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HOW TO BEAT FEAR

efore you can even think about talking in public, fi rst you
Bmust deal with the enemy within: anxiety, self-doubt, stage
fright, and all the other little bugaboos that in varying degrees
plague most human beings. Not everybody experiences fear of tak-
ing the floor. But for those who do, performance anxiety can be a

major roadblock, and we’ve got to find a way around it.

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The good news is that fear is not all bad. Fear is the mind’s wake-up
call: a way to make you more alert, responsive, and fi ne-tuned for
action. Fear is part of human nature, altogether natural, and to be
expected. But out of control, fear can overwhelm and paralyze. Utter
fear is utterly debilitating, and we must avoid it. The trick is to shape
fear and anxiety into a tool put to our good use.
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In other words, we don’t want to get rid of the butterfl ies entirely.

As a friend of mine puts it, we just want them to fly in formation and
that requires an attitudinal adjustment.
Of course, the best way to conquer fear is to make the same
speech one hundred times. But let’s assume that making the same
speech over and over is not a likelihood for most of us. Outside of

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