PEPPER PIKE, Ohio — Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Just contemplating that thought can make one feel a bit anxious.
For one man, however, that resolution has become a way of life. It has made a world of difference in the life of Pepper Pike resident Scott Simon and, through his work and website ScareYourSoul.com, for people in countries around the world.
In 2022, Simon’s book “Scare Your Soul,” was published, and its success means that Hachette Book Group is preparing for a December, 2024 release, a paperback edition.
Simply put, Simon is telling people to face their fears and then enjoy the feelings that follow of self-confidence and of truly living life.
Anyone who thinks Simon had a head start in the confidence game would be greatly mistaken.
In telling his story, Simon recalls a moment in the fourth grade that negatively impacted his life for the next 35 years.
At the time Siomn was a member of his school’s choir and a substitute teacher was leading the group through its rehearsal.
“I was 10 years old and the shortest boy, which meant I was on the lowest riser — if you remember choir concerts would be (arranged) by height,” Simon said.
Lacking confidence and wishing to merely blend in with the other singers, Simon became anxious when given at the rehearsal of “The Music Man” number “Seventy-six Trombones” a line to sing solo.
During a couple of run-throughs, Simon could not sing the line. He choked up to the point that he couldn’t make a sound.
The teacher admonished him, telling Simon he had a “terrible voice” and that he should just mouth the words the others sang for the rest of the school year.
Taking these harsh words to heart, Simon said, “That was a really defining moment because somebody said something to me in a very heated moment when he was upset with me that stuck with me for decades.
“I did what he told me, mouthed the words, literally. That was kind of a metaphor for my early life — I was just mouthing the words.
“I was just trying to get by, stay safe and hoping something would change.”
Educated in the Orange Schools system through 10th grade, and a graduate of Gilmour Academy, Simon describes himself in those years s as the quiet kid in the back of the room. At one point, he said, a teacher had noticed him eating alone regularly in the cafeteria and kindly took action.
“She created a, quote, study hall, in her office just for one person, and it was me,” he said. “It was so I had a place to eat lunch that was not alone in the cafeteria.”
After graduating college, the introverted 21-year-old Simon was working the alternative music aisle in the Camelot Music store at Golden Gate Shopping Center, still living a behind-the-scenes life, when he received an offer to travel to Israel to teach English to Holocaust survivors.
“I suspect my father was concerned about me and arranged the (offer),” he said. After some thought, Simon thought it necessary to challenge himself and take on the job in Israel.
“As I was on the plane waiting to take this long flight I had an anxiety attack,” he recalls. He couldn’t get off the plane, so, with self-doubt in his mind, he was already making plans on how, once he landed in Israel, to immediately return home.
It was while waiting for takeoff, however, that he pulled out a pen and the Meade spiral notebook he bought for the trip and, in a panic, wrote Roosevelt’s quote.
Upon landing in Israel, he followed Roosevelt’s advice and for the next year began to shed his self-doubt and become more accustomed to taking chances and seeing them as opportunities.
As he did so, Simon found that he was making friends.
One of his go-to acts of discomfort was, and remains, buying a stranger a cup of coffee.
“I don’t just buy them coffee, I also have a conversation with them.” He admits that approaching a stranger to buy them coffee does start out with a little anxiety, but most every time results in a friendly conversation with someone who appreciates his offer.
“That changed my life while I was in Israel — doing one thing every day that scared me.”
“Scare Your Soul” by Scott Simon will be issued in paperback in December.Jeff Piorkowski
Never forgetting the incident with the substitute choir instructor, Simon took action 35 years after it had occurred. At age 45, he went to a busy restaurant on a Sunday morning, armed with his guitar, and sang outside for the people standing in line waiting to get in.
At the Inn on Coventry, 2785 Euclid Heights Blvd. in Cleveland Heights, Simon sang Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer.” He said some people were annoyed because he wasn’t all that good, but others lifted his spirits by applauding.
“The Inn on Coventry is one of those restaurants on a Sunday morning, if you know it, they have this incredible brunch crowd — and that was part of it, ‘What’s crowded?’ Because if you’re going to do it, let’s do it. My sister came and, after I started, joined in singing with me, which was really special.
“When you have something that has hung on your shoulder a long time, and then you do something about it and it dissolves in minutes, it is just this incredible feeling of power and freedom and joy all rolled into one. That’s how it felt for me.”
He posted his singing experience online and it went viral, drawing responses from around the globe.
After 35 years, Simon felt he had gotten back his voice.
In recent years, Simon, now 55, has traveled the world as a speaker and high-performance coach specializing in creating flourishing lives.
His Scare Your Soul philosophy even paid off when it came to writing the book. An editor from Hachette, a top publisher, heard of him and his work and contacted Simon about writing a book.
He, at first, dismissed that email as fake because other authors had told him the hardest part about writing a book is finding a publisher.
Three days after getting that email, and after conferring with an author who told him he would be nuts to turn down an offer from Hachette, he contacted the editor and found the offer was on the level. He was given seven months to write 70,000 words.
Calling himself an “average student” while growing up, Simon was also delighted to have his work validated by being asked by Gilmour Academy to deliver a commencement address — another challenge he took on as a life adventure.
When asked about a couple of memorable stories his Scare Your Soul movement has brought about, he tells of 52-year-old woman, a nurse and cancer survivor who grew up in Beverly Hills, but who moved as an adult to Cleveland.
“She always wanted to be a cheerleader,” Simon said. Putting aside what others may think — an important part of scaring one’s soul — the woman contacted Shaker Heights High School and, for part of one Saturday afternoon, was permitted to live out her dream.
“She sat in the stands for the rest of the game (after leading cheers), and people lined up to talk with her. They told her how she inspired them to do what they really wanted.”
Another woman told Simon via email that she had given birth to a “Scare Your Soul baby.” This woman challenged herself to have a difficult conversation with her husband about their dissolving marriage. The husband agreed with the woman’s belief that they should get a divorce.
After awhile, the then-single woman learned that her former high school boyfriend had moved back to her town. They reconnected, married and had a baby.
Simon estimates he has received emails from “Scare Your Soul” followers and doers in 50-60 countries.
The book “Scare Your Soul” is subtitled “7 Powerful Principles to Harness Fear and Lead Your Most Courageous Life.” Those principles include gratitude, adventure, energy, curiosity, awe, forgiveness and work. The book also discusses, among other things, ways of harnessing fear and thoughts of failure.
Although it may sound exhausting to come up with a daily scary challenge, Simon said it can be as simple as text messaging someone who has drifted out of one’s life and writing that you are thinking about that person and wishing them well.
“Without getting too high-falutin about it, so many of us are told by people in authority that we’re not enough,” Simon said. “You know, we’re not good enough or smart enough — we’re not enough.
“And those things can stick with you for a long time, and it did for me, until after an amazing experience in Israel that changed my life — doing one thing every day that scared me. It’s confronting those things and stepping into moments of courage that really transform us. And it totally transformed me, and my life.”
In addition to ScareYourSoul.com, information about Simon can be found at scottsimon.us and at Instagram.comScareYourSoul.