Presentation Tips

Have a good start, grab their attention

Include stuff that’s scared me

So, fear, and/or just how our perception of stuff makes things worse.
Story about the cat/wet bag thing, nothing changed
Lizard brain, now everything’s a bear. (not beard)

Has avoiding the fear ever kept bad stuff from happening to you? The universe doesn’t care if you’re scared, stuff is still going to happen to you.

Fight or flight, brain slows stuff down, takes in a lot of info.

Only working one machine at the gym-like you’ll strengthen bad habits, develop cognition-looking for info related to bear attacks rather than looking at all the times there were no bears at all.

Re-edit this, take bits out/add to it:-not sure there’s much useful in here now :/
Performing on stage/being in a band/doing a presentation/singing/a million other things we think is a big deal, isn’t that big a deal. For a looooong time we, as humans, had to be scared. Like really fucking frightened, or a bear would get us, or wolves would come into our cave and eat us in the night, or something. But now, not so much. If your great great great great x1000 grandfather hadn’t been scared, he wouldn’t have spotted that lion, and he’d have gotten eaten, and you wouldn’t be here. Now, not so much. But there’s still a bit of our brain that evolved over thousands and thousands of years, to be scared. So it finds things to be scared of. Flying, public speaking, how many people “like” you on facebook, who’s saying what about you, is this part of your body big enough, is that one small enough, am I too old/young to do this and a zillion other things that people get scared of. Ok, so maybe you’re not actually scared of those things, and it’s more of a “worry”, but behind that is basically fear of some sort.

Also, most people don’t know, or care, that you’re alive. Not just in the global sense that there are 6(?) billion people on this planet and you’re only likely to have any direct affect on a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of them, but also more locally. Most of the people in your town even don’t know who you are, and wouldn’t notice if you weren’t there. If you walked through town wearing clown shoes and a top hat, you’d get some funny looks, but everyone that saw you would’ve forgotten about it within an hour/day/week.

Most of the people you work with (with a few exceptions, like any that are actual friends, or your boss, or if you’re anyone’s boss, then them) wouldn’t notice if you stopped being there one day. Or if they did, it wouldn’t be long before the new guy was just part of the scenery, and no longer anyone’s replacement, or even “the new guy”.

So getting up on stage and making some noise for half an hour in front of strangers really isn’t much to worry about. They’ll either become your biggest fan, or forget all about you. There might be a brief period of “that guy ruled/sucked” before they forget about you, but it’s pretty much bound to happen. What isn’t going to happen, is them wheeling a big cauldron out and turning you into dinner.

Remember kids, they’re not going to eat you.