Shed the Fear and Thrive in Your Performance – As the security guard threw hundreds of dollars of my expensive hair product in the bin at Melbourne international airport on my way to New Zealand last week I was left wondering if airport security is really a necessary evil or just something set up to annoy me exponentially. You see, I had just, days before, flown through the airports of Sydney, Singapore, Frankfurt, Turin, Rome and Naples and no one cared a less about my hair products, but apparently in Melbourne it’s a criminal offense to carry dry shampoo. Yes, that’s right, it’s not even a liquid!
Are we harbouring fear, lost in the inertia of lockdowns, curfews and testing?
You know, one of the biggest fears that leaders have when we’re working on performance anxiety is the fear of “people looking at me”. It can often be deep seated and go right back to when they were at school as a child and a teacher scolding them telling them to “stand up” in front of everyone. So, the message has become that being visible is wrong. This belief keeps us small, disconnected and restricted.
So, maybe I should not carry dry shampoo in my hand luggage, but I ask you, are we now hindered by habitual fear and throwing away the benefits of face-to-face engagement and hence relationships, in order to protect a fear that has lost its basis.
In my recent travels, mixing with people from many countries, I found they are all well and truly moving forward. No masks, no distancing, no blockage to activities and in fact, the Wall Street Journal tells us in today’s edition that there is a return to the Extravagant Company Retreat.
As Aristotle once said “he who overcomes his fear will be truly free’.
I’d love to hear what you think?
PS And while you are thinking, on a fun note, yes, I was travelling because my son, Oliver, got married in Sorrento, so I’ll bore you with some photos. And also add, because he asked me – I did the speech in Italian. Now, I don’t speak Italian and I thought it would be fun. It was actually a tremendous amount of hard work and I had to pull into play every skill I’ve ever learnt: structure, anchoring, gestures and movement, link phrases and having a helper (thank you Colette). But, I did it without notes and yes, I survived.
If you’d like to shed the fear and learn the skills to survive in performance, please join me at one of my events, private coaching, or I hope to see you at a keynote somewhere soon.
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Applied Confidence with Dr Louise Mahler
A combination of interpersonal skills and the power to navigate today’s world of work.
In this incredibly hands-on, practical and often hilarious session for women in business, Dr Mahler will analyse, plan and review through the lens of body, voice and frameworks of communication, tailored specifically for you. Explore the roles of body language, vocal psychology and patterns of conversation that control presence and influence.
