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Your Top
Fears
Mark Twain is often quoted as saying, “There are two
types of speakers, those that are nervous and those that are
liars.” As it turns out what was true in Mark Twain's
time is still true today. When people are asked to list
their greatest fears, here's how it shakes out:
Flying
18%
Death
19%
Sickness
19%
Deep Water
22%
Financial Problems
22%
Insects & Bugs
22%
Heights
32%
Public Speaking
41%
These numbers come from The Book of Lists, 1991, but
it’s been pretty much the same since they first started asking
the question. When people are asked to list their greatest
fears, speaking to a group always filters to the top. Dale
Carnegie discovered this in 1910 and built an international
reputation (and a small fortune) around addressing it.
Jerry Seinfeld reportedly said of this list that it
suggests that at most funerals, the guy giving the
eulogy….would rather be in the box!
Funny, unless it's you giving the eulogy. But why do
you become afraid when speaking in public?
The answer is that when you find yourself in front of a
group of people, your neo-cortex, which was hard wired eons ago
to “protect” you, reads the situation as the classic threat
scenario of being one-against-many, and that triggers the
fight-or-flight response. You
do indeed feel exactly the same way you do when faced with a
truly life-threatening event.
If you feel afraid when faced with speaking before a group,
it’s because the very same chemicals that are released when
you blow out a front tire at 70 miles per hour are coursing
through your veins and signaling to you that you feel afraid.
Faced with the prospect of standing up and speaking in front of
a number of people, three processes, intertwined with each
other, actually take hold of your systems and often don't let go
until well after the event that triggered them has ended.
The first thing that happens is that the well-evolved
thinking parts of your brain recognize a potential threat
in the situation, but because at this moment you're not
hard-wired to discern between the imagined and the real, your
brain errs on the side of caution and sends a clear signal to
your hypothalamus, a gland located in the center of your brain.
This is the second process, where the gland begins emitting
hormones to get the body prepped to deal with the threat.
The signal to the hypothalamus takes milliseconds, and sometimes
the brain is able to resolve the threat that started the process
just as quickly, but unfortunately at this point a chain of
events has started that takes considerably longer to subside.
You know how this works if you've even been startled by
someone approaching you from an unseen direction who is
suddenly, unexpectedly in your face. You jump, and then
just as quickly realize that the person represents no threat to
you whatsoever. But just try telling that to your heart.
Often for minutes after the "threat" has been
"resolved", you're still shaking inside, and you might
even harbor somewhat ill feelings for the person who startled
you, keeping your heart beating at a faster than normal rate and
pounding with much more force than normal!
When you first get up to speak to a group, your body is
hardwired to protect you to the greatest extent possible, and
your entire instantly becomes a slave to the Fight-or-Flight
response.
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