The Discomfort Zone

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We live in a world that shrinks from discomfort – but our reluctance to step out of the comfort zone comes at a price.

We inhabit a culture where children are routinely protected from struggle and failure, a time when our academic institutions incubate students from challenging ideas and where we bubble wrap ourselves in an online world where we need only ever bump up against the opinions and world views that sit ‘comfortably’ with our own. But the cost of this ‘comfortable’ world is devastating, argues Farrah Storr, the award-winning editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine.

Storr visits the RSA to examine how discomfort – the very thing modern culture teaches us to shirk from – is, in fact, the secret sauce to success.
Using examples from her own life as well as men and women at the top of their careers (including Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, Gold-medal winning athletes and award-winning performers) Storr explains how forcing ourselves out of the comfort zone is the key to creativity and a fearless, successful life.