I used to hate public speaking.

By “hate” I mean that, given the choice between public speaking and being boiled in molten lava, I’d pick public speaking but only because I don’t have access to lava.

I mean, I’ve called in sick to work to avoid giving presentations. I even turned down a lucrative promotion because weekly presentations would have been part of the job. Awesome. Well done, me.

This is a perfect example of what we talked about last week: “Look Over There!” Syndrome and why you’re NOT getting things done.

Translate this fear of public speaking into areas of your own life and what do you have? Fear of writing, fear of starting a business, fear of appearing average, fear of coming across as an arrogant prick, fear of getting dumped, fear of on and on and on.

These fears have many symptoms, but really I only care about one of them because in that symptom is also the cure.

What If Nike’s motto had been “Just Do It Something Else”?

What do you do about fear? The popular school of thought suggests writing down your fears so you can face them. “List them all out,” says the adviser, “ten at a time or by the hundreds, then pick them apart and dismantle them and you’ll be good to go.”

I have no doubt that this method works for some people. But I think I have a method that works even better, saves time and gets you from Point A to Point B much faster.

My big secret as it relates to “finding and facing your fears” is as follows:

In the light of your goals, when weighed against your hopes and dreams and aspirations, fear should factor in as nothing more than a speed bump.

The whole concept of finding your fears so you can face them seems to me to be a diversion. Looking “over there” so you can find out why you can’t do what’s right here is a diversion.

I’m not saying fear doesn’t exist, nor am I saying I don’t get afraid. Fear is quite real to me and I feel it just like the next guy. What I am saying is that in the light of your goals, when weighed against your hopes and dreams and aspirations, fear should factor in as nothing more than a speed bump.

Why?

Because a list of fears really only tells you something you already knew: you’re afraid of stuff.

Don’t believe me? Go ahead then and make a list of all your fears, and make it as long as you can. Problem with doing that is when you’ve finally exhausted that bottomless morass of second-guessing your omnipotent self, you still won’t have written a book. Or started that business or whatever. And the longer your list of fears, the longer you’re putting off doing the stuff that counts.

What if you just considered fear was a minor inconvenience?

So far, this is a lot of empty talk and I’m probably coming across as Mr. Crazy. I mean, there’s no way getting into massive, fast, agile, extroverting production is going get you anywhere. Impossible!

So, let’s look at some real life examples of absolutely crazy people in action and see what we can find out:

Case Study #1 : Showing Your Face on Video

My buddy Charlie Gilkey was afraid of recording a video of himself playing guitar and posting it on his site. Yet he wanted to, and he’d promised it to his blog visitors.

In achieving this goal of producing a video Charlie had many many options:

Record and post a video of himself playing guitar, tuck tail and run, debate recording a video, practice for 8 more years, take a video mastering class, hire a consultant, get therapy, get awfully curious about how YouTube works, wonder why he was afraid, not play because he was afraid, etc.

But Charlie is a smart guy. He took the first option and recorded and posted a video of himself playing guitar. Done. Goal achieved. Afraid or not, he did it.

Maybe fear played a part…but it was a minor role.

Case Study #2 : Writing That Book

Stephen King used to write a lot. He writes a lot now, but he used to too. (Credit to Mitch Hedberg for that one). Stephen’s career could have been much much different.

See, the book that started his career almost didn’t see the light of day because it was too busy being in the garbage.

That’s right. Stephen was working on a book and just tossed it out. Why? He was afraid. The book was about a girl, and being a man, Stephen figured he had no place writing such a tale. Nor was he menstruating, while his character was, so he figured he had no place writing about that either. And and and.

Lucky for him, his wife pulled the unfinished manuscript out of the trash, read it, thought it was good and told him to finish it. He did and it went on to be published under the title Carrie. It was his first major sale and earned him hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Again…fear obviously played a part, but it was just a background character.

Case Study #3 : Step Up to the Mic

To get over my own fear of public speaking, guess what I did?

Step 1: I read books and books and books about skillful presenting, slowly getting overwhelmed by all the new information. Yeah. That didn’t work so hot because I wasn’t even up to a point where “skillful presenting” was any sort of worry. No, I was worried about dropping dead from fright and vomiting on my own shoes.

Step 2: I tried to think of all the times when I’d done a lousy job of public speaking in the past, hoping somehow that it would be cathartic. Didn’t work. In fact, this seemed to bolster the idea that I just “wasn’t built for it.” Not to mention it made it painfully obvious that, having screwed up many times in the past, there was no reason why I wouldn’t screw up again. Great. Making lists of why you’re not so hot strikes me as a crap idea.

Step 3: I watched a bunch of pros give presentations in YouTube videos. These were real-life examples of how it should be done, I figured, and it would be like mentoring. Seth Godin, Ze Frank, Chris Guillebeau…they were my guides. Yup, didn’t work. These guys were “too good,” and obviously “had skills I don’t have,” and “must have just been naturals at it.”

Step 4: I got tired of being afraid. I got tired of worrying about public speaking and never actually doing it. So I spoke in public. I started with a small group and worked my way up. At first it was a nightmare, I won’t deny it. It was frightening. And I screwed up. And I was embarrassed. Cool thing is, I didn’t even die or lose a limb. This technique, as you might imagine, worked like a charm.

You’re better than you think

If your fear is anything like mine, it feels like a giant semi-truck driving through your head and chest, exploding on impact and spilling out a cascade of vitriolic acid which then catches on fire, while people point and laugh at you and post the whole mishap on YouTube where it subsequently gets seven million hits and thousands of scathing comments about you and your family.

Yeah. That’s fear. I get it.

But, so what?

I mean…do you know who you are? You’re amazing, that’s who. I know we live in a quick-fix, pill-popping, microwave dinner culture (some of us). And I know that spending painful hours at honing your craft or confronting things you’d rather not is…well…painful. But what else are you going to do?

You’ve got a craft to practice and a book to write, don’t you? So get on it. Tripping over the daisies to find the reasons you’re NOT doing your stuff just leads to not doing more stuff.

You can do it. Just like I did, and I’m nothing special. I just couldn’t fool myself any longer.

So sit down, do what you’re doing and confront what you’re doing. Get on it. Before long you’ll hit “the zone” and start rocking your shit. Yeah, maybe you’ll still be afraid and maybe not. But even if you are, at least you’re being afraid and productive. You’ll be in that awesome place of “Holy shit I’m doing it, but I’m afraid, but look, Ma, I’M ACTUALLY DOING IT!”

Fear is no substitute for action, and it only stops those who let it. Don’t be one of them.

Go do your thing, do it fast, do it proud.

And never slow down for those speed bumps.

A famous philosopher once said: If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. If he gets distracted and walks away while you’re teaching him, he won’t learn anything and will starve to death.

With this post, I’m going to hazard a guess and try to do my best to tell you why you might be having trouble getting things done in life. I don’t mean just going grocery shopping or cleaning the house, although what I’m about to say is applicable there, too.

No, I mean the big stuff. Like becoming an architect. Or finishing your novel. Or accomplishing that “crazy dream” you thought up when you were only 5 and which hasn’t left you yet.

In the beginning…

Once upon a time, you dreamed of accomplishing Something Grand. Maybe you were young when you thought it up, and maybe not. But your first thought was, “I’m doing this,” and somehow it was just right.

The world got quiet and maybe things seemed very simple to you right at that moment, for you hadn’t yet thought of the mechanics of how it would all be done. Nonetheless, you knew it was true: “Yeah, gosh. That’s it. That will be me. This will be my life.”

And things were good and the sun came up and the dew sparkled in the grass. For the next week you hardly needed to sleep, such was your excitement.

Hey…look over there!

Then, ugh, you hit some slight resistance. Maybe it turned out the effort wasn’t quite what you’d expected. Maybe there was some funky nomenclature surrounding your goal and it was all just “too complicated.” Maybe it turned out you weren’t such a natural at it as you thought you’d be.

And that beautiful, simple, true goal you had…it got buried a bit. It didn’t get any smaller, just got rusty maybe.

Then your friend told you the idea was shit and your parents sort of scoffed and said, “Well…uh…I guess that’s cool but you should probably have a backup plan.” And you concluded your parents must be stupid, but nonetheless you got a bit more introverted about it. Your dream rusted just a bit more, but didn’t die.

Then the effort involved with the goal got even tougher. I mean, who knew that writing a book could be such a bitch? And why did manufacturing have to screw up a whole batch of plastic? And who am I to start a business…I’m nobody!? So you got sidetracked just a little bit more. More rust; same big dream.

But…there are so many diversions.

Yeah, there are diversions. And there are a lot of them.

And the bigger your dream, and the more complex it is, and the more time it takes to accomplish it, the more diversions there are going to be.

Here…let’s all pretend we have an IQ of around 49 and try a little mental exercise:

I would like you to decide to go make yourself a sandwich. I don’t care if you want a sandwich right now or not. Just decide to go make yourself a sandwich.

Now, in regards to this sandwich’s construction, there are two methods of attack:

Goal Attainment Method One: Go make a sandwich. Keep track of how long it takes you.

Goal Attainment Method Two: Don’t go make a sandwich, but instead sit there and think about why you don’t want a sandwich. Then wonder why you’re afraid of sandwiches. Then think to yourself, “Hmmm…I’m afraid of making a sandwich, and I don’t really want one to begin with. I wonder why. Maybe I’ll go see a psychologist since it’s probably that Can’t-Make-a-Sandwich disorder I heard about.” Then hire an outside consultant to help you determine the best way to approach your sandwich dilemma. Then wonder why I’m asking you to make a sandwich to begin with, and conclude that I must be some sick pervert. Then just for good measure, debate calorie count and FDA stipulations about your available bread type.

Now, guess which method produces a sandwich fastest. And guess which method might never ever ever result in a sandwich.

That’s right. And although this is a horribly simplistic idiotic analogy, I wouldn’t write it off as inapplicable.

For this whole sandwich soap opera is your life.

And that was just a sandwich. What if the goal was actually…you know…a GOAL. Like being a CEO. Or starting a knitting company and selling your wares. Or losing 200 pounds.

Those things might take time. They might take education. They might take gaining an entirely different skill set than you currently possess. There will be diversions a’plenty.

What do we do about this?

Well…what we do about this is incredibly simple. More simple than making a sandwich even. And I’m going to tell you all about it.

Next week.

Come on back next Wednesday and we’ll talk some more about this. Subscribe Now! so you don’t miss it. In the meantime, read this post and then read it again. See if any of it is true for you. I’ll bet maybe a little of it is, even if it’s just the fact that you want a sandwich.

Quick little note

Those of you who are long-time fans are saying to yourselves: “Wow. Two posts in one week. What the hell is going on here?”

The answer is that Wednesdays are my new posting days. I was going to start posting every Tuesday and Thursday, but going from roughly 5 posts a year to two a week is a feat for better folks than I.

So yeah. This site means a lot to me. And the people I’ve met/helped/gotten help from mean way more than that. So I’m back. Tell your friends.

Okay, well, apparently every month or so I get a wild hair and decide I’m going to offend 99% of the world’s population. Last time, I went on a tear about productivity blogs. This time my foe has grown. Welcome, in the red corner, weighing in at one berzillion pounds, the undefeated Facebook.

Ding! Round 1

I’m starting off the round with a pretty wicked feint. I have to admit I actually think Facebook is pretty amazing. I mean, you can leave messages for your friends, chat with them, find someone to have sex with, send people fake beers, play fake cards, check your fake horoscope and about 80 zillion other mostly not-real things.

Not to mention, you can’t really go complaining too much about something that is just an application. Until it’s put to use, it’s just an inert thing. Like a chainsaw, which is just sort of ho-hum until you saw someone off at the ankles. At which point your family picnic becomes a whole different type of awesome.

So the problem with Facebook is with the people who use Facebook. For everything. All the time.

Instead of living.

Living is awesome.
Pretend living is only pretend awesome.

I think it’s cool that people want to send me a fake beer over Facebook. I’m glad I can refuse to join everyone’s fake mafia group. Or let everyone know that I just became a fan of fake not dying. Or that 84 people just compared me to 84 other people and think that I am without a doubt taller/funnier/likely to fail/smelly/most like William Shatner.

My beef isn’t with the intentions; it’s good to be on your friend’s minds. That’s what makes you friends.

My beef is with the fake. I’d rather meet a real person in real life for a real beer. I’d rather refuse to join a real mafia group in person than refuse to join a fake one online. I’d rather not die in real life than just click a button that says I vote for not dying. I’d rather spend a good half-hour in real conversation looking in someone’s real eyeballs to determine what they think of me than be part of a survey. I’d rather get into a real fight than be challenged to a fake duel online.

I bring this up why? Two reasons:

One. Use your time wisely, and don’t wonder why your income is lousy when 4 hours of your day are devoted to your MySpace and Facebook profiles.

Two. From what I’ve been reading, it seems employers across the nation are starting to look toward Facebook networks as part of their hiring process. A large Facebook network must mean you’ve got friends, clients, customers and know how to do business.

Yeah, but not really. Not at all in fact.

It takes zero effort to make a friend on Facebook. It doesn’t take even a single word of actual conversation. No social graces. No manners. No problem-recognizing or problem-solving ability. No ability to cross the street without getting hit by a taxi. No ability to give a real handshake, not one of those clammy limp ones that afterwards makes you feel like you need to take a bath in Purell.

Nor does a network of zillions mean you’ve ever sold even a single product, had a conversation with a client or stepped out of your parents’ basement in the last decade.

What it probably means is that Iron Maiden fans really tend to stick together.

Or that someone has spent an ungodly amount of time learning to speak Klingon.

The internet is an awesome place for networking, for sure. Absolutely. My entire livelihood is provided by the existence of the internet, so I’m not about to start bashing it.

But don’t make the mistake of substituting a real life with stuff you do online.

And don’t make the mistake of hiring someone with whom you have a conversation like this:

You: “So…tell me. What are your qualifications for this position?”

Facebook Guru: “I have high-score.”

You: “K. Uh. High-score at what?”

Facebook Guru: “High-score on the internet. I win.”

You: “Oh. Wow. I wasn’t aware they were really keeping track of that.”

Facebook Guru: “w00t!”

Instead, maybe hire someone with, you know…skills and stuff.