Many years ago in college I was skydiving with an adrenaline junky friend who would sign up for public speaking at any opportunity just to make himself nervous on purpose. He enjoyed the thrill of having his heart start throbbing, and even liked not being very prepared. While I recommend lots of preparation for public speaking, I do really like the idea of embracing being scared of speaking as part of the fun, and I’ve tried to borrow that attitude and make it part of my own personal narrative. I guess it helped because these days I always jump at the chance to give a conference talk.