How Do one Overcome Fear?

The human brain can rewire so quickly… According to Draganski, Gaser, Busch, Schuierer, Bogdahn and May (2004), the brain shows measurable structural changes after just a few months of practicing a new skill.

I remember the rainy days four years ago when I first came to Nijmegen. I tried to survive at the very place. During my studies, I hadn’t had too many programming courses, and neither I have opportunities to present science.

No wonder programming and presentations were my two biggest nightmares. According to Dwyer and Davidson (2012), public speaking is the fear students name most often, even ahead of death. Now, they are my two favourite and most relaxing activities at work.

I recently gave a short presentation for an audience of around 80 people at the institute. I didn’t take it any seriously.

I just woke up, spend two and half hours on my computer to put some thoughts together, printed a slideshow into a pdf. Then I went straight to the Aula, to do my job and leave.

I would not even think about it anymore, if not for the fact that many people poked me afterwards. In the corridor, they told me they found it a good presentation and I was super relaxed during the talk. How come?

What Changed Over Those Four Years?

So, something changed over these four years. And I did not practice presentation skills… Was it because I recently put down a little bit of a burden on my shoulders? Or because I found myself an additional source of money? 

Or maybe, was this because I have some research ideas on my mind that finally have a chance of working out? Or, is this because sometime in the past, I have hit the very bottom? 

Why Does Hitting Rock Bottom Set You Free?

There is a scene in my favourite movie, Fight Club, in which the main character gets a chemical burn in his palm. He realizes that life is passing by. And then, with that experience, he transforms from a frustrated office worker into a charismatic leader of a large terroristic organization.

And that would be probably the main reason why I stopped fearing for many things I had been fearing before. There is just no time for fearing. 

Once you lose everything and hit the bottom, you stop caring about stupidities. And wondering what these 80 people are thinking about you and your presentation is just stupidity.

This is, by the way, a very important part of the famous commencement speech by Steve Jobs at Stanford:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

And this is, I guess, the best way of overcoming fear. What can you fear when you realize that one day you will die?

It sounds harsh and scary but once you accept the fact, all of a sudden you start feeling calm and comfortable. If death is inevitable, then every single day before it finally happens, is an extra gift. Better to fill it in with some valuable activities (rather than sit down and worry).

Conclusion.

One thing I would like to point out is that people are very bad at finding the true causes of events. According to Nisbett and Wilson (1977), people often misreport the real causes of their own behaviour.

When they are stressed with presenting, most of the time it has nothing to do with presentation skills per se. It often doesn’t have anything to do with science either. 

Most of the time this is a combination of four things: primal fear of being punished by the audience and imposter complex. Then, lack of confidence with language skills and barriers concerning people’s bodies. 

Sometimes I watch a presentation from someone who binds their shoulders all the time. And I am thinking: ‘do something with yourself! go to a dance class!’

And instead, they are going to a presentation skills course.

Or spend even more time preparing the next time and then they are surprised that there is no progress. Of course, there is no progress.

Why Does Confidence Matter More Than Content?

The content is the least important to the audience. People tend to weigh everything they hear with the level of confidence from the speaker. According to Tenney, MacCoun, Spellman and Hastie (2007), listeners lean heavily on a speaker’s apparent confidence when deciding how much to trust what is being said.

If the speaker is shaky, they just won’t believe that the results are as good as they are introduced anyway. So the content does not matter that much anymore. 

Presentation is all about the interface: simple, visual, colourful slides with a clear message, plus a welcoming, calm, attentive speaker. If you miss out on those, the audience will be just sitting there like in a mass. They will pray that it all ends up quickly.