I had another radio interview last week, this time about flexibility in the workplace and related things, and it was great fun.

There’s a sense of being enveloped in the cosy, sound-proofed acoustics of the studio, and a feeling of camaraderie with the announcer while you have the chat.

If only I could go back and tell my decade-younger self this, before my very first radio interview ever, with 2GB in 2005, not long after my first book, Wits’ End Before Breakfast! Confessions of a Working Mum, was published.

I was absolutely petrified.

It was only a phone interview from home, but I was so nervous about it, I begged my best friend to come over and be in the same house during it. I even lit a candle in an effort to stay calm. It was a pale blue, votive candle from Dusk called “Ocean Breeze”. Whenever I catch a similar scent, years later, I get palpitations!

I tried to ‘prepare’ for the interview, even though the topic was my own book—and surely I knew the subject matter. I had notes spread out (about what, I can’t remember). I was shaking. It was as though I was sitting a test and the radio host was trying to catch me out, which is the opposite of the vibe he was actually going for, which was more along the lines of a relaxed chat.

Ten years and countless radio interviews later, I love it so much that I considered doing a volunteer radio announcer’s course a couple of years ago, but didn’t make time for it. It’s on my bucket list.

If we keep showing up, we grow into the things that scare us

Which brings me to television. When I was phoned about last week’s interview with the ABC, for a split second I thought they meant television. I had palpitations. I wouldn’t be able to take my best friend onto a TV set and you probably can’t light candles around all those cables and lights. Gah! Panic, panic…

The idea of it grasped me by the collar and swung me so far out of my comfort zone I was on the verge of saying ‘no’. Then the producer clarified that we’d meet in the radio studio, and I was instantly relaxed again.

With Book #3 coming out in February 2017, there’s a chance of television in my future, and this is something I’m prepared to conquer. But even the thought of it makes me sick at the moment and writing this here is confronting.

Breathe. Breathe.

Keep showing up.

Show up again.

And eventually the comfort zone expands around the scary things.

Image of ‘stress business…‘ via Shutterstock