Have you ever been scared to ask questions?  Or, worse being afraid you were going to be called on to answer a question?  This fear of began for me when I first started elementary school in the first grade. Even when though there were a few wrong answers to questions at that early stage  I still held my breath praying that I would not be called on to answer a question.  What was so bad is I often knew the answers I was just scared.  I was pretty shy as a kid and didn’t like a lot of attention.  And, when the teacher would call on someone to answer a question everyone in the room would automatically turn and look at the person the teacher called on.  That thought petrified me.

It took me several years to realize that being asked questions and answering questions was not going to change.  It was I that had to change.  But, that initial nagging feeling of being asked a question never went completely away.  At least not completely even when I was prepared and knew the answers.

But it never went away when I wasn’t prepared for a  question; this is one of the main challenges you will face in your career.  What do you do when you go into a meeting prepared and the dynamics of the meeting change to something you are not prepared for?