Description
Most of us wait for certainty before we move. We assume clarity will arrive first and tell us the right moment to act.
But the decisions that shape our lives rarely arrive with guarantees.
Forward Anyway explores what it means to move responsibly when certainty is absent. Drawing on lived experience from business leadership, endurance challenges, and everyday decision-making, Ian Lydiard reflects on how fear can become a guide rather than a barrier.
This is not a book about eliminating fear.
It is about learning to walk with it.
Who this book is for
People facing career decisions, change, disappointment, leadership pressure, family concerns, personal uncertainty or a new beginning.
What you will take from it
A clearer relationship with fear, a practical way to make decisions without guarantees, and a stronger understanding of what it means to take the next responsible step.
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From Forward Anyway: when certainty is absent
I want to tell you about a night when fear and I stood face to face. Not so you’ll admire the storm, but so you’ll know you don’t have to face yours alone.
It was one of those nights where everything narrows. The sea was wild, waves rising and crashing around us, the kind that don’t give you time to think.
The yacht, Seaulater, shuddered with every hit. The rigging screamed. The wind tore through the dark night. Salt burned my eyes. Cold water ran down my back where the wet weather gear stopped doing its job. My hands were numb as I worked the ropes. They were aching but still moving because they had to.
Fear was everywhere that night.
I was on deck at 2am with the helmsman and two other crew. The helmsman called out to me not to look around. I did and felt my chest tighten; my voice caught in my throat and my legs weakened as I clung to the lifeline.
I saw a massive wave roll down over the yacht. I felt the wave pushing me down and across the yacht with just the safety harness stopping me from going overboard. Shouted words disappeared into the wind, so we had to rely on instinct, on the trust that forms when people work side by side under pressure.
Below deck, the rest of the crew braced themselves, waiting for the next impact.
Out on the water, control is an illusion. The ocean held all the power. All we could do was stay together, keep working, and not give in.
It was 1993, during the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. It was brutal.
But I realised something unexpected.
Fear didn’t break me. It focused me. It kept me present. It reminded me to respect the sea, to respect my limits, and to take care with every decision I made.
That night taught me something I want to share with you: fear isn’t always something to escape. Sometimes it’s something to work with. Sometimes it’s doing its best to protect you, to keep you awake to what matters.
This book comes from that understanding. It isn’t here to tell you to be fearless. That’s not real, and it’s not helpful. It’s here to sit with you, to help you notice fear, understand it, and gently turn it into something useful.
Awareness. Care. Courage.
Forward movement.
Fear will continue to show up in life, usually right when important things are asking something of you. When it does, I hope you’ll remember this: you don’t need to get rid of fear to move forward. You just need to stop letting it lead on its own.
If this book can feel like a steady voice beside you, one that’s been through storms and come out the other side, then it’s done what I hoped.
Because fear can be redirected and when it is, it doesn’t hold you back.
Bravery, like the wind in Seaulater’s sails, will always carry you forward.
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Forward Anyway: when certainty is absent