24. Turn stage fright into stage flight

From a pounding chest, to sweaty palms, to wanting to throw up in a pot plant - the fear of public speaking is pretty real. I share my top tips for giving stage fright the flick and soaring on stage.

Transcript

My heart is pounding. My mouth feels like a desert. My face is now the color of my red lipstick and God, I really hope there's a pot plant nearby because I am going to be Uuurgh.

I'm Sally Prosser. You're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters and unless you've sworn a lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you.

Hello. Hello. I'm glad you've kept on after my disgusting intro, but the fact is stage fright isn't pretty and that's what this episode is all about. How to turn stage fright into stage flight, and I'm not talking about flight as in running away as fast as you can from the stage. I'm talking about that feeling when you're on stage in full flight, you know where everything's in flow, the words roll out, your body moves with grace, the audience is lapping it up. I've had that feeling and I'll tell you what, it feels pretty bloody great - like it's where you're meant to be. I'm sure many of you have experienced this. I'm sure many of you have also experienced the opposite of that feeling, that feeling of wanting to be sick in the pot plant. I hear incredible stories from clients all the time about how that fear of public speaking has gripped them and made them think crazy thoughts.

I had one client who said while she was driving to the presentation, the conference center, she hoped that she would have a car accident. Can you believe it? Like she didn't want a bad one or anything, just a little prang. So it was enough to get out of the speaking gig, but not bad enough that she would do herself any harm. I had somebody else tell me that when he got to the venue, the first thing he did was look around and see where he could set off the fire alarm. It sounds crazy, but that feeling of stage fright is very, very strong. As for me, I was thinking back on my life and I thought, surely there's a time when I had really bad stage fright that I could tell everyone about on the podcast.

The truth is, I don't think there was one. I've had nerves, those normal nerves that you feel being backstage, but I've never had that feeling of stage fright. I'll tell you what though. I do remember being in the Wollongong Eisteddfod when I was nine. The set poem is a poem Everybody who enters does - so I do feel sorry for the adjudicator and the parents having to sit through that many renditions of the same thing. When I was nine it was a poem called Concert Night by Katherine Blowen - great Australian poet. There's the first stanza that talks about how it's all exciting and then the second one, she's really worried, you know, my legs are shaky. It's scary out there. The stage is so big. Will everyone stare? The spotlights are glaring. The footlights are bright. Now I know what they mean by stage fright.

I'll take a deep breath before I start. Ah, that's better. I remembered my part. I'm on the stage. I know every line. Wow. This is great. I feel fine. It's so funny. I still remember it word for word. Isn't that weird about some things that you learned when you were a child? They just stay in your head. What is funny about that poem is how quickly the character goes from having terrible stage fright to, 'Oh, it's fine. I'm on the stage. Isn't this great?' It's not that common. You can just take a deep breath and feel better and to understand this, we need to look at what stage fright is. It's the body going into that fight or flight mode. The breath gets shorter, the palms get sweaty. Often the digestion goes as well. I get this when I'm nervous, a little bit of tummy trouble. You know, I need to go to the bathroom every five minutes and the reason for that is the body's in fight or flight. It's only caring about one thing and that is survival. Digestion. Oh, that can wait. That's not important. Oh, remembering what you got to say or that can wait. That's not important. The body shuts down all these functions that we'd normally want it to perform. Think about the symptoms that you get. And in my online program, how to love your nerves and glow with confidence I go through a whole bunch of strategies you can use to deal with nerves. I'm going to share some of them with you today. If you're a reach for the meds type person, you can take a beta blocker. They do actually work, but if you're into more natural therapies in a more sustainable long term solution to your feelings of stage fright, here's what I suggest you do -

I'm going to break this up into two parts: tips before the presentation and then tips just before you go on stage. So before you present, of course you need to prepare and practice. Don't make the actual thing the first time you say it. That's a recipe for disaster. Look at what you're wearing. Wear something comfortable yet fabulous. You want to feel $1 million, but also feel like you can breathe. Okay. I go into more detail in this in my online course, how to own the stage and charm your audience. There's a whole section there on logistics and how logistics can really affect both your nerves and the quality of your performance. Now once you're at the venue, there's three things that you can do.

Now, the first one is to identify where in your body the feelings of discomfort are going on. Is it butterflies in the tummy? Is it the pounding of the chest? Is it the tingling in the hands? Is it like the hair sticking up on the back of your neck? I mean it might be all of the above, but identify what's going on and then what I want you to do is tense it. Okay, sorry, I just knocked the table then because I'm doing the actions as I'm explaining this to you. So you want to tense it, if it's in the neck then bow your head down side to side, stretch your elbows down, scrunch up your fist, screw up your face. Now I know this might be a bit uncomfortable if you're around other people, so if you can find a toilet cubicle or something that will help, but you want to tense as much as you can. All that adrenaline that's getting ready to run away from the saber tooth tiger, you got to give it somewhere to go.

The idea is that you want to get these feelings of nerves and adrenaline and anxiety out. You're going to physically give them somewhere to go and then after you've held the tension - release. So that's the first one, tense and release.

Now the second thing is to breathe. I talk a lot about breathing, but remember, breathing powers your voice, oxygen powers your voice. It's essential that we talk about breathing. When you go into fight or flight, your breathing's too shallow and you're oxygen-depriving your brain. You need more of it. So we want to be breathing low and deep. The podcast episode is Breathing? You're probably doing it wrong. That's a good one to listen to. Oh, now I've just knocked my teacup. My gosh, I'm making all sorts of noises around here today. So breathing low and deep. Remember thinking that your lungs are in your bottom. I know it's a bit gross, but you'll remember that visual. Just remember the air goes into your bottom. It doesn't go out of your bottom. Okay. We want to get it away from the shoulders. So if you're feeling the need to do those big breaths where your shoulders are rising, resist and do the breath where the shoulders fall and you inflate your tummy essentially, that will give you more oxygen and it will help slow your heart rate. Okay, so that's number two breathe. So Number one, tense and relax. Number two, breathe.

Number three, get over yourself. Okay. This is the mindset piece. You not the center of attention. The audience is the center of yours. Stole that from my favorite TedTalk. The Art of being yourself by Caroline McHugh. You're not the center of attention. The audience is the center of yours.

The mindset I like to take on when I'm on stage is to be the shepherd and this isn't a preachy religious thing. When I'm the shepherd and I imagine the audience is my flock. That means when somebody looks at their phone or is really distracted, not paying attention, rather than me just talk faster or go back behind the lectern or just hope to get it over as quickly as I can. I think, Oh no, I've lost a sheep. What am I going to do? So there's heaps of things I could do. I could take a pause. I could raise the volume of my voice. I could raise the pitch of my voice. I could walk towards that person. I could change my gesture. I could do a whole lot of things in an effort to try to get that person back with the flock.

In saying that, you don't want to put all your attention on that all the time because it's like teaching in a classroom. If you focus on the one naughty kid, it's everybody else who suffers. However, it does help you keep that mindset of service. You are there to serve and look after the audience. They are not there to validate you. They are not there to make you feel better. You are there to give them something of value. Taking that pressure off yourself will help settle those feelings of stage fright.

So there you have it. The first thing is to tense and release your body. Second, breathe low and deep, and number three, get over yourself. It's not about you.

Last week. I mentioned My Six Week Voice Makeover, which is kicking off on the 16th of March. Now in the lead up to that, I'm running a free online masterclass on March 2nd it's called "How to speak with confidence, clarity, and charisma" and I'll take you through the six fundamentals you need to make sure your voice sounds awesome in any scenario.

Thanks for listening to That Voice Podcast. To register for my free online masterclass, click HERE.