I have seen innumerable attempts to handle stage fright. People come to our workshops and tell us all the time what they’ve already tried.
Bianca addressed audiences of 3,000. She’s in sales. At customer events, she would walk out on a large stage to very loud thumping music, acting all pumped up. and yell at the crowd, “Hey! How's everybody doing?” It was so artificial for her to act this way, and the moment she started her actual presentation, it was obvious she was nervous. Getting “pumped up” did nothing for her but make her feel ridiculous.
Peter found two people in the audience on either side of the room. First he talked to one, then he talked to the other. No one else. Anchoring on only 2 people did nothing to handle his stage fright.
Risha is an engineer. She presents to senior leadership in her organization, a group she considers terribly intimidating. Her solution was to avoid looking at them - the thought of eye contact terrified her – and to keep her eyes squarely fixed on her notes. She was overlooked for one promotion after another.
John, a CEO who presents regularly at industry conferences, rehearsed for a week before, but on stage his hands trembled visibly, so he made a point to never use a handheld microphone or drink a glass of water when he was speaking because it would splash. His employees wondered to each other why this wonderful man suddenly turned into a nervous wreck in public. They pretended not to notice when they talked with him.
Jenna memorized a script, including the part that said, “Hello, my name is ….” The problem was, when she came out she could only remember the first two sentences before she froze. She left out half of what she was going to say.
Kevin faced his slides and kept his back to the audience so he wouldn't have to see them. They couldn’t hear him.
Gary’s “self-talk” ranged from telling himself to calm down, all the way to beating himself up about it. He spent a lot of time hating himself.
Lynette “powered through” her talks, mindlessly reading her script, and collapsed with exhaustion when they were over.
If these methods for handling stage fright worked, people would report success. But they don’t work.
What they’re all trying to do is drive the symptoms of stage fright out of existence. The symptoms include every flavor of fear, from feeling tense to complete terror. Everything from dry mouth to tense stomach to sweaty palms to brain freeze.
The reason these methods don't work is because they don't address the root cause of stage fright. People have no idea what's causing it. They go around asking themselves, “What’s wrong with me?” That’s a very bad question to ask yourself that will only make you feel worse.
But, if you don't know what's causing the stage fright, how can you expect to fix it?
There are THOUSANDS of tips on the internet and in books for how to deal with the symptoms, none of them even mention a root cause.
When you Google, “How to handle stage fright”, you’ll find many strange suggestions, some from very prestigious sources. I saw a video posted by a respected MBA program where the solution presented is finding a friendly face and only talking to them. Audiences hate that. Another impressive source posted a video demonstrating “Power Poses” where you have one hand on your hip and another on a chair. Looks ridiculous when you actually do it. Another respected source recommended drinking orange juice. Makes me wonder if he has investments in the orange juice industry.
No mention of a root cause.
The root cause of stage fright has to do with an inability to comfortably face an audience, to fully perceive and to let yourself fully experience them. What people with stage fright are doing is mentally resisting the audience. Mental resistance will inevitably induce stage fright.
Someone with stage fright actually doesn’t perceive the audience, meaning literally doesn’t see them. Or sees them as gray shapes, not individual people with faces. They don’t notice any details. The person with stage fright is so caught up with what is going on in their mind, they can’t focus their attention outward, outside of themselves.
They are filled with resistance and don’t realize that this is what is producing the terrible fear that cripples them.
Discomfort gets in the way of an otherwise excellent presentation. I've seen people who are wonderful, witty, brilliant, charming, come to a complete standstill when they have stage fright. They’re brilliant people, but their IQ drops 100 points in that moment.
When you have fear, you cannot communicate well. We all communicate so much better when we're free of anxiety or self-doubt.
When you know the root cause, what to DO about it becomes obvious. It’s a SKILL to stop resisting, to be comfortable in front of the audience, to face them with ease, to not feel judged, to get your attention off yourself, to be fully in the moment and not worry about being “judged”, to not be thrown off by the status or importance of the individuals in your audience, to perceive each person with clarity, to really SEE them, to fully EXPERIENCE your audience and connect with EACH individual in the audience with complete ease.
When you can do all these things, you have no fear, no stage fright. You’ll be completely at ease and relaxed, you’ll then be able to start effortlessly connecting with your audience with your words.
It's a skill that anyone can develop.
I want you to know stage fright is something that you can make vanish very quickly. When you address the root cause, the speed with which you get over stage fright is remarkable.
Keep the root cause in mind, stop resisting and start practicing the skills above.
This is what we do in our Transforming Your Presentation Skills training. We created a series of practices so you can master each skill above, one at a time. You learn how to make stage fright vanish by lunch on the first day.
Knowledge and competence dispel fear, anxiety and self-doubt. Life is too short to suffer with the symptoms of a problem you can learn to solve in less than a day.
Be the cause!