My Friend, Fear

In our society we are taught to be afraid of feeling fear.  Fear is not something to be afraid of.  It is just an emotion.

Fear is actually good for us - to a certain extent.

Fear is what keeps us from doing foolish things - like crossing the street without looking right and left.  Or starting our car without fastening our seat belts.  Or checking what lies beyond the precipice before we leap.

Fear only becomes a problem when we don't take the next step.  The one that takes us a step back, analyses the situation and does a basic risk management.

So when I'm asked to speak to a large crowd, my ego says "whoa - that's risky!  What if they don't like what you have to say?  What if you botch the speech?  What if....they laugh at you!?"  At which point my analytical self says "so what if they do laugh at me?  I'll probably laugh at me, too!"

Fear only becomes an issue when that emotion blocks you from doing something you would actually like to do.  Something for which there is a slight risk of being seen as being a little bit silly, a little bit foolish.  When fear becomes paralysing, that is when we feel frozen and unable to act.

But when fear is just a way to asses a situation, think through what can go 'wrong' so that you can take steps to make sure you've covered the bases?  Then fear becomes a friend.  Fear also releases stress hormones that make you more alert.  We usually call this fear 'stage fright'.  And most people who do public speaking or performance of any kind take that fear, channel it into energy and use it to springboard into a lively presentation.

So it is with this webinar in the morning.  Yes, I am a little bit afraid I will stammer and verbally stumble.  I'm a little bit afraid that the technology will not work smoothly.

But! I have had not one but two rehearsals.  I think I can handle the technology on my end.  I'm pretty sure I can speak reasonably articulately about a topic I've done live several times in various formats.  My biggest fear right now?  That I won't cover the entire topic in the time allotted.  But I've got a clock right in front of my face, I know how many slides there are and I am pretty sure I can pace myself to cover everything I can in the 60 minutes.  The seminar won't be as extensive as a 3 hour format, but that's ok.  The webinar is just meant to be a 'taste', hopefully inspiring people to find out more.  Ultimately it is a way to guide people to greater knowledge.  Because when you don't know what you don't know....you don't know that you don't know it.

Just a reminder - if you can't take the webinar live tomorrow, you can still view it in the recorded version. You get 3 months to view it as often as you like from the time you register and I will take email questions at a later date.  Registration can be done at Weaving Today

And if you think it was a good seminar, worth taking?  I do hope you'll share that opinion with your friends.

Currently reading Possession by Kat Richardson - just realized it had been a while since I included the current book