When my dear friend and the amazing comedian, Joan Rivers passed away, we attended her funeral in New York City. 

Afterwards, about a hundred of us were invited back to her place on Fifth Avenue.

That’s when I noticed it. 80 of the 100 people were wearing little stick pins on their lapel. And on it was a bumblebee. 

I turned to my wife, Giuliana, and I asked what was with all the bumblebees. She said, “I don’t entirely know but Joan always said that she was like a bumblebee.”

We stayed for another hour before we left, but in the back of my head, I wouldn’t—couldn't—stop thinking about it. So, when I got back to the hotel room, I did what anyone in the 21st century would do when faced with an insurmountable problem they simply can’t figure out.

I googled it. 

And that’s when it all clicked. When you enter ‘bumblebee’, the first thing that comes up is that—by all reasonable laws of physics—the bumblebee was never meant to fly. 

It’s wing to weight ratio should prohibit it from getting lift off from the ground. Meaning: everything it does, everything it is doing, shouldn’t be possible.

But here’s the thing: no one ever told the bee that. And still the bee flies.

Joan was the bumblebee. She didn’t let people tell her whether she could or could not fly. 

They all said, “Joan, you can’t host a late-night TV show. You’re a woman.” But she did it.

“You can’t sell 100 million dollars of jewelry on the home shopping network”. She did it. 

She didn’t let other people’s limitations cap what she could or could not do. And strangely, I think this is at the core of why so many of us fail.

We are the kings and queens of limiting ourselves. We’re indecisive. We have one foot on the pier, and the other foot on the boat, and we don’t know what we want to do. 

Life passes us, time burns hard, and opportunities swiftly move on. And with each moment of analysis paralysis, we don’t take advantage of the life that’s in front of us, the life we could’ve seized, right this moment.

We let our limitations paralyze us. And ultimately, those limitations are rooted in, mostly, one emotion—fear.

We’re born with only two natural fears. It’s the fear of falling, and the fear of loud noises. Every other fear we have is learned. 

The truth is that so many of us think we’re going to fail before we even have a chance to do so—or, before we even give ourselves a shot. We’re afraid we’re going to make a mistake, we’re afraid of what our colleagues are going to think, and we’re afraid of what our friends are going to say when we’re not in the room.

But this messy, complicated tangle of fears and limitations (all in our own heads) stop us. They stop us from FULLY living!

In a sense, we can all be like Joan. Truly, she actualized herself beyond the limitations.

The truth is, we all want to find that path beyond fear and do the things we love and believe in. 

Fear didn’t stop Joan. And, frankly, it doesn’t have to stop us either.

This piece is part 05 of a series called UNLEARNED: Cut the BullSh*t, Unlock Your Best Self & Find Your True Path. To read all, visit here. (If already opted-in, see your email for “START HERE” link)

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