I am reading a book called “Wanting: The Power Of Mimetic Desire In Everyday Life” by Luke Burgis. “Mimetic” is a fancy word for “imitative” (don’t worry, I had to look it up too), so the book is basically about how we learn to desire things because other people desire them.

In other words, I don’t want a car because it goes from Point A to Point B, or because I like the sound of the engine or the look of the wheels, I want a car because I learned that people want cars, and if I want to be a person, I should want cars too.

You might be wondering what this has to do with fungi. A fungus is actually one very large organism, as you can learn from A. reading a science book, or B. binge-watching “The Last Of Us” (I chose B). An action you take in one place will also be felt by the fungus in another place. In other words, plucking a mushroom in front of you might cause the fungus to grow 3 new mushrooms 200 meters away.

Humans are like fungi in that way. They do and feel what they see other humans doing and feeling. If you are presenting about sales in Territory ABC, and you are excited about the sales growth there, let it show. If you are presenting a design for a water park and you are excited about how the curves on the slides are designed, you need to let it show.

In business, we try to quash any and all emotion, and “go rational” all the time. This is one reason so many presentations are boring.

If something causes an emotion in you, you need to let it out to play. That’s how your audience gets excited, too.