Don’t Let Them Stop You

Seth Godin in his book “Linchpin” wrote classic quotes from resistance:

• “I don’t have any good ideas”
• “I don’t know what to do”
• “I didn’t graduate from …”
• “My boss won’t let me”
• “well, that’s find for you, but my gender, race, health, religion, nationality, shoe size, handicap, or DNA don’t make it easy”

Have you every heard that before? That voice in your head which stops you from doing something, changing something? I bet every each of us can add more quotes to that. The question I have is:

and what will you do about that?

Will you stop or will you try to find solution? Every time I’m going to provide presentation I feel 2 things:

• that I will have heart attack –> I think I’m not good enough | I don’t know enough | they will laugh at me. It’s not easy to do anything when you feel something like that, right?
• it’s great (not the heart attack) to be there are talk to people about something I love

Do you feel that you need to struggle and fight with that fear (called “the Lizard brain“)

Urban myth says if you poll a room for people’s greatest fears, the first will be speaking in public and the second will be fear of death. This phenomenon is not lost on the Lizard Brain. Concerned with its own survival, the Lizard Brain has adopted a role as counselor for our social survival. It remembers when we ‘crashed and burned’ in a social situation. It remembers the teacher who singled us out and made us look foolish in front of the class. But the Lizard Brain is not known for its finesse. In the Lizard Brain’s world, things are pretty black and white, and never our fault. This makes it a poor consul for the colorful stratosphere of human relationships.

I ask myself: How people react during and after my presentations? Answer (so far): good, they are happy, we talk, the discussion is interesting. I’m happy that I did it. But before the presentation (public speaking) – wow, I thought my heart will run out of my chest. After all, when I’m driving home or to the office after the presentation I giving myself a short feedback: what was good and what should I improve and unfortunately there is always the same part –> “why, ohh why was I so scared? There was no reason for that fear.”

…so what to do?

Don’t stop, try every time. Even if we feel that fear, we should try to fight it. We are in charge here, the Lizard won’t win this time. It’s me and my presentation/or whatever I do, and I can and will control it. It’s my success, my life – and some small/not important “Lizard brain” won’t win!

I need to repeat that over and over and over again, sometimes it works, sometimes not – but I won’t stop.