Fighting Fears to Unlock a World of Possibilities: Sharanya Iyer (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of Sharanya Iyer’s talk titled “Fighting Fears to Unlock a World of Possibilities” at TEDxMITAOE conference.

In this TEDx talk, travel blogger Sharanya Iyer shares her transformative journey from a traditional corporate life to a fearless, globe-trotting existence. She recounts experiences in Iran and Central Asia, emphasizing how solo travel deepened her understanding of kindness, diversity, and empathy. Iyer highlights the importance of confronting fears, not by denying their existence, but by recognizing and working through them. She illustrates this through her encounters with sharks and her decision to leave a stable job, demonstrating how embracing the unknown can lead to personal growth and fulfillment.

Iyer also discusses the role of scuba diving in her life, using it as a metaphor for exploring the depths of the subconscious and finding courage. Her message is that bravery isn’t the absence of fear, but the willingness to face and overcome it. Iyer’s talk is an inspiring call to embrace risks, pursue passion, and view the world with an open heart and mind.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Embarking on a Solo Journey

Almost exactly a year ago, with a rucksack that people often joke is almost as big as me, I was boarding a flight to a country whose regime required me to wear a hijab throughout my time there. I was embarking on a solo one-month trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran. I decided to announce the trip on my social media platforms after landing in and settling into my hostel in Tehran. There were a lot of reactions.

The comments and DMs ranged from, “Wow, you’re so brave and fearless,” to someone saying, “Poore pagal ho gaye hain aap.” Hey, at least he said aap. And someone else asked, “Why would you go alone?

What if something went wrong?” A week or so ago, I posted a video of me scuba diving with tiger sharks. Now, for those of you who don’t know, they are the ocean’s apex predators, second only to the great whites.

Confronting Fear

The video was pretty arresting. There’s footage of them coming this close to the camera. There’s eye contact before they turn around. You can see their teeth; they’re big, always hungry, and there’s about 10 to 12 of them around me, and no one’s in a cage. Again, the video garnered a lot of reactions. Some said, “Wow, dude, that’s so cool,” while someone else remarked, “You’re an idiot, you’re going to die.” And again, someone asked, “Why would you do that? What if it bit your head off?”

About five years ago, when I quit my corporate job at a cool global media company to pursue my dream of traveling full-time, the reactions, as you can guess by now, centered around, “What if you can’t earn enough to sustain this dream? What if your social media doesn’t take off? What if you don’t enjoy traveling in the long term? What if,” fill in the blanks with the worst-case scenario you can think of.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Sharanya Iyer, and some of you might know me as Truly Nomadly on the internet. You can call that my identity, my brand, my passion, and my work, all rolled into one.

Journey with Fear and Courage

And today, I’m going to talk to you about my journey with fear, courage, and everything in between. Because every time I’ve hit the road, my journey hasn’t just been about exploring, documenting, and unraveling new places and people. It’s also been about navigating fear and overcoming it. I am a content creator, a solo traveler, a scuba diver, free diver, a freelancer, and largely a one-woman army. So, very often, when people look at my unconventional life, they tend to call me fearless.

And as soon as I hear that word, I reject it, because I don’t think any of us is ever truly fearless. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. Courage is birthed when you identify your fears, recognize their source, and choose to fight through them by arming yourself with tools like knowledge and working on your skills over and over again. My biggest, most life-defining battle with fear was fought about five years ago, about 18 months before quitting my corporate career, which I’d carefully built over seven years.

Deciding to Change

My thoughts went back and forth. I prepared for it, I made plans, I canceled those plans, and I just sat with the weight of it every day because I was so afraid to leave. My thoughts were a jumble. How could I just walk away from something that I’d built so painstakingly? And what about the perks, the steady income, the team, the wonderful people who made up my team, the salary I would get on days that I wasn’t even showing up to work? And it wasn’t even like I had a nasty boss or that I felt severely overworked or underpaid.

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But at the same time, I asked myself, “Do I really have to hit rock bottom to change the course of my life?” I knew that I wasn’t motivated. I didn’t feel that passion and drive to wake up and show up every day. And I knew that I was meant for bigger things. I just knew that there was a higher purpose waiting for me.

A Catalyst for Change

So, while I was plagued by all of these conflicting thoughts, I decided to take a week off from work and go on a trek to the high mountains. Little did I know that this trek would prove to be the catalyst that would push me out of my comfort zone. In that one week of digital detox, I had a lot of time to myself. There were comfortable silences, my thoughts, and the snow-capped mountains all around me.

And the sheer magnificence began to shrink my fears. In that one week, the mountain taught me so many lessons and showed me my place and the importance of living in the present. We were a bunch of strangers who’d come together with one goal. We would wake up every day and march with intent towards this one final destination, the summit.

And of course, we’d stop on the way for like snow fights and lakeside picnics and fruit picking, and there were so many conversations, and it was all just magical. But on the final day, we woke up huddled inside our tents to a raging snowstorm. That final destination, that summit, was left unconquered. We couldn’t make it to the end.

Life’s Biggest Lessons

And you know, that’s when I realized that I actually lived and internalized one of life’s biggest lessons. I had tasted the magic of the journey, even if the destination didn’t come to fruition. I realized the importance of working on what made me happy today, rather than saving and working towards a distant future that I may or may not even have. I had actually lived the answer to the question, “What if you don’t make it to the summit?”

You know, this big end goal that always dictates most of our biggest life decisions. Yeah, so what if it doesn’t get achieved? Are you going to give up on the journey, the beautiful lessons you make, the friendships, the triumphs, the learnings, and all the fun you can have on the way? So, I got back to the city, reassessed my life, and within a few months, I quit that job to pursue this dream of mine that makes me jump out of bed on most mornings and makes me want to really work my butt off to achieve my goals.

Changing Perspective

“What if I fail,” turned into, “So what if I fail, I’ll work towards plan B.” “What if this doesn’t end the way I want it to,” turned into, “So what if this ends differently, but still gives me the biggest satisfaction I feel right now?” I recognized that these negative what-ifs were thought patterns that were inhibiting my growth and my drive to chase my dreams because I was so afraid of failing, falling, and never being able to bounce back. Fear had been dictating the course of my life, and that had to change.

I had to rewrite the code from, “What if I fall,” to, “Oh my darling, but what if you fly?” Much like Erin Hanson had said in her poem. And it is this very code switch from what-if to so what, that became the idea that changed my life. To acknowledge fear, make the choice to fight it, and to stop viewing my life only through the lens of the negatives and the what-ifs and the worst-case scenarios.

Shedding the Weight of Expectations

And so, once I quit my job, I realized that I had begun to shed the weight of these expectations and these questions and anxieties, and I noticed that my march became that much lighter, faster, and quicker. Which is not to say that we must stop assessing risks and romanticize courage to the point of, like, unprepared risk-taking. That is not what I’m saying. What I do now, though, is I ask myself at every step of the way, “How can I make myself a stronger opponent to my fears?”

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What tools can I employ to diminish them? Knowledge, personal experience, and facts. “Jaws” is a movie that is based on fiction, not fact. As someone who dives frequently, I now know that humans do not form a part of shark diet. I know that for every hundred million sharks killed every year, only about seven to eight humans are killed by shark attacks. That too, because they felt provoked or threatened by us, not because they want to feed on us.

In fact, do you know that you’re more likely to die by falling coconuts, cow attacks, crossing the road, home improvement tools? If anything, humans are more dangerous to sharks than they are to us. We hunt them for their fins, amongst many other things. Shark fin soup is a delicacy in many parts of the world. I can’t say this for sure, of course, but I imagine that sharks must be having their own TEDx talks underwater, wondering, looking at us humans, pointing at us and saying, “Stay away from them. They’re dangerous.”

So, knowledge and fact can really help you diminish your fears, if not completely eradicate them. There’s been no better place to continue learning than in the global classroom, where I often travel solo. I listen, I learn, and I unlearn continuously from my own experiences and those of the people around me.

An Unexpected Encounter in Iran

On my last evening in Iran, I was about 10 minutes from catching the last ferry out of this remote island to go to this small airport town from where I would be boarding my flight back to Dubai. I got out of my tuk-tuk to rush to the supermarket to get some cash for my driver, and I was blissfully unaware that my phone had fallen out of my pocket. A woman tapped me on my shoulder and came and placed this phone on my palm. It was a relatively new, expensive phone, and the screen was shattered, punctured at various points. The phone was dead and unresponsive.

I stood dumbstruck in shock. My thoughts began to whirl. The ferry was going to leave in five minutes. If I miss that ferry, I’m going to miss that flight. All my tickets are on that phone, and all of those stories that I’ve painstakingly documented to tell the world about Iran and change its narrative were potentially gone. The Couchsurfing host who was hosting me in that town, his contact and address were on that phone, and that town had no hotels. Where was I going to stay? What was I going to do?

A Community of Helpers

One lone tear began to fall down my cheek, and I was just completely shaken, but I vaguely registered that there were a lot of people gathering around me. This crowd was jumping into action. A few of them came, they gave me some water, dried my tears. One guy ran ahead to tell the ferry, “Wait for this girl, do not leave.”

Another guy managed to communicate with me through my haze, and he said, “Okay, do you have a spare phone?” And he took that spare old iPhone that I happened to have, charged it up, synced contacts over my SIM card, called that Couchsurfing host who said, “Don’t worry, I will come and pick her up. Tell her not to worry.” Said one stranger to another stranger about a strange little girl who’d come all the way from India and was crying.

The ferry waited 20 minutes for me. After a fully charged phone reached my hands, they gave me some fruits, biscuits, and lots of hugs and kisses from all the older women, and I was finally off. I realized that I had entered this strange country all alone, and I’d left as a daughter to so many.

An Encounter in Uzbekistan

On another evening in Uzbekistan, after eating my dinner, I realized that I was being followed. I was on a solo dinner date with myself in the beautiful city of Samarkand, and I thought, “Okay, chalo, I’ll just take a stroll back to the hostel. I know my way. I’ll digest my food, la-la-la,” and I start walking, and about 5-7 minutes in, I realized that I’m in a pretty empty street, and I’m being followed. Because I recognized the face, it was this guy who was at that restaurant.

I began to panic. “Relax,” I told myself, “it’s only 8pm, if you need to scream, just scream.” And then I started overthinking, “Am I suddenly walking too fast, or have I suddenly slowed down? Can he see that I’ve changed my pace? What is he gonna do next?” Then I told myself, “Okay, you know what, that tripod that I roam around with, I’m gonna use that as my weapon against him if something happens.” But the very next second, I realized that my tripod was not on me. By this time, he’s come super close, he’s touched my arm, and I turn around in terror, and I’m all set to scream when I see his face.

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There’s a smile on it. And no, it’s not that sinister, creepy, “Ha, I gotcha” smile, but a really warm and kind one, followed by, “Salam, this yours?” I looked down, and there it was. That missing tripod was in his hand, and suddenly everything made sense. He was huffing and panting and heaving because he must have run after me to return that tripod. He didn’t have to, but he did. And that day, my fears weren’t crushed by me, but they were crushed by someone else nonetheless. The same fear that so many women now live with when you want to step out into the night, when you want to go travel alone, there’s a lot of what-ifs going through your head.

Tips for Solo Travelers

And as an experienced solo traveler myself, I just want to give you a few tips. Always make sure you know your route when you’re going somewhere all alone, download offline maps, obviously don’t stay out alone too late all by yourself in a new place, and make sure that there’s at least one person who knows about your whereabouts. But beyond that, know that the world is not as terrible as the news stories make it out to be. Know that there’s so much kindness and compassion just waiting to be showered on you if you only took that step.

Embracing the Unknown in Travel

Travelling, especially solo, and especially to these relatively challenging and unknown places like Iran and the Stans of Central Asia, has taught me to dig deep into the unknown. This big unknown that I used to fear, I now actively pursue and seek it, because that is where I’ve been given the gift of kindness, clarity of thought, diversity in perception, and so much compassion and empathy. And that is what I live for. Another discipline that really helps me battle my fears is scuba diving.

Now, every time we go into the ocean to 20 to 30 meters, us divers come back and stop at the 5-meter depth mark, for what is called the safety stop. This is where we hang in the ocean, suspended in the deep blues for about 3 minutes to give our lungs some time to dispel the nitrogen they’ve absorbed. So while that happens and the body is doing what it’s doing, this is the point at the end of the dive when my mind slowly begins to shift back into the reality above the surface. The surface of the ocean and the surface of my mind, where most of my realities, my rational thoughts, my tasks, to-do lists, and fears exist.

The Power of the Subconscious

Ironically though, the deeper I sink into the unknown, the more light I’ve come to find. Because below the surface of my conscious mind lies the power of my subconscious, where there are rich reserves of ideas, courage, action, lying dormant, just waiting to be unlocked. And this travel that I do, this constant travel between the surface and the deep, between the known and the unknown, that’s where I’ve realized my courage comes from. That’s when I assess risks better, and that’s when I know how to take these decisions that I do.

A Life of Exploration and Bravery

Because with one foot firmly rooted in reason and the other ever so ready to explore, I’ve taken giant strides and leaps of faith to live this beautiful life that I’m living today. So, to that guy who said, “Pure pagal ho gaye hain aap,” I just want to say, “Are bhai, abhi toh kaafi bagalpan baaki hai.” So, go ahead and dive below the surface, seek those possibilities that are lying, waiting to be unlocked, because the world belongs to the brave.

Thank you.