Caroline shares an image from her cohort that stayed with her: “Sometimes it feels like you’re falling but you’re really flying.” She describes the optimal learning zone as one where you feel “this is a little big for me” — not safe, not reckless, but at the edge.
The practical implication is personal: the growth edge looks different for everyone. For someone who always over-prepares, the edge might be going in without notes. For someone who always talks, it might be listening. Eva frames it as doing “something you would not normally do” — the experiment of going against your habitual grain. The power isn’t in any particular behavior but in the departure from autopilot.
Caroline now describes herself as “addicted” to this edge — interviewing New York Times columnists without preparing a single question, because she trusts that something alive will emerge from presence. Joe agrees: “5% preparation serves me. 0% doesn’t. But I need to feel like it’s alive.” Both are describing a trust in the moment that can only be built by repeatedly surviving the edge.
“You have to trust yourself that you can handle going off the map.”
Related Concepts
- Embrace intensity for transformation
- Facilitating from your own edge
- Not jumping can be the bigger leap