1. Fear of public speaking and presentations
You are not alone if the thought of speaking in public scares you. On the contrary.
Everyone feels fearful of presenting and public speaking to one degree or another.
Giving a presentation is very worrying for many people. Presenting or speaking to an audience regularly tops the list in surveys of people's top fears - more than heights, flying or dying.
Here is a popular saying (which features in many presentations) about giving presentations and public speaking:
"Most people would prefer to be lying in the casket rather than giving the eulogy."
I first heard a speaker called Michelle Ray use this quote in the early 1990s. The quote is often credited to Jerry Seinfeld, although the basic message is much older. For example (thanks Dr N Ashraf) the ancient Tamil work Thirukkural (also called Tirrukural) includes the following words in its aptly titled chapter, Fearlessness in an Assembly:
"Many are ready to even die in battle, but few can face an assembly without nerves."
Couplet 723, from Thirukkural/Tirrukural, also called the Kural - a seminal guide to life and ethics attributed to the Tamil poet Thiruvalluvar, said to have lived between about 200-10BC.