For many people, the simple act of talking in front of others paralyzes them with fear, and they avoid networking because of it. In fact, public speaking is the No. 1 fear of Americans—death is No. 7! As comedian Jerry Seinfeld says, “At a funeral, you’d rather be lying in the casket than delivering the eulogy.”

A lot of people have fears and challenges with networking for the same exact reason that people have fears and challenges with public speaking: they’re afraid they’re going to look stupid. Or not know what to say. They’re afraid they’re not going to know how to handle the questions. “The spotlight is on me. What if I screw up?”

So what does this have to do with networking? Well, networking is a form of public speaking so the same fears and deterrents apply. This goes for sales producers and job searchers alike.

This is a story I’ve told before but it bears repeating. I teach a public-speaking class at Rutgers University. One of my former students, Nicole, almost withdrew from my course because she was so terrified of speaking in front of the class.

In my first class, I have the students get up and speak about themselves. (It is a public speaking class you know.) At the end of the first class, Nicole came up to me after everyone else left and said, “I have to apologize. I don’t want to waste your time. I can’t take this class.” I asked her, “Why? Did I mess up already?”

She chuckled and answered, “No, no. It’s just that I’m absolutely terrified.”

I said, “Yeah, but you did so well. And you need this class to graduate.”

“Yeah, I do. I’m going to have to figure something out.”

“No, I can’t allow you to do that,” I said.

Right then, her mother called on her cell phone, and as Nicole spoke with her, she was almost in tears. Her mom was trying to convince her to stick it out. Then I said, “Nicole, do me a favor, hand me the phone.”

I said, “Hello, Mrs. Nicole’s Mom. This is Michael Goldberg, the instructor. Listen, your daughter is beside herself. Please help me keep her in this class, and I promise that she will overcome this fear, and be one of the best in the class. I will work with her—I will do whatever it takes, otherwise this is going to haunt her forever. And I can’t allow that. So if you can work with me on keeping her in this class, I will do the best that I can.”

That particular semester, we were videotaping students as they gave speeches and we would often start the class by critiquing a taped presentation from the previous week. Sometimes we would critique a newscaster or even a celebrity. So I popped in a DVD and we watched David Letterman deliver his monologue. And suddenly Nicole appeared on the show!

At the end of the clip, Nicole stood up in front of the class and gave a presentation about how she has overcome her fear, what happened, what was going through her mind and how appreciative she was of the class.

By overcoming her fear, Nicole had an incredible experience that she will never forget. And she will probably have many more—she will meet people she would otherwise never meet and have experiences that she would be too fearful to have otherwise.

What are the Letterman Top 10 opportunities you’re missing out on?