Fear: It's A Brain Thing

"It is not so much what happens to you as how you think about what happens."

   Epictetus, Greek Philosopher, writing in the 1st Century

As Epictetus suggested more than 2,000 years ago, our fears are not based on the facts of a situation but on our beliefs about the situation.

Epictetus was no brain scientist but he could have been. Neuroscience confirms what Epictetus was telling us.

If you take a moment to think about a fear you have, you'll notice that just thinking about it produces an emotion from mild discomfort to outright panic. Think of walking down a dark alley alone at night. Snakes. Phone calls to people we don't know (or, sometimes, people we do know). Asking for money (or, sometimes, asking for a favor). Giving or getting feedback. Job interviews. Dying.

None of that is a problem, however, unless the thought prevents us from doing what we want to do or need to do.

For example, I've worked with people who avoid delivering presentations or won't voice their opinions or are terrified of confronting a coworker even when they know their career and their life would be enhanced if they did so. A friend's entire business is based on helping people get over their fear of making phone calls to business prospects. There are brilliant people who freeze when taking a test.

So why are we afraid? Here's the neuroscience part.

Over millions of years, our brains have evolved to make sure we survive by predicting the future. After all, if a cave man needed to go into the forest to collect nuts and berries and could predict that the noise he hears is a predator and not just the wind moving tree branches, his life will be saved by not going in the forest.

The cave man did this by comparing sights and sounds he had heard in the past to the current sights and sounds and using that data to predict whether the noise was the wind or a predator.

This is exactly what our brains are doing today, right now, this minute. We take data from the past and use that to predict what will happen in the future all in the interest of making sure we survive.

As we imagine ourselves delivering a presentation, making a phone call, taking a test or being interviewed for a job, our brains try and predict what will happen so that we can be prepared.

The problem is we can't accurately predict the future. How could we? The future, you may have noticed, hasn't happened yet.

The future may occur as we have predicted, but that's only by chance. Strategic planning experts, astrologers and investment advisers may congratulate themselves when the future turns out as they predicted, but that's only because they've taken educated guesses and been lucky. There's no way to actually know what happens until it happens (even the "Back To The Future" movies had trouble with the future and the characters knew what was going to happen). 

Sometimes we're right and the future conforms to our prediction. Sometimes we're wrong.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't plan for the future based on our predictions. Make lists of pros and cons. Consult the experts. Talk it over with those you trust. Attend seminars to practice the skills you want to use. Chance seems to favor the prepared mind.

But if chance does favor our preparation well...that's just more chance.

Why is this important? Because, when we're afraid, it helps to know that it's just the brain doing its thing.

The knowledge that we create our fears is the knowledge that there is nothing to fear.

We can't control the future. But we can control our reactions when the future comes. And our big, amazing, brains will ensure that we survive that real future.

I'm creating my fears. I'm creating my fears. I'm creating my fears.

Say that over and over instead of what you currently may be telling yourself when you're afraid.

Getting Out Of The Box Of Our Self Limiting Self Image

Have you ever seen the movie, The Girl In The Café? The movie is about the relationship between a middle aged English government official and an English woman in her mid twenties who he happens to meet in a café that he frequents.

As they become friends and then lovers, he invites her to a major meeting of diplomats from the most powerful countries in the world in Reykjavik, Iceland.

At the meeting, the diplomats discuss what these countries will commit to do financially to alleviate hunger in the world.  At a dinner for all the diplomats, the girl, quite out of turn and to the dismay of everyone, interrupts the head of the English delegation as he is addressing the group. Even though she is terrified, she is compelled to speak. She looks down at her plate, stammers and speaks quietly. But she is eloquent about the failure of the diplomats to do much more than talk without actually making commitments.

I saw a real life example of “the girl in the café” on television during an interview with Anita Hill who rose to fame (or infamy depending on your point of view) during the confirmation hearings for now Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. She was speaking at Brandeis University to an audience of several hundred.

A woman came to the microphone to ask a question. She was visibly shaking and started crying. Through her tears she said, “Please forgive my terror in speaking” and proceeded to ask Ms. Hill a question about how she found the courage to face the blistering attacks she had experienced.

After complimenting the woman on the courage it took for her to speak in front of hundreds of people, Ms Hill responded that she had often been afraid and that the source of her courage was the same as for this woman who had overcome her “terror” of speaking publicly: she felt it would be a betrayal of her authentic self not to speak.

Indeed, it takes courage for any of us to speak up especially when we suspect (or know) that we’ll be criticized. Whether we do or not will depend not on the audience and what they think but rather on whether we let our desire to maintain our self image get in the way of our authentic self.

You can get a glimpse of your self image simply by completing the sentence, “I am…” (shy, nervous, angry, loving, generous, etc.). The words you use are your self image. When your self image clashes with your authentic self, there will be inner turmoil and distress. You may want to speak up but you will be stymied by your desire to avoid looking anything other than in control.

 

I’ve helped hundreds of people create and deliver their presentations and the one question common to them all is “how do I transcend my limiting self image?” They don’t put it that way. It comes out as, “What can I do about my fear?”

A teacher in a seminar I attended called the authentic self “the you you don’t know yourself to be.” The two “yous” in that sentence are not a misprint. As inelegant as that wording may be, I think it captures what’s required to get out of the box of our self limiting self image.

Usually, when we are stopped by our fears, we recognize a familiar pattern. It’s often something that has stopped us in the past. We don’t speak up…again. We don’t contradict someone we disagree with…again. We avoid making a phone call…again.

The “you you don’t know yourself to be” is the self that knows fear will never disappear and who acts anyway. The “you you don’t know yourself to be” is the you that takes surprising risks in spite of the discomfort you feel.  

The woman who asked Anita Hill a question transcended her self image as someone who was “terrified.” The “girl” in the movie transcended her self image as just a “girl in a café.”

I was driving my car thinking about this when the Ricky Nelson song “Garden Party” came on the radio. You know the main refrain: “You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself.” That’s your authentic self, not the one that wants to look good and avoid looking bad. That’s the “you you don’t know yourself to be.”

You can strengthen your ability to express your authentic self by asking,” What will I do today that I might not otherwise do? What will I do today that represents the “me I don’t know myself to be?” 

Change Management: We Aren’t Creating A Future…We’re Recreating A Past

Have you noticed that history repeats itself? Have you noticed that today’s news is exactly the same as the news from 100 years ago? The settings for the stories have changed, but the stories are the same: What’s happening in the latest war? What scandal is grabbing our attention? How’s the economy doing?

On a personal basis, are you in a relationship where you are in conflicts that never gets resolved? Are you in a job that has grown boring because nothing ever changes? Or are you in a job where change is constant but you’re unhappy because you look into the future and can’t see how things will ever change? Have you noticed that life isn’t quite as exciting today as it was when you were 7 and hated to go to bed and couldn’t wait to wake up?

Why does our human history and our personal history keep repeating itself? It’s because we don’t really create a new future. We simply repeat the past and call that the future. Instead of creating a new future, we recreate a past that has already happened and call that the future.

Consider these decisions from the past that create our behavior in the future: We didn’t like spinach in the past, so we decide to never eat spinach again in the future. We didn’t like a ballet we went to, so we decide we’ll never go to another one in the future. We’ve been on diets, lost weight and put it on again, so we decide we’re never going to go through that frustration again in the future.  We trusted someone in the past and got burned, so we decide we’ll never trust again in the future. We resisted change in the past so we resist change in the future as well.

Change, by definition, occurs in the future. But what evidence do we tend to use to decide what to do in the future?  Don’t we, in fact, tend to look for evidence from the past and then make decisions about how we’ll behave in the future?

We look to our past experience, project that experience out into the future and imagine that the future will be just like the past. And, guess what? It usually is. In fact, the future can’t be anything other than some variation of the past. We’ve created that future by predicting it from our past. Case closed!

Now you know why history keeps repeating itself. Organizations often create futures (called “strategies”) based on the past and then live into that past...not the future. Individuals create futures (called “visions” or “dreams”) based on the past and then live into that past…not the future.

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy: We create a future based on our past and then wonder why the past is just like the future.

But to create a truly new future we have to let go of the past. It no longer exists. But we also have to recognize that the future doesn’t yet exist either. We can look back and see that we’ve created our past. What’s not as obvious to us is that we’ve already created our future by filling it up with so much of our past.

You know why the saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life” is a cliché? Because it’s so obviously accurate. But today won’t be the first day of the rest of your life is it’s already filled up with what you did yesterday.

Today, when you create your to do list, really create it. Not from your past, but from what you choose for your future.

Presentation Skills Rulebook: “Anxiety Isn’t ‘Out There,’ It’s ‘In Here’

A friend of mine produces horror movies, one of which is called, “There’s something out there.” However, when it comes to delivering a presentation, I beg to differ:  There's nothing "out there." It's all "in here."

I was on the phone with Jolene, a woman I had worked with on her presentation skills. I had been hired to help her overcome her anxiety whenever she was asked to express herself in a meeting or in a presentation. I asked her how she was doing.

“It’s getting better,” she said.

That statement, I told her, contains the explanation for why she is anxious.

Who is this “it” I asked, “That is getting better?” Jolene’s statement suggests that anxiety is an "it" that one catches like a cold. Other people I’ve worked with will echo Jolene’s comment by saying, “I got scared” as though scared was running around the room and “got” them. Still others will say that someone in the audience “made” them anxious as though an audience member held a gun and forced the person to become anxious or else.

The key to handling our anxiety is to get in touch with reality. In reality, there is no “it” getting better. In reality, there is no “scared” trying to catch us. In reality, there is no audience “making” us nervous.

In reality, there is nothing “out there”…except what we put there. If we imagine that our audience is hostile, that hostility doesn’t exist in the audience. That thought exists in us and we find evidence to confirm it “out there.” If we imagine that the audience doesn’t like us, that thought doesn’t exist in the audience, that thought exists in us and we find evidence to confirm it. If we imagine that we won’t be able to close a sale, that thought doesn’t exist in the audience, that thought exists in us and we find evidence to confirm it.

You can see this even more clearly when calling someone on the phone. As you’re about to call, notice the thoughts that are in your head about how the other person will respond when he or she answers. Whatever thought is there is clearly your fantasy, not reality.

In reality,

there is nothing between us and our audience except what we put there. I encourage people to repeat this statement many times until it becomes ingrained in their brains which is exactly how “I got scared” was implanted there in the first place.

A rut gets created in the road when many cars pass over it. Similarly, a “rut” gets created in our brains (called “neural pathways”) when we tell ourselves something over and over again. Sometimes, it only takes one such experience if the experience is sufficiently traumatic.

Anxiety is produced when fantasy trumps reality. Anxiety is created by our imaginings and our imaginings aren’t real because between us and the audience there is, in reality, nothing except what we put there. 

Presentation Skills Rules: Why You're Anxious And What You Can Do About It

“I’ll See It When I Believe It” is the title of a book by Wayne Dyer and it perfectly captures why people feel anxious when making a presentation. In fact, it represents why people feel anxious at any time.

Think about a situation where you experience anxiety. This could be on a job interview, a first date, travel to a new country or, what I am going to be mostly addressing, delivering a presentation. What exactly is making you anxious?

To understand this, you need to understand a bit of how our brains function.

Our brains are designed to ensure that we survive the future by predicting that future. When our existence depended on hunting, accurate predictions about where animals will graze ensured a food supply. If we can predict how an audience will respond to our presentation, then we can plan for how to handle that response. If we can predict the future, we can plan for any contingencies in that future.

 

Sometimes, this makes sense and works in our favor. For example, I live in Arizona. If I don’t predict that it will be cold when I travel to see my sister in Chicago in January, I’m likely to bring the wrong clothes and suffer the consequences.

On a first date, we can select a restaurant to go to and predict what we should wear. Otherwise, we might be embarrassed showing up at a fancy restaurant in a tee shirt and jeans.  

When planning for a presentation, we might find out the room we’re going to be presenting in, the people who will be there and plan for what we will say all in the interest of predicting what will happen in the future so that we can prepare.

The problem is that, in all our predicting, we can never be sure of what will happen in the future.  We can only predict based on what has happened in the past and hope that the future will be just like that. This leaves a vast landscape of the unpredictable. And since our predictions are based on the past, we bring to our awareness only the things that match our beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. Everything else gets filtered out (“I’ll see it when I believe it.”).

If, for example, we predict that an audience will be hostile, that’s what we are looking for, so even the most innocuous question might be interpreted as hostile. If we predict that we’re going to be judged negatively, then when we see two people whispering, we’ll think they’re criticizing us.  If we think that we’re unprepared, forgetting what we’re going to say even for a moment will be confirmation of how unprepared we are.

The key to successful performance in any realm whether a first date, travel or presenting, is to stay present (as in presentation skills).

There are lots of ways to do that but the easiest and most common one is to use your breath. Your breath is always in the present. You can’t breathe in the future or in the past. You can only breathe in the present.

So if you notice yourself being anxious:

Take a slow breath in and count to 3.

Exhale slowly for a count of 9.

As you exhale, say the word “relax,” or “present,” or “peace” or whatever word has meaning for you.

Do this a few times as you are setting up your slides or arranging your notes or looking for a laser pointer or remote or taking a drink (only pretend this. Don’t breathe as you drink).

 

I once saw a sign over a casino entrance that read, “You must be present to win.”

 

Exactly.

Why "Presentation Skills Rules"

Hi and Welcome.
This blog is called "Presentation Skills Rules" for two reasons:

1. There are rules to presenting that, if followed, will make you a master of persuasive presentations.
2. Being a master of presentation skills means that you can rule over your audiences. Not in the sense of dominating or controlling them, but in the sense of being able to produce a predictable outcome with your audiences.

You see, when presenting, everyone can produce results some of the time. But when you understand the rules of presenting, you will know how to produce results every time. And that's when you'll understand why mastering the rules allows you to rule over your results.

Finally, you may have noticed that I mentioned that you will be a master of persuasive presentations. Usually, we divide presentations into informative, inspirational and persuasive. I include all of these under the category of "persuasion" because you don't just want to inform; you want your audience to be persuaded by that information. You don't just want to inspire; you want your audiences to take action after they are inspired.

So come back to see what these rules are and how they can make a difference for you.