Back in the cave person era, by all accounts, we evolved this exquisite mechanism, the fight or flight response, to handle brief, intense moments of danger, when we needed to be on high alert and face the world ready to fight or get the heck outta there.

We’re not even consciously aware of this mechanism, until our hearts are pounding and our palms are sweaty as we’re being introduced to that audience of five hundred peers.

For some reason, our unconscious mind thinks that running from sabre-tooth tigers and speaking to accountants is the same thing.  The exquisite mechanism turns out to be a bit clumsily applied.

In a similar way, our minds are well-equipped to remember the time we incautiously stuck our hand in the fire and got burned – we remember the anecdotal, the vivid, and the emotional.  We’re not aware of the mechanism that allows us to remember these things; we just do.  When we wander near the fire, a memory surfaces at just the right moment.  Don’t stick your hand in; it hurts! 

Today, when we get on an airplane, we find it very difficult to recall the bloodless, boring statistics about how safe airplane travel is, and instead, our minds conjure up the wreckage of the downed plan in the Ukraine.

Once again, the unconscious mind goes for excitement and modern life serves up a surprise.

Is there anything we can do about these habits of mind that (presumably) worked so well with our grunting, club-wielding ancestors and now leave us singularly incapable of handling the demands of modern life?  Imagine what it would feel like to walk on that stage – or that airplane – with the confidence that we rationally know we should have.

There is a way, but it takes work.  You have to re-train the mind to replace the vivid failure scenarios with just as vivid success scenarios.

Like an Olympic skier preparing for a gold-medal run, the speaker needs to create a little mental movie of herself delivering the speech confidently, smoothly, and beautifully.  Or flying that airplane calmly, easily, and with a relaxed mien.

The work involves several steps.  First, you need to determine what it is, precisely, that your brain is scaring you about.  Second, you need to imagine what the happy alternative would be.  Third, you need to prepare that alternative as a vivid, fun little movie.  And fourth, you need to play that movie in your head, oh, ten thousand times.  Finally, you need to buttress that work with positive self-talk whenever the whole mental edifice threatens to collapse.

Why is the work so difficult?  Because fighting evolution and the unconscious mind are tough battles.  But worth it; the alternative is to leave your communications to chance.  And if you do, the adrenaline will get you every time.