If you ever get nervous if you are fearful of some communication situations, it just means you're normal. After all the polls do show that people say public speaking is their number one fear. I don't really believe that I think if someone said I'm going to push you out of the airplane, or give a quick toast to everyone, you would give a little mini toasts speech. But still, it is something that creates anxiety and people it creates fear. evolutionary biologists believe that we are programmed this way as a defense mechanism. Because thousands of years ago, if you're out in the plains, and you're completely exposed, lions, tigers bears, other creatures can come see you exposed and attack you and eat you.
Whereas if you're a part of our herd, you're one of 1000 your odds are good of not being eaten. So when you stand up to speak, give a presentation. You're feeling this I'm exposed, these people could come grab me eat me kill me. That's why your hands are perspiring. Your body could be perspiring, because your, your body's trying to protect you. Adrenaline is pulsating, telling you to run, get out of here.
Unfortunately, if you're nervous or uncomfortable about sitting down with your boss to ask for a raise, or sitting down with your largest investor to ask for another $10 million round of investment, sweating and having the adrenaline to run quickly isn't going to help you at all. It's actually the opposite. It's gonna make you look bad and be unproductive. So we got to figure out a way of dealing with this fear and getting over it. But I do want you to realize it's completely normal to have some fear, some anxiety. So I mentioned to you in the previous section number one way to get over it is to practice Tell you like what you see.
Now I'm a pretty comfortable speaker. I enjoy speaking, I actually seek out every kind of opportunity for giving speeches, presentations, trainings, I do more than 100 trainings a year live in person with people. So I like to think of myself as a pretty comfortable speaker, but still, I'm a human being too. And with most people, if you take them out of their comfort zone, they can get uncomfortable. I remember about a decade ago, I was a judge on a reality TV show in Eastern Europe. I was called out on stage I was asked to announce one of the winners are first runner up, but everything was in a foreign language.
And the name was written in a foreign language that I couldn't read. And at that moment, I was nervous. I was uncomfortable. And it was not my finest performance ever. You know? I got through it.
No one really noticed. I smiled. I handed it back to the emcee. And he'd read it out loud, and no one else really remembered. So my point is, no one's a superhuman. I'm not a superhuman, everyone is nervous if you take them out of their comfort zone.
The key is figuring out how to make yourself comfortable by doing all the various steps I've talked about so far in this course, with more steps to continue, so relax. If you feel uncomfortable, nervous or even fearful of speaking situations, it just means you're normal.