confidence or effectiveness. Another problem with wanting to know
the why of what you are feeling is the tendency to look for a scape-
goat. Whether you find the correct scapegoat or not, your search
for one still makes you a victim. A bit of humor is useful. Blame
your uncomfortable feelings on the hairy elephants, which are ex-
plained in the following fable. This probably isn’t an accurate con-
clusion about the source of your stage fright, but it’s definitely
more useful than whatever the so-called accurate answer may be.
This answer helps you to realize that, since you obviously can’t do
anything today about the hairy elephants, you may as well admit
that you can’t do anything about the terror of speaking in public,
either. Such an admission of powerlessness, if you have the courage
to make it, enables you to give up your struggle and experience the
terror as it is. The struggle is only your perception. Stopping this
struggle leads to acceptance of the terror and the ability to function
with it and even use it to your benefit.
For these reasons, it’s mostly useless to try to determine the
cause of your feelings.
This fable is useful in understanding the origin of feelings.
Like all fables, the moral of the story matters more than the ob-
jective truth.Once upon a time, long ago and far away, there were two
kinds of people—the Fuzzies and the Smoothies. The Fuzzies
were people who got an increase in energy when presented
with a challenge, and the Smoothies were people who did
not. This seemed quite normal to everyone and the two
groups lived in harmony, even married one another, much as
right-handers and left-handers do today.
One day, after hunting, they were seated around the
campfire. One of the Fuzzies, who got an increase in energy
when faced with a challenge, had been chosen as their sen-
try. The Fuzzy sentry saw a huge herd of woolly mammoths
stampeding toward the camp. Responding to the increase in
energy in his body, he raced to the campfire, hair standing
on end, shouting, “Run for your lives! Run for your lives!
The hairy elephants are coming.”
The other Fuzzies heeded the warning and ran; many
survived the stampede. The Smoothies, who did not experi-
ence an increase in energy in response to the challenge,
were unwilling to leave the comfort of the fire. “You get so120 Stop Wasting Your Energy