People say that few things inspire more fear than the prospect of speaking in public. The joke is that the fear of public speaking is greater than the the fear of death, so at a funeral many people would rather be the dead person than the one giving the eulogy.

Given all that, how do people overcome their fear of getting up and performing in front of a room full of people?

Rock guitarist Eric Clapton explains it.

“The sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there,” he said.

“It didn’t matter to me that there were people, it didn’t matter that I was shy,” Clapton continued. “Just the sound was so captivating that it helped me to get rid of those inhibitions.”

In other words, if your passion is greater than your fear, you can do things that you otherwise could never think of doing.

That’s your real challenge in life: to find something you love so much that you are willing to cross any border to do it.