#71: Introduction Circles and Terror

As someone who has just a sliiiighttt fear of publicly speaking in front of basically any body that isn't my dog, this blog really resonated with me and made me feel a bit better. And I do think that by better understanding myself and more openly accepting who I am and my personal challenges, I can much more naturally understand those around me and their emotions, fears, discomforts, and so forth. So thank you Pip, and the quote you shared at the end is quite a memorable one. 

- Amanda 

Pip Coburn    pcoburn@coburnventures.com

INTRODUCTION CIRCLES AND TERROR

 I met up with someone last week who wanted to talk in the context of personal growth.

He described himself as an introvert.

After 75 minutes, I think he was reconsidering if that was so.

Have you ever been in an introduction circle? 

You know, where someone says, “hey… I got an idea… let’s go around and introduce ourselves… that will be fun!”  

And then immediately after you realize there will be an inescapable introduction circle ALL YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT is…

“What in the world am I gonna say and, egads, EVERYONE is going to think I am a dope AT BEST and they will see my nervousness at just introducing myself and will just know what a loser I am????”

And you don’t hear a single word anyone else says because you are trying to pull something together and yourself together and you are just terrified and think:

“Maybe I can escape to the bathroom and come back when this torture circle is over and no one will notice”

…but you don’t and it is NOW your turn and you are ON and you swear your heart is beating so frickin loud that everyone will know what a loser you are when you have been trying to tell yourself that you belong and you are a college graduate and maybe business school and an adult with three kids dang it and I hope they aren’t this scared about such a small frickin thing because you are senior and paid well but you can’t even intro-frickin-duce yourself ????? And you want to create “community” and can’t even introduce yourself????

That…

…is not…

…introvert.

That is just being scared of people.

I used to have THAT ALL THE time.  Correct that.  I had THAT experience EVERY SINGLE TIME.   And I was also terrified of speaking in front of a group of more than say six.  And now I don’t.  But I oh so remember.  Now I LOVE intro circles even though I don’t start them and I can talk in front of gobs of people excitedly.

So I DID have “introduction circle of terror” syndrome like many. I don’t think I was ever considered an introvert.

I like the definition of introvert as someone who gains energy from time on their own and extrovert as someone who gains energy by being with others even though I am not a big fan of too many black-and-white labels. 

But I wasn’t an introvert.

I was just scared.

Really scared as I look closely.

More specifically I was self-conscious. 

And one of my teachers offered that “self-conscious” is the fear of being judged.  The fear that others will judge me and decide I am less valuable innately as a human and THAT judgment will hurt so so so so much that I would rather just not go “there”.  I could avoid introduction circles and much of life and skip past that experience.  Good plan.  It makes dang good sense to me.

I think, perhaps more so than anything over the past 20 years, I am thankful for all my great coaches who have encouraged me to check out my fears and reflect and to consider “so what?” if I am not smart enough, good looking enough, rich enough, popular enough, or if I am wrong or say I am sorry or I don’t know or my kids aren’t perfect or….    Or an infinite set of points….    My clothes, my house, my car…

“So what?”

I don’t mean “so what?” as in…

“Ya… the heck with those people who are judging me! Just get rid of them all is good!!! Jerks!”

…not that…

…but rather…

“They probably aren’t spending time thinking about me, they may have their own collection of self-consciousnesses and so I can be more compassionate, and if they do have judgments it's ok and I will go on…   and I will be more myself little by little…”

Can I grow little by little by little to avoid an implicit underlying subconscious default of interpreting that others MUST be able to see all my perceived shortcomings when I enter a room?

I think so…

“To the extent that you stand in your own shoes and love yourself with all your craziness is the degree you can understand the craziness and confusion of others… and something happens: you are no longer afraid of people…”…Pema Chodron

…Pip

Pip's first-person bio: 

More than anything I suspect I am driven by “community”.   Across the past 15 years, I have grown to realize that most any success or fortune I have had in the work I do I have re-invested back into my activities such that I spend more and more of my life with people I adore and admire and just loving being around and working on a whole bunch of things that I am incredibly excited about.   I like to study monumental change at the levels of society, marketplaces, organizations and most significantly… people.  I like to study culture deeply. I like to attempt to create culture. I like processes and helping others advances their processes and being trusted deeply.   My wife Kelly is both supportive and probably confused by what I do for a living which makes two of us.  My greatest joy in my work is when I have the chance to draw from two decades of intense work in order to perhaps help someone have a break through.