National Face Your Fears Day is the brainchild of Steve Hughes, a presentation skills trainer who marvelled at the sheer terror that people faced when giving a speech in public. He noticed that when people actually thought long and hard about why public speaking paralyzed them so much, they couldn't come up a really good answer. After all, no has ever really died of nervousness during a speech.
That got him thinking about other common fears that people suffer from unnecessarily. Turns out there are myriad fears that are "beatable" and pause no direct threat to one's well-being.
He began to say, "If we can have National Ice Cream Day and National Talk of Elevators Day, surely there's room for a more significant day to invite people to look at the things that scare them and say 'no more!'"
Enter National Face Your Fears Day. Tuesday, October 13, 2009 is the inaugural observance, but the hope is that it is simply the first of many.
Steve has personally dealt with his own fears. It took him 36 years to finally muster the courage to try stand-up comedy and nearly five more years to quit the family advertising business to start his own company. Steve adds, "Standing up on the comedy stage trying to make people laugh was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. But I'm so glad I tried it."
So get our your party hats and your noisemakers, National Face Your Fears Day is an event to be embraced and cheered.
Carpe diem!
Contact Steve
P.S. Thankfully, Steve doesn't suffer from fear of success. Otherwise, he would have never had the courage to establish this day.
