I am supposed to do a presentation today at Presenticcon. An event held by I3M (inkubator ide dan inovasi mahasiswa). I have prepared and even gave out my slide. About 20 minutes before the event was about to be started. I went to HME (himpunan mahasiswa elektroteknik) to meet some friends. One of them asked me to do the presentation for them. I okayed him. Could be good to practice my speech too I thought. Since I hadn’t done it before. When I presented my presentation. There were some flaws in the slide and I couldn’t presented it smoothly. Then fear kicked in. “I couldn’t present the presentation smoothly here. So neither would I present it smoothly at the Presenticcon,” “hey there’s a flaw of logic here,” “the flow is not good,” etc. I decided to ask my other friend which is one the event commitee to put my name off the presenter list and promised him that next time I would be present. I ran away. I’m not proud of this decision.
I’m not proud not because I made some mistake in my slide or presentation. I’m not proud because I let my worst enemy, Amygdala, won.
Amygdala is a part of limbic system of the brain. It is the center of emotions. Responsible for fear, anxiety, reproductive drive, and the flight or flee reaction when we confronted with fear or stress. Amygdala is the most primitive brain. Seth Godin calls it the lizard brain.
It’s the one that tells you not to raise your hand and ask question in class, the one who tells you to stay low and not standing up in the crowd.
This is my worst enemy because it throws out fear and keeps me from trying new things, prevents me from going out of the comfort zone, and eventually could keeps me out of achievement and success.
The lizard brain protects us from what could be an embarrastment. But it also can keeps us from doing what matters to get what we want. I don’t want the latter to happen. And I’m sure you don’t want that too.
Today I promised not to let the lizard brain win again.
