The opposite of fear!

The opposite of being afraid isn’t being un-afraid.

I train hundreds of people each year in designing and delivering presentations and in public speaking … and the most common question I get asked is “How do I stop myself being afraid”? To me that’s missing the point.

The opposite of being fearful is being brave; and being brave is about having the fear and doing the damn thing anyway. I’m not suggesting that potential public speakers should be quaking in their boots and not sleeping for weeks before the big day, but there are a couple of points I’d like to make.

Firstly, fear is a good thing – at least when you’ve got it under control; more specifically, anxiety (on the fear spectrum!) is a good thing because it gives your performance an edge. Without it I’ll lay good odds that your presentations will be dull, uninteresting, possibly smug, and certainly less effective.

Secondly, there’s a lot of rubbish talked about ‘stage fright’. Stage fright is a genuine phobia – it’s horrid and it’s debilitating. All too often when we talk about SF, we’re refering to perfectly normal levels of anxiety – after all, standing up in front of strangers and telling them what you’re thinking is frightening.

So where do these two ideas get me? Well, personally I’d argue that between the two of them they suggest that the important thing isn’t to remove the fear altogether but rather to mitigate it – to reduce it so that it’s not debilitating but useful instead.

There are dozens of techniques for dealing with fear and I’d like to (re-)draw attention to a recording of a teleseminar I recorded a couple of years ago. It was a bit of an experiment but despite the sound quality being only okay (rather than great) the content is hopefully helpful. Enjoy.

The MP3 is here and the slides to go with it are here.