It’s your best friend’s wedding and you are called upon to give a speech in front of two hundred people. Unless you are Barbara Walters, odds are this fills you with dread. Public speaking is pretty high on the list of most people’s top fears. In fact, according to surveys, fear of public speaking is even higher than their fear of death.

We assume that the best way to conquer this paralyzing fear is to get ahold of ourselves and relax. “Calm down,” we tell ourselves over and over again. According to research, this is a terrible idea. First of all it is impossible—a racing heart, shallow breathing and sweaty palms are evidence that there is nothing calm about the situation you are in, Secondly, it doesn’t make any sense. A chilled out speech giver is going to put everyone to sleep.

Instead of trying to calm down, Harvard professor Alison Wood Brooks recommends reframing anxiety and reinterpreting it in a more positive light – without trying to lessen the physical stimulation:

Reappraising anxiety as excitement is more effective than trying to calm down. Individuals can exert influence on their own reappraisal process by stating “I am excited” or by being encouraged to “get excited. Compared with reappraising anxiety as calmness or not reappraising anxiety at all, reappraising anxiety as excitement increased the subjective experience of excitement and improved performance in three important performance domains: singing, public speaking, and math.

In other words, flipping from an anxiety mindset to an excitement mindset made all the difference. All you need to do is to replace one adjective with another.

Back to the speech at your best friend’s wedding. Lean into your anxiety and embrace it as excitement. Remember, fear is just excitement in need of an attitude adjustment.

Nerves and butterflies are fine-

they’re a physical sign

that you’re mentally ready and eager.

You have to get the butterflies

to fly in formation,

that’s the trick.

-Steve Bull

Hurricanes are named according to a strict procedure established by the World Meteorological Association.They start alphabetically and alternate between male and female names. The names are selected in advance so don’t bother lobbying for naming rights. 

Given the equal distribution of male and female names, one would expect the death toll to be similar. But that is not the case. Hurricanes with female names are far more deadly. So much so that one researcher noted:

Changing a severe hurricane’s name from Charley to Eloise could nearly triple its death toll.

It just doesn’t make sense. Or does it?

Researchers believe that unexplored social factors are at work. They argue that female named hurricanes cause significantly more deaths than their male counterparts because they lead to lower perceived risk and less preparation.

In other words, gender stereotypes shape how people prepare. Hurricanes named after men are associated with strength and aggression while hurricanes named after women engender a more passive response. Hurricane Sam has more street cred than Hurricane Samantha.

People are more likely to seek shelter and take warnings seriously when Hurricane Sam is barreling towards them. As the research shows, these gender biases can have deadly consequences.

The study highlights our hidden biases and how we make decisions based on factors outside of our awareness all the time. Indeed, stereotypes lurk in unexpected places.

Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald explore these hidden biases in their fascinating book, Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People:

Many of us hold onto quite a bit of unconscious bias against all sorts of groups, no matter how unprejudiced we strive to be in our actions and conscious thoughts.

Recognizing the factors and implicit prejudices that unconsciously shape our beliefs and actions is the first step.

Assignment: Peer into your blindspots. It may be eye-opening.

I just love dessert. If you give me a cookie, I will eat every single crumb. For years I tried to be one of those “I’ll just have a little bite” types but it never worked. Thanks to Gretchen Rubin, author of Better than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives, I have a better understanding of why moderation doesn’t work for me and what to do instead:

Some people are Abstainers, some are Moderators. Abstainers find it easier to give something up altogether than to indulge in moderation. Moderators do better when they indulge in moderation. Because our culture holds up moderation as the ideal, people often persist in trying to act like Moderators, even when it doesn’t work for them.

Discovering I am an Abstainer has been liberating. It is far easier for me to say, “I don’t eat dessert,” and to skip it entirely than to torture myself with trying to eat just a little. It is easier not to eat a cookie at all than to eat one. I feel much better and more in control.

Of course, some people are terrific Moderators—I have a friend who can keep an open bag of M&M’s in her desk drawer for weeks on end. Not me. If I eat one I will eat the entire bag. It’s all or nothing.

I have a similar issue with technology. If my phone is within reach, I will check it. I cannot help myself. The only way to stop myself from checking it is by putting it away. So now, when I get home in the evening, I deliberately leave it in a desk drawer until after dinner and after my children are asleep.

Habits are powerful. As Rubin describes, they are “the invisible architecture of our everyday lives.” In fact, studies show we repeat about 40 percent of our behavior almost daily. Think about that for a moment. For almost half of the day, you are on autopilot, doing what you do without thinking about it.

There are good habits like brushing your teeth, taking a shower, going for a run, writing thank you letters and greeting the receptionist with a smile. And there are bad habits—automatically ordering a grande frappuccino every afternoon, checking email first thing in the morning, and mindlessly eating in front of the television.

The good news is that habit change – as outlined in Rubin’s book – is possible, and by changing our habits we can change our lives.

We are all creatures of habit. Why not make them good ones?