Alright, some tasty follow up to start.

Your friend and mine Dan Warren wrote to me to talk about when he had a detached garage growing up they almost never put the car in there unless they knew there was going to be a snowstorm.

That’s reasonable to me.

If you have a detached garage I understand all the reasons not to use it but if you have an attached garage that’s electric so it’s not a big manual to do and it’s not far from the home.

That’s the kind of garage I don’t understand avoiding.

It’s just much more convenient to me to get in and out of a car when there’s shelter for me versus going out.

That’s what the car hole is for.

Of course I understand that some people use their garages for storage and I think it’s reasonable to use some of that space for storage but it’s crazy to me not to also use the thing that the car can go in to put the car in.

Listen to each their own theme song.

Your Daily Lex.

I was thinking about nervousness today.

I’m giving a presentation with my buddy Andy later on today and I don’t get nervous before most kinds of presentations or talks that I’m going to give.

You know when I do improv I don’t typically get nervous there and some folks say no once you lose the nervousness then you can’t be as good anymore.

Like you need the nerves to help drive the performance whatever.

I don’t feel that way.

I can go on stage and do improv.

I can be thinking about ahead of time boy I hope it’s a good show.

That’s the stress of doing improv right?

You invite your friends, your friends come to the show, you have no idea how that show is going to go because each show is improvised.

But I’ve done enough shows, particularly when I’m doing shows with castmates who I trust and who I know have the skills, so I’ve done enough of those where I can feel pretty good going into a show that it’s going to be fine.

So I don’t typically get nervous before an improv show.

If I’m doing music, if I’m playing music for others to improvise to that’s where I get nervous.

I get nervous before I talk because I’m like oh my gosh I better have a bunch of different riffs in my head and chord progressions and all those things so I can accompany people the right way.

But I don’t get nervous before that.

I don’t get nervous before a talk.

And I’m giving a two hour talk today with a buddy of mine so not a thing I’m dreading in any way.

The exception is if I’m giving a brand new talk that I’ve never done before to an audience who I don’t know that can be a little bit nervous.

It’s not terrifying or anything but it’s one where I can get a little bit of angst.

And I appreciate that nerves aren’t a big thing for me because I remember in junior and junior high school when I was in the play I would always get nervous before the show started and that nervous would always manifest itself as intense stomach pain.

Like I need to run to a bathroom right now but can’t because the show is about to start.

That is not a fun kind of nervousness to experience.

Now I would say if I do have a situation where I’m going to feel nervous it’s more like chest versus stomach and that’s a pretty big difference.

Even though those are confusable nouns for some.

I might feel a little bit of tension or accelerated heart rate or whatever.

One talk that I’m giving later this month I’m giving to a SaaS business in Canada and they’re in the business of selling SaaS.

They teach people to be very sassy.

But so that’s a talk where I’m talking a lot about fear and how you can use fear.

I don’t like when the advice is ignore your fear or get over your fear because fear is a very natural human thing.

But talking about understanding your fear and diving into it I think nervousness is a form of fear.

But anyway I don’t get nervous before I do most talks.

I don’t think I’ll get nervous before I do that talk really.

The one giant exception to all of this is I can get nervous in a presentation.

Because listen I only have one mode when it comes to presenting.

I’m going to attempt to find ways to use humor in a presentation.

If there’s an opportunity for jokes I’m going to put it in.

I typically don’t script them.

Some jokes I’ll have scripted.

If I have a presentation and I can see a funny moment that’ll happen.

But very often when I’m doing the presentation live a funny comment will occur to me and I’ll share it.

So whether it’s a scripted one or an improvised one if I don’t hear an audience reaction that can be very nervous.

That can be like ugh because I don’t really want to turn it off.

I don’t want to stop finding the opportunities for jokes but if there’s nobody responding to it it’s definitely ugh which again I don’t have a spell.

This is the stress of giving presentations over Zoom because typically everybody goes on mute and then you are just talking to silence.

If people go on mute but their cameras are still on you can at least see if there’s some smiling faces or whatever.

But man when it’s just dead silence or everybody’s video is off and you have no idea how it’s going that is a little bit nervous and confusing because you have no idea what’s happening.

But here’s the thing.

That’s what podcasting is.

I have no idea how anybody is responding to any of these things that I record whether it’s this show or any of the many other podcasts I do.

So maybe I have to think about it that way.

Maybe every presentation I do on Zoom to a muted audience is really like it’s a live podcast but with a dead audience.

Something to think about.

Happy Thursday.

Goodbye.

I’m issooshema.