fear of meeting new prospects

I can speak to stage fright - I don't call it that but I know the term - I've stood before audiences thousands of time with guitar in hand and mouth set in front of a microphone - I haven't done it much for a couple of decades but I now entertain elementary children at my grand daughter's school.

Also, I taught middle and high school twenty+ years and each class is an audience so to speak.

Lastly, today in my business I train once a month in front of a group and on occasion stand up in front of hundreds - a couple of times thousands of people at conferences - to speak.

So I've been in front of people many times.

I've experienced what's called stage fright - for me there's often a moment of apprehension, a moment of expenctancy that the show is about to go on and all eyes and ears will be on me - will do well? will I succeed? will I meet my own expectations and the expectations of those in front of me? will I freeze up?

In those situations I come prepared, I've done my homework, I'm ready to go but . . . uncertainty, a sense of control either lost or kept, the desire to be a hit and entertain well . . . all of that comes to play.

As I look out about to begin I realize that everyone looking back of me has an expectation and a reason to be there, everyone has an interpretation and an impression and a series of those qualities . . . and so do I. But I'm about to strum that first cord, step into my speach, take command of the situation by giving myself totally to it with full attention body, mind and spirit in absolute absorption of the moment.

I've admitted my weakness, my fears, my apprehensions to myself, and I've looked out for a friendly eye, for a smile of recognition, for hands lifting beers or faces half asleep, for the fingers that scratch a chin, for beards, expressions I only half understand . . . for the distracted child playing with his shoelace, for the patron standing up to walk to the wash room.

This is my stage, this is humanity, this is what I'm part of and I have something to offer from the core of my being, from my years of discipline and study and from the passion within I step into that moment, that light that will pass so quickly that thirty minutes, two hours later when I step out it will be as if time stood still and memory is a blur.

With the first downstroke over the steel strings and the rhythm I feel with no other sensation available to me but absolute absorption in the moment I touch strings, fingers dance over strings without thought - I'm amazed at watching it happen -, the tempo of my own spirit beginning to organize my blood stream and heart beat and breath into one unified movement and purpopse for existing, and as the words come from my mouth "He was a friend of mine . . ." every cell in my body and every experience in my life is to bring the meaning of the words to me into full light filling the room with a sound that resonates in the hearts and minds of the listeners.

By the end of the first song or into the first few sentences of a speech or training, when I've totally absorbed myself into the moment time freezed and nothing else but absolute attention to the flow of the moment is happening in the world and all I know is connection - human connection from my own life to those around me. . . all fear has evaporated and I am beginning to come to life in a grand way - it's for the fulfilment of everyone there and mutual recognition and minutes and hours later when it comes time to bow and say "God bless you, take care, be kind to people - we all need it." I walk away knowing that we had some kind of relationship that for just that little bit of time mattered greatly and maybe even deeply and mysteriously in each one of us.

All the world's a stage and the best performances are deeply felt, genuine and real - heart on sleeve and vulnerable yet steel string strong and precise, open to the unexpected and taking control by giving it to the moment, to the audience - totally connected to reveal a truth, an honesty that cracks and breaks through mendacity - that's also the best of sales in my experience.

Whether calm and cool or passionately absorbed - there's something compelling in genuine communication that is for the benefit of other people, that takes nothing from other people, that gives and seeks only completion.

In that knowledge and practice stage fright dissolves - that moment of apprehension is quickly taken over by total absorption in the act of being.

Don't fear fear, don't run from stage fright, don't hide frailty - step into it, admit it, value it, use it to create community and fellowship with that commonality that is within us.

There's one lengthy description of one man's plight!