Speak out: The battle between Ego and Fear – Who wins?

Even after being at various number of conclaves/ conferences/ lectures/ sessions (with whatever name we call), asking a doubt to the speaker in front of hundreds of our colleagues creates a sort of fear and only few of us overcome and leave the auditorium with a happy and peaceful mind (clear mind). The best part is we all know that clarifying doubts is one of the best ways to learn things. Even then our learned mind leaves the auditorium confused.

Google, AOL, Bing…….

Some of us might be thinking, “What importance does the issue mentioned above play in our life?” Others might be thinking, “Why to open our mouth, ask question and indirectly inform others that I didn’t knew this before?” And some others might also be thinking, “Why to waste time in asking doubts when we have Google, Bing and AOL etc.?”

In this regards we should try to understand few pointers. Firstly, constructive learning always happens when we ask how, when and where. Secondly, it is always better to tell people that we don’t know and avoid the chance of them perceiving that we know. Finally, the online search engines have got definitions for almost everything under this world, but the unique and relevant perspective is always brought by that particular speaker at that particular instant of time.

Ego Vs Fear

Few years back the same fear of speaking in front of many people stopped me from getting 100% from many of the conferences which I had attended. Then I slowly understood the cost of hiding my questions owing to that fear. But one day during a seminar on “career path and opportunities”, which was attended by more than 200 individuals like me, I had a doubt which I eventually asked and got it clarified. This was possible due to the Ego Vs Fear mantra which worked for me. It works very simple - whenever we got a doubt framed in our mind, just raise the hand and rest would be taken care of! This is how it works - the moment we raise our hand, all the people notice it and they expect us to ask our question. Since we fear asking question, we stay calm for a second and this get counter-attacked by our ego which tells us not to get fooled in front of hundreds of people by staying dumb. Therefore, in this battle between the fear and the ego, ego emerges as the winner and this results in us asking the doubt and getting it clarified.

Thanks for your patience. Your opinions and suggestions are valuable :)