Battling Stage Fright as a CEO
I remember the talent show at summer camp — I was supposed to sing Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful.” I stood in front of some two hundred people and looked out into the crowd. I could feel my heart pound in my ears. My throat was clenched tight. My legs froze. My field of vision blurred.
I ran off the stage. I had found out, abruptly, embarrassingly, that I had stage fright.
Throughout high school and college I managed to skirt around any sort of public speaking. When I was in large lectures I would write down what I wanted to say before I raised my hand so that I would have notes if I got too nervous and forgot.
This was a fear that was inconvenient, but as a researcher I didn’t need to be a good public speaker.
Then I had an idea for a start-up, the kind of idea that captured my daydreams, the kind that kept me up at night and wouldn’t be silent until I gave a shot at making it real.
The problem with starting a start-up is that you need to convince others that your idea is important. This meant I needed to tackle my stage fright. Over the course of two years, I tackled this fear head on. Here’s some of my tactical advice on how to defeat stage fright. My hope is to help others who have great ideas but are held back due to fear.
#1: Preparation
· If it’s a pitch presentation for a recurring event, watch previous presentations to prepare for the specific criteria of the event and to feel comfortable with the stage. The fewer surprises, the better.
· Practice your pitch at least 7 times. Don’t practice as many as 28 times in one day (I once did this and gave myself laryngitis). Try to practice at least a few days before the event. I find this helps engrain the presentation into muscle memory.
· Focus on memorizing the overall structure. Pick 3–5 main bullet points. When you try to remember every word perfectly, if you mess up on one, it’s harder to pick the pitch back up.
· Make sure you eat beforehand. Limit caffeine at least two hours before a presentation.
#2: Get Inspired
You get to be the best by learning from the best. Here are some of my favorite speeches that I learned from. I recommend you watch once to understand how they tell a story, another time to understand their voice and inflections, and another to concentrate on how they use their hands.
· Any and every speech by Obama: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6NS9unm-OQ
· Megan Markle. She gives off this sort of energy that makes you feel simultaneously warm, comfortable, and yet simultaneously competent and strong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDvV-xfrqIM
· Emma Watson. I manage to go about thirty seconds before getting teary eyed. Her use of pauses is extremely powerful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9SUAcNlVQ4
· These talks on how to give a great talk: https://unknowntoexpert.com/public-speaking/top-5-tedtalks-give-great-ted-talk/
#3: Presentations As Iterative Processes
· Before a pitch, sign up for different Meet-ups. Chat about your upcoming pitch. This helps you see what words and phrases stick with people to better help you refine your pitch. It also gives you an opportunity to hear some of the questions people have. Store those in the back of your head for the dreaded Q&A portion of a pitch presentation. When you have stage fright, thinking on your feet in front of a crowd doesn’t work well. You can get around this by being prepared with answers to common questions.
· Tape yourself speaking. If you’re like me, it’ll suck to listen back to the tape. But you want to be aware of how people view you. It might be cringe worthy, but you can’t change what you don’t know about.
#4: Screw the Haters
“You have a strong vocal fry. While it makes you sound sexy, you don’t sound like a competent CEO.” — — pitch coach
“If you aren’t great at speaking, why don’t you get someone else to be the CEO?” — -business student
“Do you have some sort of an accent? It sounds like every sentence of yours ends with a question. I don’t mean to be insulting, but you come across as a bit of a valley girl.” — — venture capitalist
I’ve heard over the past two years several different variations of comments on my presentations and pitches. First there would be the shock, then a kind of shaking fear as I hear their words in my head over and over again and wonder, “Are they right?”
After the fear leaves there comes a stubborn anger. The kind of anger that pushes me on to be better, and the kind of stubbornness to repeat to myself: I deserve to be heard.
And so do you.
Don’t ever forget: YOU DESERVE TO BE HEARD.
Here’s the latest time I’ve spoken for context as to where I’m at now. Still not fantastic, but it’s a big improvement:
