Countering fear

In the modern world, there’s really not much to be scared of. If you have the discipline to keep yourself away from the 24 hour news cycle (and are born into a relatively average amount of privilege), very rarely will anything happen in your life that could be described as genuinely frightening.

Our brains, of course, love to invoke all of the feelings and emotions we’re capable of (I think this is the source of appeal of the horror/thriller genre of movies), and thus with a lack of things to be really scared of, we allow ourselves to start getting scared of other rather more benign things instead.

Like talking to ten people at once.

Talking.

To ten people.

Is that scary?

Really?

"In any given moment, we have two options: to step forward into growth, or to step back into safety”—Abraham Maslow

Public speaking, more than almost any other skill, has the potential to magnify your impact and supercharge your career.

As Seth Godin says: “If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.”