Resilience Part 5: Acting Despite the Fear
Public speaking has never directly killed anyone.
What I mean by this is - people have died while speaking in public: Moliere, Alexander Woollcott, Zero Mostel... but not from the action of it. Yet the National Institute of Mental Health reports that glossophobia, or public speaking anxiety, affects 73% of the population. By comparison, only 20.3% of Americans are afraid of death, according to the 2017 Chapman University’s “Survey of American Fears.” That’s right, over 50% more people fear something that can’t kill you instead of something that absolutely will one day. This is the thing about “fear.” It is empowered by the perception of consequence -- not necessarily the truth of fate.
Public speakers face this and various other types of “stage fright” constantly, yet their careers depend upon them defying the fear and acting in their needed role, despite it. Professors standing in front of classrooms of hundreds face it, stage actors from West End to Broadway face it, Politicians face it, lawyers in court face it. Why? Because their passion for the work is worth more than the fear. Not standing up ultimately costs more.
This mindset can be put to many careers outside of public speaking. Fear of asking for money doesn’t stop fundraising for nonprofits -- the people who work there can’t afford it to. Fear of losing a patient one day can’t stop a doctor from his work, or he won’t be there to save the lives of countless others. A severe drug addict has little chance to survive unless they embrace detox, which many report is a deeper dive into hell than the drugs are.
Fear has frequently been an amped motivator to action. If not the fear of what might come if you do act, certainly the fear of what will come if you don’t. Regret, we are told, is the one fear we can’t do anything about. Acting despite fear is a vulnerable place to put yourself...it feels you are at the mercy of whatever deity you put your faith in -- if you subscribe to one -- but it is also undoubtedly your choice to take that step.
One could argue that acting despite fear is an ultimate power play of personal agency. It owns that same sense of bravery, curiosity, and boldness that traveled in the hearts of world explorers and astronauts circling the planet. It was in the soldiers’ thousands of miles from home fighting Nazis during WWII. It’s in a five-year-old’s first walk into kindergarten, the day you first learned you were going to be a parent, the day you signed your first mortgage. It was there on 9/11 and the days following the first closures of Covid-19.
Civilization, humanity, politics, parents, and our planet have an ever-growing number of fears tied to them. It can feel overwhelming under the pressure. But the power to fight back is ours to own. We can act despite the fears...by standing up, by supporting others, by protecting the planet, by undertaking self-accountability.
When it seems we are stripped of so many of our personal freedoms in closures and restrictions, it is nice to know that we do, in fact, have the power to act in so many other directions.
Pick a fear. Own it. Face it. Unseat it.
What’s next?