Stage Fright and Public Speaking: Turning Fear Into Power | 003

If you're tired of hiding your brilliance behind

stage fright scripts or playing it safe, then you are in the

perfect place. This is the inspired speaker podcast, and I

am your host, Danielle Benson, professional rebel voice coach,

and your guide to speaking with confidence, charisma and zero BS

around here, we don't chase perfection, we choose

connection. So grab a hot beverage, warm up those vocal

cords and get ready to fall wildly in love with the sound of

your voice. Let's get inspired.

Welcome. Today. I want to talk about fear. I know that this is

kind of one of the things that most people don't really want to

talk about, but it is one of the main reasons that speakers don't

speak, or they start speaking and then they stop, or they

don't quite get the results that they're looking for, because

they're not committing fully. Because it is scary, and I'm not

going to pretend it's not scary. That would be lying to you, and

I don't lie. But fear is something that we can work with.

It's something that we can actually use to our advantage as

speakers. But it if you don't know how to do that, it is one

of the things that really gets in the way. I am an expert in

stage fright, just so you know, I have had stage fright forever.

Well, not forever since I was about six, six or seven. I

remember the very first time I ever went on stage as an actor.

I was, I was eight years old. It was the, it was the Christmas

play, and I was playing the mayor. And I was really excited.

I had lots of lines. It was very exciting. And I was standing in

in the backstage area, in the wings, and I was so nervous that

a teacher had to come up to me and tell me to hold my

medallion. I had this big Mayor medallion because I was the

mayor of the town, and I had to hold it away from my body

because I was shaking so much it was going click while I was

standing there and shaking. So ever since then, I've had to

develop a relationship with my stage fright, and I no longer

have to, you know, adjust my jewelry, because it's

distracting to the people on stage. I'm not at that point

anymore, but it is something that I live with, and it's

something that I actually now really appreciate. It's actually

something that gives me a bit of an edge. And so I want to talk

about that, because I think a lot of speakers, we think that

our fear is the problem. We think that our fear is getting

in the way, and it's not. You can be an extremely good speaker

and experience stage fright. Stage fright is not the problem.

The problem is that we think we shouldn't experience stage

fright, or that we're trying to pretend that we're not

experiencing stage fright, and that is the real thing that gets

in our way, because immediately that's a lie, right? And we're

living a lie, and that's a problem. It takes a lot of

energy, and it never really works anyway. So we're not going

to pretend we're not scared. That is not what we're going to

do, but I am going to walk you through a few things today that

will help you if you are feeling just completely paralyzed by the

fear, and also just to let you know that you're not alone. And

honestly, honestly, my favorite speakers to work with are the

ones who are scared. Because when you have a really big fear,

it's usually because you've got a really big fire. You've got

something inside of you that is just so excited to get out. In

fact, one of my favorite, one of my favorite, directors, and

shout out to you. Noel Johansson, wherever you are. I

worked with him once on VoiceOver, and he said to me,

and I don't know if this is his quote or not, but it was the

first time I'd heard it. He said to me, that fear is what happens

when you push your butterflies down, when you push down to

something powerful, that's when the stage fright kicks in. I'm

paraphrasing. I don't remember exactly what he said, but it

gave me that image of I've got all these butterflies in my

tummy, and I put a lid on them, and I'm squishing them down. And

it's the act of squishing them down that's the problem so, and

this was a big part of me learning how to deal with my

nerves. I learned how to take that lid off, which is a very

scary thing to do on its own. Oh, I'm just going to let myself

be scared. I'm going to let everyone see me embody my fear.

But the thing is, as speakers or performers or singers or

podcasters, anytime that you are, you know, speaking,

communicating in person, the emotion that you're feeling

really isn't that important. What's important is that you are

feeling an emotion apathetic speakers are the worst ones to

work with. So when you take your lid off and you let those

butterflies fly around in your body, all. All the way to your

fingers and your toes and to the tips of your nose and your ears,

and you breathe them in. It becomes something very powerful.

You got to step into the fear. You need courage. Courage to

step into that fear with both feet. Embody it, embrace it, and

then we can use it. And I can't explain enough how useful it is

to a speaker to have sage fight, to have nerves, because your

passion is so close to the surface. It is right. There it

is. It is completely untrue that you have to get rid of your fear

and then build confidence and then become a good speaker. That

is not how it works. There is a switch somewhere between fear

and power, and they're right next to each other, really. So

your fear that, that engine inside of you, it's pointing to

something powerful. And if we can just adjust it just a little

bit, it's amazing the things you can do. One of my clients,

Tatiana, she won't mind me sharing the story. She came to

me she was so scared. She's not really a speaker. She'd done a

couple of like, Toastmasters things with like 10 people in

the room, and she'd done a few podcasts and interviews and

things, but she'd never really spoken by herself, and

especially not on stage, and especially not to a large group,

but she was hosting a conference. She was producing

this conference. So she was doing everything. She was making

the swag bags and selling the tickets and organizing the

venue, and she was one of the keynote speakers, because it's

her conference. Of course she is, but she'd never done this

before, and she wanted to do a really good job. So she came to

me and she said, Look, I'm really scared of this, but I

want to do a really good job. And I also want to tell my

story, which I've never been able to tell without bursting

into tears. Can you help me? And I love that, because that, that

the those tears, that emotion we're so scared of, feeling

emotion on stage, which is hilarious, because that's what

we look for. That's what we want. We want emotional alive

speakers, but as soon as it's us, it's like, oh no. I don't

want you to see all my messy bits. Oh no. And there is a

difference between allowing an emotion to happen while you're

speaking and focusing on that emotion and letting it take you

off track. We never want to do that as speakers. We don't want

to get self indulgent. But if it doesn't get in the way of the

story, if you are feeling, even if you're crying, it's actually,

it's actually, it's fine, and it can actually make you extremely

engaging. I mean, you don't want snot to be pouring down your

face, because that can be a little bit distracting. You want

to get to the point when you've told the story enough that

you're not a waterfall, but experiencing emotions and

getting a little bit choked up on stage is really fine, as long

as you allow yourself to stay focused on your message, on the

audience, on what you're trying to give them. It's not about

you, it's about them. So taking the focus off of yourself, off

of I'm trying to do well. This is the main problem that I find

when speakers come to me with stage fright. They're so worried

about how they're going to come across. I might look stupid. I

might say something wrong. People are going to judge me.

It's always this fear of judgment in some way, shape or

form. If we can let that go, which is not okay. It's not an

easy thing to do, but if we cannot focus on that, and

instead focus on our audience, what do they need? Then our need

not to be judged is secondary. I don't care if they judge me, as

long as they get the content that I want them to like, as

long as I deliver what I promise to look what I want. But you

know, as long as I deliver what I promised, then I've done my

job, and it's fine. I am just the packaging. I am the wrapping

paper for the gift. I am not the gift. The gift is the message.

So if they don't like the wrapping paper, that's fine, as

long as they get the gift. So so she and I work together a lot,

Tatiana and I work together a lot, and we went through her

story over and over again, because it was quite dark and it

was very emotional, and we made sure that we visited it from

every angle so nothing was going to surprise her. And she was

very nervous. She was very nervous until the day she went

on stage. I called her when she was in the green room. We went

through a warm up together, and she went on stage, and she blew

it out the park. There were 300 people in that room. She'd never

spoken to a large group. She'd never spoken by herself before,

and she kicked so much ass that she got invitations to speak

around the world from that talk in that room from people who

were there watching her, she got invitations to speak elsewhere.

Within an hour of coming off stage, people are coming up to

her going, oh my goodness, you really connected with me. You

made me cry. Your story was so strong,

and she did that by not pretending not to be scared.

Weird, but by leaning into it, by leaning into who she was,

into her passions, into her quirky weirdness, she was

amazing. She just leaned into who she was, leaned into who her

audience was, knowing her relationship with them was so

important and knocked it out of the parking Oh, every time I

watch that video, because she sent me the recording. Every

time I watch it, I cry because she was so scared. She could not

get through her talk without collapsing, without breaking

down. And then she got up there, and she embraced those nerves,

and she served her audience, and she was captivating and fun and

silly and quirky and smart and all of those wonderful things

that makes an engaging speaker. So I'm here to tell you that

fear is not the enemy. Fear is not the problem. Denial is the

enemy. We can't deny anything. We can't pretend we're scared

when we're not. We need to breathe into those nerves. And

over the podcast, I will be sharing some of my exercises.

Most of my exercises are quite physical. So if you are curious,

please just do contact me. Most of my exercises are quite

physical. I can't really share a lot because, you know, it's it's

not the medium for that, but I'll do my best. And what I want

to give to you today are just three really simple tips. If you

are scared, if you are feeling like you absolutely could never

get on stage. These are really, really, really, really, really

baby steps for you, if you're just, you know, I'm going out

there and I'm managing great good for you. That's not what

these steps are for. These steps are for people who are paralyzed

by fear. Because I think, I think there are so many of us,

there are so many of us who have this fire, who have this need.

And I think I do believe that the bigger the fire, the bigger

the passion, the more heart centered and excited and more

important this message is to you, the bigger the fear is. And

I'm not saying that if you're not scared, you're not important

or passionate, but you've probably worked through it a

bit. But those of us who are still at the beginning of that

relationship, the beginning of that journey, it's totally

possible, and it's not as long a journey as you think, because

really, confidence and fear are right next to each other. I

don't know if you remember, but in the first episode, I spoke

about how confidence only comes later. You have to do. You have

to act. You gotta have that courage and get out there and

prove to yourself. Confidence saunters along later. We have to

act before we're feeling good. And we can ride that passion, we

can ride that need, we can ride that core engine in us, that

emotion can really push you forward and that fear can really

project you forward as well. That's what we're going to talk

about now. So my three Baby, baby, baby steps for paralyzed

speakers are number one. Record yourself every day. Now, no, no,

no, no. Don't get scared. Don't worry. It's okay. It's okay.

Don't ever watch it back. Record yourself only set up the camera

or your phone. You don't want to be able to see yourself. So you

can't have your viewfinder pointing to you. It needs to

just be the camera lens. So if you can just turn your phone

around, make sure that it is facing you. You do want to you

do want to be in the frame. Make sure it's facing you. If you use

your computer, you can just turn off your screen or put a put a

book in front of the screen so you can't see yourself. Make

sure you cannot see yourself and then record yourself straight

for 10 minutes every day for two weeks. Never watch it back. And

at the end of the two weeks, if you choose to, you can, but I

would actually prefer that you never do because the point of

this is that you need to get comfortable not being self

conscious. And as soon as we even think about the possibility

that we might watch it back, we screw ourselves over, and we

start thinking too much, and we get in our heads and we get self

conscious and we get nervous. So the idea is 10 consecutive

minutes recording yourself. You never watch it back, and ideally

you're doing an intimate journal. So it has to be

somewhere where no one else can hear you. The lighting and sound

and stuff doesn't matter very much, because this is never

going to go out in the public. So don't worry about that. You

do want to be seen and heard, because you are recording

yourself if, if you're just recording to the ceiling. It's

not going to feel the same. You need to feel the pressure

without ever knowing you're going to watch it back. It's

kind of it's a delicate balance. The idea is, this is an intimate

journal. This is a practice in presence. I have a lot of

instructions if you're really interested in this exercise. I

actually call. It the video journal exercise, and I have a

whole bunch of instructions, so there's a link below if you'd

like to check that out. I'm just going to give you the basics

here, but it is a more complicated exercise. The basics

are 10 consecutive minutes in relationship with the camera.

You can close your eyes if you want to, but you are focusing on

being as real and raw and honest and emotionally alive as you

possibly can be. So no laundry list of like, well, today I did

this and this and this. You're not risking anything there.

That's not exposure. You're not being seen. You need to feel

seen. You need to feel like this lens is looking into your soul.

It should feel uncomfortable. It's supposed to but the idea is

that you're getting it comfortable, being uncomfortable

in a completely low stakes situation. No one is ever going

to see this. No one is ever going to hear it. You can say

whatever you want. You can screw up as much as you like. You can

cry, you can sing, you anything you like, because no one is ever

going to see it. The point is the process, not the product.

This is not about content. This is not about what you're

choosing to say. This is about the process of getting

comfortable on camera. This is the process of allowing yourself

to be seen and be safe, to be raw and real in yourself and be

safe. It's essentially radical self acceptance. And so there

are more details to it, if you'd like. You can check out the

link, but essentially 10 minutes a day, and I would do it at the

same time of the day no matter what, because you don't want to

wait until you feel like it. This is not about feeling like

it. Some days you're going to, oh, I'm really excited to do my

video journal. Some days you're going to hate it. You're going

to spend the whole 10 minutes going, This is dumb. I don't

want to be here. This is stupid. Great. You are doing the

exercise correctly. It's fine, as long as you're real, honest,

seen in relationship with the camera, and you cannot see

yourself, then you're doing it right. That's step one. It's a

big step, but it will change your life. It will change your

life, not only with your relationship with your camera,

but also when you're on stage and in your audience, in front

of your audience, your self consciousness and your self

judgment goes down so much. It's amazing. So if that is something

for you, if you feel a lot of pressure when you press that

record button, if you're fine, like rehearsing is fine, and

then I press record and I turn into a dude in front of

headlights. If that is your issue, this is an excellent

exercise for you. If you're not sure if you're doing it right,

call me. In fact, call me every week. Do it for two, maybe even

three weeks, and call me at the end of the week and go, Hey,

this is my experience. Don't Don't send me the videos. I

don't want to see them. But you can call me and tell me about

your experience, and I can tell you if you're on the right track

or if you need to adjust in any way, I'm available. You're part

of my community. Call me. I won't bite. I promise. I'm very

gentle. Really. I want to nurture you. I want to help you

out. So that's the first step. The second step is about getting

yourself comfortable thinking and speaking at the same time,

because in the video journal, you may be quiet for a while.

You know you may be just breathing and making eye contact

with the camera, and that's fine. That's absolutely fine.

You can do that.

So the second exercise is more about learning to get over

yourself when you mess up, learning to improvise, feeling

good about it. So the idea for the third exercise, the second

exercise, I could count, I swear, the second exercise is

we're going to speak out loud. So again, 10 minutes a day. You

don't need to do it at the same time as video journal. I would

recommend, you know, you do two weeks of the video journal, and

then you do two weeks of this exercise, and essentially you're

going to speak out loud for 10 minutes a day on whatever topic

you like. Personally, I would recommend actually doing maybe

nine minutes and doing the same topic three times three minutes

each. If I'm doing an introduction for a talk, I might

do that introduction three times over three minutes. So I'm doing

a different version of it. I'm just practicing improvising,

practicing speaking from the heart, so it's going to come out

completely differently every time, which is great. That's

fine. This is not about memorizing. This isn't about

locking yourself into something. This is about learning to get

your brain and your mouth working together, because that

is actually the hardest part of speaking, is the motor skills.

So we got to practice. We got to practice thinking and speaking

at the same time. We're not going to memorize the script, so

we got to think and speak at the same time. And that will take

away a lot of the fear, because when you learn that you can

speak and recover, I can mess up and just go. No, no, I'll just

keep going. You must keep going. So if you make a mistake, don't

go back to the beginning and start again. Keep going. This is

also a skill. It's a skill to learn how to recover, how to

start speaking again. When you forget what to say, Oh no, I

don't know what to say. What do I say next? Talk it through with

yourself. Again, you're not recording this. No one is ever

going to hear it. If you want to record it. You You can if you

want, but the point is to just get comfortable speaking to

yourself. The other thing about it is you must do it while

you're doing something else, so while you're washing dishes or

while you're gardening or while you're walking the dog,

something active, you want to be actively doing something with

your body so that you're not standing there feeling super

awkward, just kind of talking to yourself in the mirror. Don't

talk to the self in the mirror. Never talk to yourself in the

mirror. Just talking out loud to yourself, washing your hair,

washing the dishes, gardening, walking, jogging, whatever,

something physical that is taking your the primary part of

your brain, to do the thing. But it's not like a you're not like

solving a puzzle. It's not a big thinky thing. Don't, don't do it

while writing emails. So that's not going to work. But it's not

using the language part of your brain, but your body is busy

doing something else, skipping, exercising, anything? Speak to

yourself for nine or 10 minutes and every day, ideally, the same

topic three times. Do that for a week, even two weeks, two weeks,

if you hate it, if you if you pretty much got the hang of it

over a week, just do it for a week. It is an amazing way to to

get to trust yourself, one of the biggest things we're scared

of when we stand up there and speak, I'm terrified. I'm going

to mess up, I'm going to forget what to say, and everyone is

going to judge me. But if I'm used to forgetting what to say,

fumbling and recovering, that's not a fear anymore. So give that

one a try. Number exercise. Number two is also extremely

powerful. Step number three is to take this out into the real

world. I know it's scary, but we've practiced. We've gotten

good at recovering. And I'm not saying go out and do a half hour

Summit. I'm not saying, do that. Go to a networking group, go to

a Toastmasters group, go somewhere that is designed for a

practice space. So there's lots of practice labs out there. I

run one. A lot of other speaking coaches run like practice labs

too. But if you don't want to do that, just go out networking.

You go to speak for two minutes maximum, usually only one minute

about yourself. You can do that. You can speak for one minute.

You can practice your intro over and over again before you go in.

Don't memorize it, but practice it. Get comfortable. Get loose.

Have fun. Be silly. If you are if you are feeling super

nervous, a final little tidbit is practice at making funny

faces or in silly voices. And that practice, that fun from

that practice will come into that irreverence will come in a

little bit, and it'll just take a little bit of the edge off. I

have lots and lots of tools to help people overcome nerves.

These are just these are just two of them, with the third step

being taken out into the world somewhere, get real life

feedback. And we'll talk about how to take feedback in another

episode. But you know, go out there, get feedback, survive,

realize that you can speak and not die, and it will go a long

way to allowing yourself to get out there. Now, getting coaching

is very important. I'm not going to say it's not because we don't

want to lean into our defense mechanisms to survive. We want

to stay real. We want to stay present. So if you can find a

speaking coach, please do you can always call me, of course.

But don't luxuriate in training. Don't go after Allah, I just

gotta learn this other thing and then this other thing, and then

this other thing, and then I'll be ready, because that is just

avoidance, that is just waiting for the confidence to come. And

we know that confidence doesn't come first. Courage comes first.

So if you find yourself luxuriating in training. I'm not

saying don't do the training, but go out and speak anyway. Go

out and speak first, and then maybe you can go, oh, this is a

piece I need to work on, and you can bring it to the training.

It'll help you feel more confident, because there is

nothing, there is nothing that will prepare you for going out

and speaking, other than speaking. And the thing that I

love about nerves is that they're so physical. We don't

need to talk ourselves into feeling confident. We don't need

to talk ourselves out of feeling fear. We just need to do the

physical practices and we're there. That's all I do. I don't

try and pretend. I'm not nervous. I just do the physical

practices. They work. It's like going to gym. If I go running, I

don't, but if I did, if I went running every day, I would

become a better runner. It's just, it's unavoidable. If you

speak every day, especially if you speak mindfully, you're

aware of your technique, you're you're focusing on all the right

things, you will become a better speaker. We don't want to

reinforce your bad habits, so do stay aware. Do still take

feedback. Do still ask yourself, Am I being a real representation

of myself? Am I being my full expressive self, or am I hiding

but after that, just push yourself in lots of little ways.

I think that's the best way to grow. And I'm going to end it

with this. I think the best way to grow as a speaker is not to

jump in both feet. It's already a scary thing. Public speaking

is already terrifying. We don't need to put your nervous system

into overdrive. We don't need to throw you into fight or flight.

It's not a sink or swim situation. Take it inch by inch.

Put a toe in, then go down to your ankle, then maybe down to

your knees. Take your time. Do it incrementally. And then every

time you push your comfort zone, and it's like, oh, oh, it's

okay. I can do this. You'll get good at pushing your comfort

zone. And that's really the way that I like to coach. I don't

want to make my speakers dependent on me. I don't want to

throw them in the deep end, because then they're going to

have to keep coming back for reassurance, for validation. But

if I can empower them, just just just try that a little bit, just

prod that a little bit, just push that. Can you do just one

more? One thing more. They get good at doing that themselves,

and then they keep growing. They might come back to me for, you

know, extra advice or support on something when they're going to

a new level, but they will keep growing regardless, because

they've learned to make friends with that discomfort, that kind

of well, it feels kind of nice just to push just a little bit,

not too much. Get comfortable there, then push again. Get

comfortable there, then push again. That is, I think, the

best way to grow as a speaker. Take it in baby steps. Don't

judge yourself for where you are. Don't judge yourself for

being scared you are exactly where you need to be. Breathe

into the fear. Take the lid off the butterflies, and just do one

step at a time. And if you ever need me, I'm here. Take a look

at that video journal link, and I'll see you next time you.