To Florence Grisi's carefully written intro, which describes a fear that transforms without ever disappearing, Domitille opposes a decisive nuance: once the step was taken and the fall had started, her fear had completely gone. In a fraction of a second, you move from intense fear to joy. Fear therefore does not live in the action, it lives just before. That shift changes everything for anyone who has to decide, and it is what Domitille carries in her keynote “De l'Audace”.
Même pas peur · Domitille Kiger
“I am afraid, but I am going anyway”
Domitille tells the story of her first jump, as a teenager: on her knees facing the opening, strong inner resistance, because there is nothing natural about throwing yourself out of a perfectly working aircraft. There is the wanting, the curiosity, and the teenage bravado of sticking her tongue out at the camera to hide what she really feels. Under the front, one sentence sums it all up: I am afraid, but I am going anyway. That is the truest definition of a courageous decision: not the absence of fear, but moving forward with it.
A base of reason under the impulse
That step forward is nothing like a whim, though. The impulse, she explains, you give it because it is your choice, nobody forced you, and because it rests on a base of reason: you learned the position, the steps, the way to present yourself to the air. That preparation does not make the fear disappear, but it allows you to act despite it. Carried over to business, the lesson is clear: deciding in the face of risk is neither forcing yourself blind nor waiting for the fear to leave, it is leaning on what you prepared in order to take the step at the right moment.
A fear that can be tamed
Fear does not evaporate all at once, though. Domitille is honest: hers, on the jump, lasted nearly fifty jumps, decreasing gradually. No magical flip, but a progressive taming, made of acceptance and letting go. That is true of any apprehension: you do not remove the fear of a difficult decision, you reduce it by going through it, decision after decision. In time, the threshold that seemed impassable becomes just one more step.
- Fear lives just before the decision, not in the action itself.
- Deciding is not being free of fear, it is moving forward with it.
- A step taken on a base of reason and preparation, never blind.
- A fear that gets tamed through repetition, decision after decision.
This episode illustrates one of the five topics of the “De l'Audace” keynote: Risk taking in business →