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Are you interested in exercising your ‘getting out of your comfort zone’ muscle…?
Meet Chris Desmond. Chris is the founder and host of the ‘Uncomfortable is OK’ podcast. A show with over 200 interviews, discussing the uncomfortable. Chris will tell you that living in a world with comfort at every turn is not helpful. By choosing to stay comfortable, we are significantly restricting our potential to do great things. Getting good at doing really uncomfortable and scary stuff can help make life exciting. Chris also works as a physiotherapist, resilience trainer and coach, and is also just a 36 year old kiwi dude with family and dog.
What was your vision when you first started your venture?
I enjoy my work as a physiotherapist, but it's not the long game. I don't want to be sitting in a clinic for the rest of my life. I have been running a podcast for three and a half years now. It started with me trying a few different things, looking for a creative outlet, I tried an online business, did a Masters of Management. One of my papers was called Innovation and New Ventures. It got me brainstorming lots of different ideas and exploring my creativity. A friend suggested, “Hey, why don't you start a podcast?”. I thought it was a great idea.
At the time I was also interested in getting better at doing hard stuff. People talk about manifesting dreams. It’s really hard work and most give up. So I decided to interview people about how they take on and overcome challenges. I found talking about their journey and the practicality of doing the hard work fascinating.
I convinced a couple of my mates to be interviewed. Next I showed up at a Shameless Soapbox event in Wellington and asked for people interested in being interviewed. I got a couple of takers. Then it started to snowball with recommendations and introductions. It was super uncomfortable for me to start with, which was the whole point.
From episode 15 to 20 is when I started to talk to people that I didn't really know. In a bookstore I browsed through a book and found a professional surfer who battled with leukaemia called Matt Scorringe. Google is amazing. I searched for Matt and flicked him a message about the podcast and asked for an interview. He said” Yes!”
It was uncomfortable. I was jumping into the unknown. I just had to think, “What's the worst that can happen here? Someone that I don't know says no.”
I interviewed Laura Langman recently. She’s the captain of the Silver Ferns. She was introduced by a mutual friend. I don't think I would have interviewed Laura without AJ’s introduction.
I talked with James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits, a New York Times bestselling book that sold millions. I think it was just serendipitous with him. He was marketing his book and I was on his mailing list. Even though I felt James was way out of my league, I sent him a message asking if he would be happy to record answers to three questions. James replied, “Yes, but don’t you want to do a full interview?”
It's often cooler interviewing regular people. It's more of a conversation. People often ask me to send through the interview questions beforehand. But I haven't really enjoyed this process nearly as much. I know what I'm going to ask next, so I'm not listening to the interviewee so well. Someone asked for my questions recently. I replied with “I don't have any. Here’s the topics that I'd like to talk about”. I've never had anyone say no to that.
How did you deal with early setbacks?
I found technology around the recording, audio editing and setting up long distance based interviews challenging. I use Zoom now and it’s super easy. When I started I was using multiple apps and sometimes struggling to get them to talk with eachother. When a guest updated their particular app sometimes it would all break. I spent too many hours on Google trying to fix technical difficulties. This was the least interesting part of the process for me. And also super frustrating.
I've lost a couple of interviews and messed up the recording. I had to go back to them and say, “Hey, I stuffed up here, can we record again?”
I've also released some awkward audio. I’ve just warned the listeners that the audio isn’t as crisp as it usually is and to listen a little harder. Generally listeners have responded that they don't mind the audio quality. Even though it wasn’t great, it made them focus on the conversation and get more from it.
“It was uncomfortable. I was jumping into the unknown. I just had to think, “What’s the worst that can happen here? Someone that I don’t know says no.””
Was there a time that you wanted to give up?
I've never seriously considered giving up for good. When my son was born three months early, it was pretty stressful. He was in hospital for 99 days. I had this marvellous plan to stockpile several months worth of interviews and release them when he arrived. We hadn’t been to our first anti-natal class when he arrived. It really threw a spanner in the works. I took a couple of weeks off from the podcast. I realised that I wanted to keep going with it, it was something I really wanted to do. But, I needed to rethink my process.
I changed from two to one episode per week. An interview one week, a solo episode the next. It took the pressure off. It was a time of introspection. The material for solo episodes was there, I just had to spew it forth. I also hired a podcast editor at that time. I needed to free up time and I didn’t enjoy the editing.
Yes, that was the toughest time for me to keep going. After my son had been around for six months I revisited the schedule and decide what I wanted to do with the podcast. There’s so many fascinating people out there, I decided to go back to weekly interviews. I'm never going to be able to talk to enough of them with fortnightly interviews. I've released over 260 episodes now.
Sometimes I have an amazing interview. But it’s only received reasonably well, some good feedback, less downloads than I expected. Then I’ll release an episode with a solid conversation, nothing special and it goes crazy. So attaching my subjective opinion doesn't always equate to how people receive it. Something I've learned over the process. I shouldn't put my opinions on what everyone else enjoys. Sometimes I learn things as well when I release an episode that I’m not 100% sure about and it does well. That’s cool, let's pull on that thread a little bit more and see what happens.
Were there any traps that you fell into?
Chasing faster growth for the podcast, thinking “I want this to explode.” It’s only just now, after a three and a half year process, that I've actually started offering coaching around the concepts learned from the podcast. Now I want the coaching to grow faster also.
I explored loads of growth hacks, but nothing really beats putting in the hard work. I’ve just been a bit impatient and want to be further along than I am, instead of enjoying the process. I feel this is something from a societal perspective. We live in a time with gratification at our fingertips. I can buy a book on Amazon and within seconds it’s on my Kindle. I can click a button on my phone and 20 minutes later some dude on a scooter shows up with a burger.
Society is set up at the moment where we are sold the idea of comfort. Everything is made to be easier, keeping us in our comfort zone. That's not where life is fulfilling. It makes it challenging to take the hard option. But that's where growth and the exciting stuff lies. Because we're primed to be comfortable so often, we don't train ourselves to deal with discomfort.
Working on challenging projects has the potential to change our lives forever. I guess that’s what I'm doing with the podcast in terms of the people I speak with, the ideas we discuss and the opportunities that then present themselves. My growth from running the podcast has been massive. I'm a guy in my mid-thirties. You become more self-aware at this age. Though, I don't know if I'd be in the same position now, if I didn't run the podcast. It's accelerated things.
I've talked with many people who have challenged my worldview. With the background of a science-based degree, I was looking for black or white, but really everything's just different shades of grey. So now I'm a lot more open to the worldview of others. I ask the question “what strategies do you use to approach uncomfortable situations?” I now have all of these strategies that I can put in place whenever I face ‘hard stuff’. It's pretty awesome actually and I'm writing a book on the subject now.
So the growth has been massive for my confidence. Realising that other people don't care about what you're doing, as much as you care about it. They’re not agonising in their heads over everything that you do. Let go of what other people think. If you have a cool idea then give it a go. As opposed to doing nothing because of what some people may think. You’re just holding yourself back from experiencing something potentially interesting.
“I explored loads of growth hacks, but nothing really beats putting in the hard work.”
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What inspires and motivates you?
The way that I think about motivation has changed over time. Anyone can watch a Gary Vaynerchuk YouTube video. He's awesome and he'll fire you up for half a day or so. But it's like throwing a bit of kindling on the fire as opposed to a big bit of timber that’l do a long burn.
So, there are three different aspects of motivation, internal motivation, external motivation and social motivation.
Internal motivation comes back to self-awareness. “What do I enjoy doing?”. For me it’s connecting, having interesting conversations and discussing interesting ideas with people. I love learning, teaching, being creative and being in control of the process. The podcast gives me all of that.
External motivation is probably a little bit more narcissistic. I want to have an impact and to change the world for the better. I can do that as a physio, seeing one person at a time. Or for more impact I can host a podcast, coaching people to get out of their own way. Helping them get better at doing ‘the hard stuff’ that's going to make life exciting for them. And from that they’ll start some cool stuff that's going to have a positive impact on the world. Creating a ripple effect that upscales the impact that I have.
Social motivation. When I started the podcast the social motivation was to help people. Helping people makes us feel nice. But now it’s all about my son. After he arrived I spent a lot of time considering how I wanted to show up as a dad. Probably the most eloquent way to describe this, I figured out only a few of months ago was the line “My father showed me how to live”. I’m thinking about getting it tattooed on my arm and use it as a decision making framework. Is this how I want to show my son how to live?
So doing the hard work and going after each opportunity will send him a more powerful message than if I didn’t. I want him to explore opportunities, be curious and discover what he likes. I don’t want society or my voice in his head holding him back. It’s much better if I lead by example.
Can you describe a breakthrough that you're particularly proud of?
A breakthrough that I'm particularly proud of is actually starting to commercialise the knowledge that I’ve gained from the podcast, physiotherapy work and my management studies. Suddenly everything’s clicked and I can put all of these disparate parts of my life together to create something cool. There’s been a lot of thought and conceptualising behind it. Throwing ideas out there in an uncomfortable fashion actually creates possibilities for yourself. I'm running a workshop in Gisbon for the District Health Board (Dec 2019). It’s massively exciting to be sharing these concepts with allied health professionals to improve outcomes for people from a health perspective.
What do you see as being your biggest lesson?
Good things take time and hard work. To stick at them for a long time you actually have to enjoy what you're doing. It's all well and good to be passionate, but most people don't even know where to start. So, it's about being curious, trying a few things and figuring out what you like. Then work at it for a while, be patient and put in the hard work. Who knows what possibilities will open up for you.
“If you can continually expand your comfort zone by doing harder things, sooner or later, you grow beyond the point of “where the magic happens”.”
Has your vision always been clear and how has it evolved?
To begin with, the vision was scratching my own itch.."Can I get a little bit better at doing hard stuff myself?”
Is it a concept that can go places? 261 episodes in, I believe it has legs.Three and a half years later and I’m asking is this something that has the potential to sustain me and my family? What other possibilities are there that I can create and deliver this information to people. There’s a hundred that I've thought of and probably thousands that I haven’t.
The vision is definitely bigger. I think if you talk to me in another three and a half years, the vision will be bigger again. Like an expanding cloud. And that's how I view your comfort zone as well. If you can continually expand it by doing harder things, sooner or later, you grow beyond the point of “where the magic happens”.
What would you do differently if you had to start again from scratch?
I don't think I'd do a whole lot differently. I’d try and be a little bit more patient with the journey, realising I’m in this for the long haul. But all of my mistakes and challenges have shaped my path, teaching me some lessons along the way.
Here’s a challenge for you. Take ten or fifteen minutes and just write down some things that you're curious about or like to try. Then pick one of them and book time to go out, try it and see if you like it. If you do, keep doing it. If you don't like it, that’s cool too. Now you know and you can try something else.
Connect with Chris
If you have enjoyed this article and want to start a conversation with Chris, you can reach out by:
Listen to the Uncomfortable is OK podcast: Apple Podcasts | Stitcher Radio | Spotify
Website: chrisdesmond.nz
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chris-desmond-44057852
Please don’t forget to tell Chris that I sent you.
Interview and photography by Wellington Headshot Photographer, Tim Morrison (all rights reserved)