All areas ELIZA SCARBOROUGH
THe girl behind the bookshop counter has bright pink hair, a nose ring and a tattoo creeping out from under her checked shirt. ‘can i help you?’ she asks.
oh dear. i am worried this punky looking creature will laugh in my face when i tell her what i am looking for. ‘Do you have a copy of Feel The Fear and Do it anyway?’ i say. ‘You know, the self-help book?’
i wait for a look of disdain, but instead she hands me a copy and tells me she reads it at least once a year. ‘it’s my bible,’ she says.
Well, i never. i tell her i’m buying it for a friend and i’ve read it half a dozen times, too. The most unlikely of connections is made.
This self-help classic — re-issued to celebrate its 25th anniversary — has sold 15 million copies in 100 countries. now, with a fresh foreword from the author Susan Jeffers, it looks set to captivate a new generation.
But what makes it so special? Feel The Fear and Do it anyway is a self-help book for people who would never dream of picking one up — let alone live their lives by it.
Fans include actress Julie Walters, who admitted it helped her get where she is in life. ‘reading the book was a revelation,’ she said. it’s popular among powerful women, too, such as Tamara Mellon, former boss of Jimmy Choo, who says the book’s title is her motto.
its premise is that doing anything new in life is scary — and no one is immune to it. The only way to get through this is to get stuck into the things that terrify you.
The book’s title has made it into common parlance — ‘Go on, feel the fear and do it any-way!’ friends urge when you are procrastinating about asking for a pay rise, changing career or giving it all up to travel the world.
it sums up a no-nonsense ethos that can be applied to just about anything. But can a book with trite slogans really change lives?
AFriend gave it to me when i was 22 and in a job i hated. ‘read this,’ she urged. ‘it’s brilliant. it just makes you want to go out and do stuff.’
i couldn’t see what it had made her go out and do other than drink too much cheap white wine, but her enthusiasm was catching.
i read the book in one sitting. it was a revela-tion. There was something about its american ‘can-do’ attitude that really appealed to me.
ok, i can’t say i quit my job the next day, but i did two months later, despite not having another job to go to, and, indeed, no clue what i wanted to do with my life.
Two weeks later, i felt the fear and contacted everyone i knew — as well as a few i didn’t — before getting my first job in journalism.
in short, the book taught me that whether it’s public speaking, telling a friend how you feel or leaving the job you hate, you have to do the thing you are terrified of. Now! and then never look back.
Jeffers, a psychologist and mother of two from Pennsylvania, explains that the root of all our fears is basic: we fear we won’t be able to handle the situation if the worst happens. To which she has the simple reply: ‘You’ll handle it!’
Would i have walked out of that job without