’s a worthwhile adventure. Now I say you can for anyone who has a limitation that they have inside of their mind. Now, obviously there may be certain if there are certain disabilities or something that could prevent you from doing it. But they will tell you, they’re not going to let you go if you’re going to harm yourself, right if you really can’t do it, but you have a harness. So even if you can’t hold on to the bar, like let’s say you slip off the bar, you’re not going to get hurt because you’re in a harness, and there’s someone there helping and protecting you.
And that’s the thing is that a lot of times in life, we have people that we can turn to to help us if we only recognize that we need to ask, right and so that’s like that harness and the trapeze or if you’re you know, there’s a lot of other things where adventures can be safer than you expect because they want to make sure that you leave and that you’re not harmed in the process. So it’s not as tech refining, as you think, or if it is, it’s all inside of your mind.
Liz Sumner
Now when when you’re doing it, is it easy to, or is it relatively doable to get to the other platform? Or do you swing back and forth and hang there and then fall into the net on purpose?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Yes, to the second one. So it is not necessarily easy to get to another platform or to go even back to the one that you came from, you will usually need to release, which is the second element of fear, then fall into the net, right? You’re causing yourself to purposely fall people don’t typically like that. But it is part of the process, you know, and the other scary thing is, once you’ve done it more than once and you start to get a little bit better at it and you have lessons, then you get into a point where you may partner with someone. All right, and they’re catching yo and there’s a whole other element of overcoming fear and trust that is associated with that. So the first person you have to learn to trust is yourself. And then once you elevate you need to learn to trust others. So like I said, there’s lesson after lesson after lesson in flying on the trapeze.
Liz Sumner
Wow. And do you get to wear spangley sequined bathing suit?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
You know, that’s a great question because I am a fan of cool costumes. No, not in general. Unless you’re performing in the circus or something that’s going to wear you know, a tank in sweatpants. And it’s not as glamorous as you might think.
Liz Sumner
Oh, well. So okay…
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Well, you know what if you showed up Liz, in your spangly costume, I’m pretty sure they let you.
Liz Sumner
I love it. Probably do that the second time maybe
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Yeah, the second or third.
Liz Sumner
Okay, I know. You have many more adventures to tell us about. So what are some of the others what what was hard for you the first time?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Oh, well, definitely that sensory deprivation tank. It was funny because when the person who there there were like three or four of us that were doing it at the same time. So there was someone there giving us instructions. And I didn’t even realize it. But of course you you can tell a lot about a person from their body language. So apparently I had my arms crossed and I had kind of, you know, was thinking into the corner as far away from this person giving me instructions as humanly possible. And, and he said, Are you okay? You’re looking a little pale. And I like, you know, I can’t even tell you how hard this is for me.
Liz Sumner
Was it mainly claustrophobia that made it hard for you?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Yes. So I am not a fan of being enclosed in spaces. I was stuck in an elevator once in San Francisco. And I just I was not happy. I imagine a lot of people are aren’t loving it, but I was really not happy. Thankfully, there were some very kind firemen that were trying to extricate me. So, so there, they were talking to me through the door so that I didn’t lose my mind. But no, that is definitely something that I just I don’t like the closed in space thing. But it was important for me to do it. As someone who speaks a lot on overcoming fear. I have to practice what I preach. I can’t just do the easy stuff. I can’t just do the fun stuff. I have to put myself in situations where I understand the feelings that the people that I work with have right and so that was definitely one that was big for me because by the end of the time, I had learned to calm my breathing. I can’t say that I left joyful. The other ones but I definitely left feeling incredible sense of accomplishment and pride in and I was able to walk with with my head just a little bit higher thinking you know what? I can do a lot more than I think I can.
Liz Sumner
Yeah, yeah. In the 80s, when I was doing personal growth trainings, there was a fad of doing firewalking. And I never did it. But I wanted to because at the end of the session of firewalking, they handed you a card that said, I have walked on fire, I can do anything. And that sounded, I wanted that, but never did.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Oh, Liz, I encourage you to try it. If you have the opportunity. Again, I have done that. And that was scary, too. Because it’s some, you’re not certain that your body’s going to listen to your mind. But it does, it does. Because your mind is incredibly powerful, more powerful than we give it credit for. And you’re right, you do feel when you finish. You feel like you can do anything. I love that the card is awesome. Yeah. Okay, what,
Liz Sumner
What else? Tell us more!
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Goodness, I don’t know. You see, I mean, I’ll give you a couple of examples of some of the things that I’ve done. And then you can ask me what you want. Okay. So learning to rock climb, I learned about the importance of team building. And jumping out of airplanes, I learned about jumping and diving into your life. In crazy things like this is this might be easier for some people in singing as you walk down the street of Manhattan. And I can’t sing this is why this is important. You overcome this fear of self judgment or the judgment of others.
So the the adventures, I mentioned that one, because I think a lot of people think that when I, when I speak, that the adventure has to be something massive. It does not have to be massive, it has to stretch YOU. So whatever that may be, if the person listening is really uncomfortable in a networking situation. And they just hate they’re, they’re very introverted, and they hate when they go to a networking event, to start a conversation. Well, that, that you’re challenging yourself to go and start one conversation is the same for that person, as it is, for me to swim with sharks, do you know what I mean? Because we have our own circle of our comfort zone. And as long as we are practicing to expand our own comfort circle, it will help contribute to us being able to take advantage of the opportunities that come to us down the road. Because when we when we’re it’s like building a muscle, right, when you’re learning how to be a marathon runner, you don’t walk out one day and run a marathon, you walk around the block or you run a mile or you know, we we have to practice. So it’s the same thing. I just want people to realize that they don’t have to do anything massive in order to achieve massive results with inside them inside of their mind or their heart.
Liz Sumner
So let me play devil’s advocate for a moment. What’s the matter with being comfortable?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Okay, well, you know, we like being uncomfortable. So a lot, that’s an excellent question. You know, we like to be cuddled up on the couch with a blanket, right? We like to maybe get into the habit of doing something similar knowing that we get up and we go to work each day, or there’s stability in our lives. We like being comfortable. And, and I understand that completely. However, if people get to the point in their lives, where they sometimes don’t recognize that there they are, okay? Right. They’re comfortable, they’re okay. And so they don’t make any changes. However, if they have a desire for more, if they want to live a life, that is amazing, if they want to feel the depths of incredible relationships, true connectedness, if they want to expand their capabilities and contribute to their communities or to the world in a massive way, it’s going to require you to get uncomfortable, right?
And not everybody necessarily wants that. We have our own levels of Comfort and desire for contribution or more or joy or whatever it might be. And that’s okay. You know, literally I have I go from being very when I was growing up was very judgmental of myself, in particular, not so much of other people. But of myself, like, if I couldn’t do something was very hard on myself. But when we release that judgment, and that comes a lot from expanding our comfort zones, right, when we release judgment of self and others, so much can be accomplished, because we have within us everything that we need to be able to make an impact on our own lives and the lives of our children, for our friends, for our companies. And oftentimes, we don’t even realize it, because we’re not trying, because we’re comfortable.
Liz Sumner
When your world starts getting smaller and smaller and smaller, life gets awfully dull.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
It does. I am, I’m an extroverted person. I’m a, I’m a motivational speaker. So I one would think, Oh, she’s comfortable being around people. Right? And, and I am in general, I am energized by people. However, with everything that has gone on in the world, in the last couple of years, and more isolation, and doing many keynote presentations, virtually, you gain this inadvertent comfort, to staying at home, to be alone, to doing your thing. And even someone as highly extroverted and energized by people as me, I have found that I started to get like, oh, maybe I don’t want to go out maybe I don’t want to do this.
And that’s when I realized, wow, how hard is this? For introverts? Or for people who, who, you know, don’t want to, in general push their comfort zone? How much is this causing us to increase our loneliness, or isolation. And so I, you know, I started to realize that everybody is being impacted. And that’s why companies are focusing so much on mental health now for their employees and providing options for them. Because I think it’s hitting us all harder than we even realize. It’s true. For a long time, I’m much better at it now. But for a long time, I didn’t always like being alone with myself. No, like, my thoughts. And so meditation has helped me tremendously with that. And I, I not only am comfortable with it, now I long for it, that those opportunities to reconnect with me and who I am and what I want. But for years, I was very uncomfortable with that.
Liz Sumner
What’s the first step in letting go of self judgment? How do you begin to do that?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Oh, awareness. I think that people don’t recognize how hard they are on themselves. I mean, they may know a little bit Oh, yeah, maybe I’m a little hard on myself. But until you start becoming finely tuned into it, and aware and, and let me just give you an example. Like an exercise that people can do. If you take one week, one week, and all you do the first week is become aware of your self talk, the things that you say to yourself inside of your head, and start to write some of them down. What happens is your like, you probably have not, I don’t mean you. But for you, in general, people in general, will be amazed at how often and how terribly we speak to ourselves.
You know, you I’ve had coaching clients who have given us an example to come back and say, oh my gosh, I called myself names that I would never call an enemy, let alone a friend. And so just that awareness for the first week, and then the second week, you still just doing journal journaling, you know and saying This time, as soon as you start to hear yourself saying something negative, stop it. Just stop. Don’t do anything else. Just acknowledge and stop. And then third week, replace. So once you you acknowledge this happened, you stopped it, and then you replace it with something else. So you say, You know what? No, I’m not an idiot. I just made a mistake. What can I learn from this mistake? So you’re shifting right in the moment of it.
And it really does mean, it seems like something so simple. And it is simple. But it’s hard. Simple isn’t, you know, isn’t always easy. But it can completely transform your life. And same thing in a relationship, if you’re having trouble in your relationship if you do something similar. But what you’re doing is you’re becoming aware of your interactions with that other person and shifting your focus to picking out the things that they’re doing, right? Versus the things that bug you, like, not putting the toothpaste cap back on, instead, you know, whatever it might be, right. So it’s a shift of focus, and we can’t shift our focus until we’re aware of that inner dialogue.
Liz Sumner
That’s beautiful. Good advice. What’s next for you? What challenges do you still have to conquer?
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Oh, my goodness. You know, so many, there’s so many things that I want to do. But I believe it’s not necessarily an adventure. So I’ve written a couple of books on my own. And I just finished a book that that for the first time I had a co-author. And it was a wonderful experience. But far more challenging, you know, it’s easy, not easy, but it’s way easier to write a book when you’re the only one doing it, right? Because you can say whatever you want, when you’re collaborating on something, and you have to really listen to the other person and why they think that something’s important to either leave in or take out or what the vision is for the book and the target and all of that stuff. That was its own adventure. And we just finished it. So so my next adventure that is imminent, has to do with, you know, finding ways to share the message in a collaboration. My co author is amazing. He’s 92. Yeah, yes. So we, you know, it’s, we no longer live in the same state either. So it’s either helping him with the technology of doing things like this, or me traveling up there to do something, you know, some television or radio or something up there. And this is just fun for me to discover how we can truly collaborate in a way that provides something of bigger and better value than either of us would have been able to do alone. And so that’s its own adventure. So that’s the next one for me. But I’m always looking for good ideas to challenge myself. So if you have an idea for me, Liz, something one of your guests have done or something you’ve always thought of. I’m open to ideas, or
Liz Sumner
Did you listen to Jill Heinerth the cave diver? She takes scuba diving to a whole new level. So you might…
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Oh my goodness I’ve done scuba, and I’ve done some some traveling into caverns and things. But that I think is a like you said a much deeper like a whole new level. That sounds scary. That definitely gives me a little bit of a heart palpitation here. I might be I’m definitely going back and listening to that episode. Thank you.
Liz Sumner
You’re welcome. So tell us some of the resources that you’d recommend including your own of course, for for people who want to, to learn more.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
I’d first I’d say that a resource that doesn’t really have to do with me necessarily, is to pick and choose the people that we spend time with. Right pick and choose people that challenge you, not the ones who are going to tell you that you’re, you know, it’s fine. Let’s just stay in, let’s just watch a movie. Let’s just whatever, pick somebody that you know is going to challenge you to learn something new, or read something different. Or listen to something that has a different opinion than you do or who will be willing to say yes, when you come up with a crazy idea to try something. Those are some people that you need to maybe add into your life and maybe not maybe you already have done a beautiful, amazing job of picking these people. But I think it’s always great to be aware of that, you know, who are we spending time with? And then so, you know, I have a couple of books like I mentioned and the new one coming out called where’s the office, but if anyone wants to reach out to me personally. And just ask me a question. I am an open book literally in Heather Hansen O’Neil is how you find me. So if anyone wants to connect with me on LinkedIn or wherever, and you just want to ask me a question, I am happy to answer anything that anyone throws my way. You know, we just have to ask, and I think that that’s the other thing is people sometimes find that their comfort zone is also related to, you know, oh, I can’t ask that person a question, even though I’m really I know that they have the answer, or I know that they’ve done something that I’m really curious about, and I want to try, but they probably wouldn’t want to talk to me. What is that? That’s that inner dialogue that’s holding us back. Right? So I figured, just ask, even if they say, No, it doesn’t hurt physically? No. So just ask I, you know, I am always amazed by the incredible people who’ve who I decided, you know, let me just be just send them a note, see if they’d be interested in hearing from me. And suddenly, we’re having an incredible conversation, and I’ve invited him on to my podcast, you know, so just just try that. But I would just like to say just try.
Liz Sumner
That’s really brilliant. And it also relates to that harness you were talking about before. We have these things we have the abilities that we just aren’t always aware of.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Yes, Liz. Exactly.
Liz Sumner
Yep. And tell me more about your podcast.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
So my podcast is called From Fear to Fire and you can find it anywhere, you know, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, all of that are on the website, Heather Hansen O’Neil, dot com. And what that is it is having conversations just like you’re doing now, but having conversations with people specific to fears or challenges that they have experienced in their life, and what they learned in overcoming them. And there’s so much hope that each of my guests, you know, the bravery that they don’t even realize as they’re telling the stories in being able to get back up, right, just being able to take continue moving forward during difficulty. And what comes from that is just so inspiring.
Liz Sumner
That’s great. And I will put all of your links in the show notes so that people can find you. Anything you’d like to say in conclusion,
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Well, first of all, I just want to thank you for all you’re doing and the messages that you’re getting out there in the world. They’re fantastic. And for any of you listeners out there, keep listening to Liz. And just remember that remember what I said earlier, everything you need is already within you. Just know that you can.
Liz Sumner
That’s beautiful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today and all of the wisdom that you have shared.
Heather Hansen O’Neill
Thank you, Liz.
Liz Sumner
My thanks to Heather Hansen O’Neill. You can find out more about her and her programs in the show notes. I invite everyone to write and tell me what you’ve always wanted to try. I’m Liz Sumner, reminding you to be bold, and thanks for listening.
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