My driving phobia (and what it’s got to do with your content)

IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!

:: 00:00

I'm Janet Murray. And I recently left my car at a service station, 60 miles away from home and called my husband to collect me because I was too anxious to drive home. What has this got to do with your content? Find out in this short podcast episode, this isn't easy for me to share, but last month I left my car at a service station,

:: 00:21

60 miles away from home and called my husband to collect me because I was too anxious to drive home. Now I wouldn't describe myself as an anxious person, but driving anxiety is something that has affected me on and off for most of my adult life. And I've noticed it's something that raises its head when life is feeling particularly stressful. So when this particular incident took place,

:: 00:44

I was weeks away from a big online offense. There were quite a few stresses going on in my business and I was just failing fast, getting burnt out. So why am I sharing this with you on my podcast, which is about courageous content? Well, after that incident, I decided enough was enough. Driving is really important to me because it represents my freedom,

:: 01:08

particularly as a woman. And while I've wanted to stop many, many times before on the mater way. It's the first time I actually have an event like a turning point for me. I recognize that if I didn't do something about it, I may never drive on a motorway. Again. I also recognized that what was holding me back was kind of silly,

:: 01:30

but not silly at the same time. And by the way, if you'd rather not hear about the car accident I was involved in, you may want to stop this episode and listen to a different one because I do have a genuine reason for feeling anxious at the wheel. I was involved in a terrible car accident. The bit that makes me feel silly about it is that it was 26 years ago.

:: 01:55

But after I shared with you, what happens? I think you'll probably understand why maybe it's not as silly as I think so. Back in July, 1995, I was traveling home from work. I was a passenger in a car with my dad. My dad was driving and over the summer holidays, I used to do holiday work at an insurance company where my dad worked.

:: 02:16

We were driving home. We were really close to home, but five to 10 minutes on a busy jewel way at rush hour and a lorry moved into our lane, clipped the back of our car, which flipped us right into the path of the lorry side-on. And I can very clearly remember looking up, seeing the great of the lorry right next to my face and thinking I'm going to die.

:: 02:44

The wheels on our car buckled. And we started to roll and the car rolled across two lanes of traffic. It landed at the side of the road, halfway up a steep bank, miraculously, the right way up and even more miraculously. When the car came to a standstill, my dad just turned to me and very calmly said, let's get out of the car in case it goes on fire.

:: 03:12

I walked out of that car as did my dad completely shocked, but as I sat down at the side of the road, I started to feel that my neck was hurting. And given the fact that when people are involved in an accident like that shock and often mask the injuries when the ambulance arrived on the scene, because it was such a serious accident that the ambulance were called,

:: 03:40

their decision was taken to fly me to the hospital in an ambulance. After extensive checks, it was decided that I just had severe whiplash and I spent a very uncomfortable night in hospital, but I was completely traumatized by the experience. I had a lot of flashbacks and a lot of fear. I didn't travel as a passenger in a car for quite some time afterwards.

:: 04:08

And for many years after I was still very nervous as a passenger because the lobby driver was at fault. I got quite a sizeable insurance compensation payout, and I use that to learn to drive because I didn't have my driving license at the time I had, I couldn't even tell you how many lessons I had, but I had a lot. And I had previously tried to learn to drive.

:: 04:29

When I was younger at school had found it very difficult, all the different coordination skills. I remember my driving instructor saying, I don't know why you can't drive, but you read actually, I don't know why you're finding it so difficult to drive. I pick you up from that grammar school, academic school every single day. I don't understand why you're finding it difficult to learn to drive.

:: 04:50

So it was really hard. I had three tests and I'm sure I'm not exaggerating. When I say hundreds of lessons, I was really nervous on my tests. I would be fine beforehand, and then I'd get nervous and make a mistake. But eventually after three tests I did pass, but then I had three minor accidents and some quite traumatic experiences in my first six months of driving.

:: 05:13

So as you can probably imagine, all of that does take its toll, but actually I did a lot of driving in my first five years or so. And most of the time I've been okay. I've had the odd period where I've got a bit nervous, but most of the time I've been okay and I've been able to keep on top of it and I've wanted to keep on top of it.

:: 05:34

But this time it felt different because I felt really strongly that if I didn't take action, there was a chance I would never drive on a motorway again. So I did something I wouldn't normally do. I shared what happened. I shared the story of me leaving in the car at service station on social media. And I asked if anybody else out there had had experience of driving anxiety,

:: 05:57

phobia, and what had helped for them. And I got so many comments of support, so many suggestions of things that I might want to look into. I think the danger sometimes when you post something like that is you do get a lot of coaches offering to treat you, which is unethical. And you kind of have to put up with that, but there was some really good stuff in there that I've since looked into.

:: 06:23

Now. I'm not saying that social media is where you should go to, to get advice on complex issues like this. But what I am saying is that where you feel comfortable, you shouldn't feel afraid of sharing more personal experiences in your content of sometimes being vulnerable about the parts of your life, where maybe you haven't got everything together. I may well have a successful multi-six-figure business,

:: 06:46

but get me behind the wheel of a car and things look quite different, indeed, because even if you've never suffered from driving phobia or anxiety, you have almost certainly experienced anxiety about something. It may well be something that doesn't trigger anxiety in me like public speaking, or spiders or going on the underground. But that doesn't mean I can't relate to your anxiety or you to mine.

:: 07:12

Now, just to be clear, this isn't about you being sensational with your content or sharing personal experience, just for clicks. It's about bringing your audience closer to you and you to them through shared emotions, shared experiences, because when we can relate, it's much easier for us to connect. Being vulnerable requires bravery, especially if you're not used to doing it in your content,

:: 07:38

but it can be really powerful and also genuinely helpful to your audience to help people know that they're not alone. The number of people who posted on my post to say they were so grateful to know they weren't the only person who was either suffering or had suffered at some point in the past. It's reassuring to know that we're not alone. So my challenge to you is to think about whether you're being vulnerable in your content and whether there's anything you could share that would be helpful to your audience that would help bring them closer to you and do to them.