I have seen innumerable methods for attempting to vanquish stage fright.
Bianca addresses groups of 3,000 customers at a time. She’s in sales. Her way of coping with terror was to run out on a large stage with very loud music, seemingly all “pumped up” and yell at the crowd, “Hey! How's everybody doing?” It was about as far from her true personality as could be, and the second she started her presentation it was obvious she was tense nervous.
Peter found two people in the audience on either side of the room. First, he talked to one, then he talked to the other. They were the only 2 people he looked at. Anchoring on only 2 people didn’t handle his stage fright, but it kept him from totally losing it.
Risha is an engineer. She presents project updates to a skeptical and demanding senior leadership team. Her solution was to avoid all eye contact because she didn’t want to see their disapproving looks, she forced herself to keep her eyes squarely fixed on her notes and her slides.
John, a CEO who presents regularly at large industry conferences, rehearsed for weeks, couldn’t sleep a wink the night before, and his hands trembled so visibly, that he made a point to never use a hand-held microphone or drink a glass of water when he was speaking. It would take him a solid hour after his talk to stop shaking.
Jenna wrote, then memorized, a script, including the part that said, “Hello, my name is _______.” The problem was, when she got up, she could only remember the first two sentences before her mind froze.
Kevin faced his slides and kept his back to the audience so he wouldn't have to see them.
Gary’s “self-talk” ranged from telling himself to calm down all the way to relentlessly beating himself up about being frightened.
Lynette powered through her talks on pure nerves and adrenaline, and collapsed with exhaustion when they were over.
If any of these methods of handling stage fright worked, they wouldn't have it.
What they’re all trying to do is drive their symptoms out of existence. The symptoms include every flavor and intensity of fear, from feeling slightly nervous and on edge to complete terror.
The reason these methods don't work is because they don't address the root cause of stage fright. And most people have no idea what's causing it.
If you don't know what's causing it, how can you fix it?
There are THOUSANDS of tips floating around 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 quite strange suggestions, even from very prestigious sources. I saw a video posted by a respected university where a woman recommends finding a friendly face and only talking to them. Another impressive source posted a video demonstrating “power poses” where you have one hand on your hip and another on a chair. Another recommended drinking orange juice.
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 experience them. What most people are doing is resisting the audience. This resistance will 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. The person with stage fright is so caught up with what is going on in their mind, they can’t focus outside of themselves.
They’re so loaded with RESISTANCE, it paralyzes them.
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, face them with ease, to SEE each one of them, to not worry about being judged, not worry about how you’re coming across, stop being self-conscious, to be fully in the moment, to not be intimidated by the status or importance of the individuals in your audience, to perceive each person with clarity, in short, to fully EXPERIENCE your audience and connect with EACH individual with complete ease.
When you can do all these things, you have no stage fright. You’ll be completely at ease and relaxed, you’ll effortlessly make a strong personal connection with your audience.
It’s so worth doing. Discomfort gets in the way of an otherwise excellent presentation. I've seen people who are intelligent, wonderful, brilliant and even charming when they’re one-on-one experience the complete paralysis of brain freeze when they have stage fright.
When you have fear, you won’t communicate well. We all communicate so much better when we're free of fear, when we feel safe.
That feeling of being safe doesn’t come from the outside world. It’s a feeling that comes from you because you create it, you generate it, and then you radiate it.
I want you to know stage fright is something that can vanish very quickly. You can do it and feel completely at ease. You weren’t meant to be afraid. You have a purpose and a mission in this life. That’s where your focus should be. 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 the audience and start practicing each of the skills above.
If you’d like help in conquering your stage fright quickly and learning all the other skills to become an amazing presenter, I invite you to check out our very popular Transforming Your Presentation Skills. You will go through a series of exercises that you practice to master each skill I write about above, one at a time. You’ll learn how to make stage fright vanish by lunch on the first day. The words people use to describe this workshop are “transformative” and “life changing”. For you to be truly you, you must operate without fear.
You have the power to transform any situation when you assume the cause role in all your communications.
Be the cause!