we have nothing to fear but part 2 of the post about fear

Continuing my last post about the wonderful subject of fear...

I said that you can't just suffer through it, you actually have to use it to your advantage. Let me explain with a personal example.

Follow me back to the late 80s, to some theatres around the University of Toronto, for some student productions in which I did not play leading roles. We're talking the Marshal in the Crucible, and the Provost in the Measure for Measure – you know, boring, law-abiding and law-enforcing characters with not a lot of complexity, nuance or words to say.

Yet I couldn't eat for hours before going on stage. Although I knew my lines, I was obsessed with the idea that I would get out in front of the audience and blank on the first word I was supposed to say. I would walk around in a trance backstage, brain and nerves totally seized up, before jumping into the abyss when it was my cue. That was fear. And it wasn't good.

My next experience in theatre happened to be in advertising, in my first couple of presentations at my first agency. They were nowhere near as bad as my undergrad thespianism, but not dissimilar. I'd obsess for hours; it wasn't healthy. But at least I'd figured out the key, which is that presentation is theatre.

And with every presentation, I naturally got more relaxed. I calmed down, and began to lose the obsession, and be able to eat before meetings. Once I even lost the fear entirely.

And that presentation without fear sucked bigtime.

Although we're conditioned to think about fear as a negative, whenever I haven't felt fear going into a presentation, that presentation has sucked. And belated I have learned from this.

Fear is what gives you energy. Fear is what makes you aware. Fear is what makes you listen, and makes you think about what your first line is going to be.

Cultivate your fear. If Laurence fucking Olivier could be scared shitless every time he stepped on stage, you owe it to your work and your client and yourself to be conscious of the fact that you're performing in every presentation, and that your performance better be good.