Sometimes all it takes is a moment of insane courage.

Everyone has a story of a moment when they had insane courage.

Usually I'm loathe to talk about my artistic pursuits, they are too deeply personal, but I think this story is worth telling:

I was living in Sydney on the beautiful northern beaches, a friend of mine invited me to a spectacular harbour-side restaurant where he and a few artists were going to be having dinner. Sounds great. Then he told me that there was going to be a jazz band, lead by one of the best jazz saxs players in Sydney, Andy Firth, terrific, I love jazz, then he said “you could sing a tune with the band if you like”.

Well, that threw my nervous system into overdrive, I was terrified, excited, terrified and did I say terrified, every ounce of me wanted to run and hide, but I said to myself: “Dale, I will never forgive you if you don’t do this.” 

So then I drove to the Blue Mountains, as you do, to a brilliant jazz pianist I knew, Bobby Gebert, to rehearse my favourite jazz tune, then drove back to the northern beaches to get ready then drove into the city in time for the dinner. 

There I was sitting with these well known artists and I was terrified, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t make conversation, someone even asked, kindly: “What’s wrong with you?” I said I was nervous about singing. They probably thought then why do it.

Max Cullen the legendary actor, sat opposite jet-lagged from returning from the U.K. and he said to me: “You’ll be ok, just pretend you're singing just to me.”

So I walk up to the stage in a daze, Andy asks me what song I was going to be singing and I say “Black Coffee” he knows it, but the piano player doesn’t which doesn’t fill me with confidence. I think great, I may not even know when to start singing.

Then it happened I’m standing there, imagining that I’m standing in my bedroom, Andy plays a sublime lead in and I sang, and it was extraordinary, sublime, incredible like flying, soaring, gliding and when I come back to the table everyone congratulates me big time, telling me how I had nailed it, and Max became a friend for life.

Pure bliss is on the other side of pure terror.

Everyone’s terror is different but when we take it on, there is bliss on the other side. And it is up to us to support each other to take it on and experience the bliss. That's really living.

I’d love to hear about your stories of insane courage and……

What could you do today that would scare you and stretch you? Whatever it is, big or small I encourage you to go ahead and just do it!

Let me know what you choose and how it goes. I'm in your corner all the way!