What To Do About Stage Fright

Today I want to talk to you about stage fright. Yippee! And/or performance anxiety. I want to start off with what is it?

I see stage fright/performance anxiety as the anxiety that shows up before public speaking, presenting to a board, presenting to your board of directors, or getting on stage. Like classic stage fright. It's the anxiety and the the overwhelming, almost shutdown of the system before doing something public.

I saw your hands, like, come up, and it almost looks like this whole tightening of the chest. I'm curious what you've gone through with it.

Yeah, it's a very personal subject matter for me because it was, in a way, my intro to all of this work was I was an actor. I had been doing film, and then I was segueing in LA to stage, and I started getting stage fright and panic attacks. I had 2 panic attacks in the ocean swimming, usually before, like, opening nights. And how it hit me was just this overwhelming sense of anxiety. Like, I couldn't hold it in my body. It was debilitating and really made work thoroughly unenjoyable. And it was like this sense of complete overwhelm in my nervous system.

That sounds intense.

It was intense. Yeah.

Yeah. Where did that lead you?

Well, it— to a lot of retreats.

Okay.

A lot of studying, a lot of therapy, a lot of studying with elders, working fear and anxiety and performance anxiety, stage fright everywhere I could, and really learned how to see through it intellectually, physically with the body, and work with the nervous system so that it didn't kill my career.

That sounds really profound, honestly, because it's one of those things where I would never have guessed I could even be on a podcast like this talking to you. 'Cause when I first met you, I was just terrified, terrified of being seen. And so there's something, again, that feels very personal of like, right, I remember acutely that experience of please don't look at me. I don't want to be seen. I don't want to be here. And I'm sure a lot of people have this. So it's very relatable. And I'm curious, what's the value of even working with it? Like, I have a quote that comes up. It's from Seinfeld of all places, where he says, "The number one fear is public speaking. The number two fear is death, which means you'd rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy." Oh my God.

I feel like this.

I'm like, it's going to kill me. I'd rather be dead. I'd rather be dead than do this.

Welcome back to The Art of Accomplishment, where we explore living the life you want with enjoyment and ease. I'm Tara Howley, and today I'm here with my co-host and amazing co-facilitator, Janine Farziali.

Hey Tara.

Hi Janine.

Tara, why should I handle my stage fright? Why is this worth it?

Yeah, so the, the benefit of working with stage fright is so that you can go do the things you dream of doing. You can, you know, raise money for your startup or speak to the board or speak to the team or run a meeting at work or go on stage or become a stand-up comic.

Right. It's true.

It's worth doing it so that you can fulfill your dreams if they in some way require being in front of an audience or making a presentation that makes you nervous.

Mm.

And there's a beautiful energy in it. There's a way to transform it, and it's like quite alchemical, like transforming shit into gold.

Hmm. Say a little bit more about what that journey is like. What does that even mean to transform it?

It would be working with the anxiety, working with the freeze, working with the nervous system, with the body shutdown, whatever your symptoms are, learning how to work with it. So instead of it shutting you down, you're working with it intellectually, emotionally, nervous system to use the energy to propel you into the thing you wanna do.

That sounds really exciting.

Yeah.

Yeah. I, I wanna try some of that.

Yes.

Yes.

Great. So the first and, and the easiest and the one that I just love doing is to Reframe the fear as excitement.

Right. And this is sort of like the preparation phase, because I'm curious to hear that before, during, after of stage fright.

Yes.

Like, okay, so before, you're freaking out before.

Before, you're freaking out.

Right.

And there's a reframe. And Gay and Katie Hendricks teach this, that you can take fear. Fear is just excitement without the breath. So you can simply start breathing into it. It's like, I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared. Breathing. And then Reframe it as excitement.

Oof!

And it's literally just to take all that frozen energy and like— I'm excited! I'm excited! I'm excited! I'm excited! I'm excited!

Ahh!

Excited!

I'm excited! I'm excited!

Okay, I feel silly and goofy.

We're pumping our hands over our heads. And you know what? That's funny. It's like I feel like I'm the cheerleader that I maybe loathed as a kid, but I'm also like, It's nice. I feel silly instead of stuck.

And you've intellectually reframed from fear and anxiety to excitement. And you've taken the parasympathetic system and started moving it. And all of that, like, blood leaving the head is now— you've moved the hands, like, sent the blood back to the head so you can start thinking.

It's true.

And you've just moved fear into excitement. And it becomes— like, feel your body now. It becomes quite pleasant. Pleasurable.

There's something of, oh, I've moved my body. Like, I, I'm giving myself permission to shake the energy that is definitely there, has built up. It's almost like a— if I think of an electrical charge that wants to discharge.

Yes.

It's like, oh, it wants to go somewhere.

That's exactly right. And for me, I would get overwhelmed, right? And the overwhelm would lead to freeze. And in doing the, I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited, I could discharge that too much energy so that I wasn't so overwhelmed and I could work with what was there. And during COVID I worked with a lot of executives who were suddenly— had no problem presenting to a room of people in a team, but when they went online on Zoom, they suddenly froze. And I would just have them under the table moving their hands before they got on their Zoom call. Just 2 minutes with deep breathing of moving the hands.

We're like flicking our wrists. Like, and it feels— well, again, it sort of feels silly, like I'm flapping my hands as if I'm trying to doggy swim.

A fly. Like little birdie wings.

Bird wings.

I can get up, I can get up, I can get up.

And there is something about even like letting my breath pant.

Yeah.

Like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, that has a, hmm, maybe a bit of a release to it. Yeah, it's unlocking something. And I do feel more like I'm closing my eyes right now and I can feel the movement or the sensation in my body.

Yeah. And that's exactly right. When you finish closing your eyes, letting yourself have a full, soft belly breath and noticing how the body feels different. Oftentimes that like zing, electrical energy just feels like it's calmed, it's flowing, and then you can kind of come back and be in the body.

In the body. There's something about when you said that, I'm like, right. I feel more calm, connected when I get to be in my body. So what's the difference of when I'm freezing versus getting to be in my body?

Yeah, I think the freeze, a lot of the time we're either like frozen and behind the body or up and out of the body, but we're not in the body. We're not with ourselves. Right. We've separated from self and from other.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. That has me wonder what else one might do to prepare in stage fright. Like, what else could I possibly do knowing that this is coming? It's coming for me. I'm gonna go do this thing.

Yeah. So that's the body work. There's one other body piece, which is I like— and I learned this again from acting, which is to kind of move around like, "I get to be fucking on stage. Like, I get to. Fuck off anyone who says I don't." Fuck off, judgmental thoughts. Fuck off, shame. Fuck off, you know, whoever judged you for being big, bigger than normal. And like actually reclaiming a part of yourself that gets to go on stage, that gets to take control of a meeting in big. Like, I fucking get everybody off my fucking back. I get to be big. I get to go on stage. I get to fucking do this thing. Shut up, everyone. Shut up, judgment. Shut up, everyone.

Fuck off. Mm. I get to take this space. This is mine.

Yeah.

Yeah. All right. So there's a handful of other things that can help and prep for stage fright.

Yeah. If I know I'm taking on something big that's going to make me anxious, I'll cut out coffee, tea, chocolate, all of those stimulants, or cut them down. And adding really nutritious food and bananas, potassium-rich foods, root vegetables, grounding foods. So really taking care of yourself nutrition-wise. Also exercising, like sweaty exercise can give a place for all of that, like, ha, ha, ha, to go. So before you're getting on stage, Going and having a run or doing something sweaty can be quite useful. Cold showers, doing Wim Hof work and breathwork all are super supportive for it.

Yeah, I love that. It seems like everyone has their own tricks and hacks on ground. Yeah. Finding really what works for you is what I'm hearing in that for the nervous system.

Yes, that's exactly right. Actually trying a bunch of different things to find out what works for you. And then intellectually, there's a handful of things. One is simply reframing it. You can call it stage fright, you can call it performance anxiety, you can call it anxiety, and that doesn't help you. If you can reframe it and call it excitement, literally that reframe, like, oh, I'm really excited about leading a presentation. I'm really excited about speaking to my team. I'm really excited. Simply reframing it from Fear to excitement can change how your hormones react to the thought.

Whoa.

Yeah.

Those two pathways are very similar, right? So just even naming it out loud, "I'm excited." Yes. Can have that shift.

And intellectually being like, oh, this is excitement and experiencing it, identifying it as excitement as opposed to fear or stage fright. And I like asking the question like, What's so scary? Like, what are you afraid of? Like, really figuring out, like, "Oh, I'm afraid I won't raise the money." Identifying the underlying fear. "I'm afraid I'll go on stage and suck. I'm afraid I'll forget my lines. I'm afraid the audience will hate me. I'm afraid I'll forget my speech, or I won't get the money. I won't get my goal." And really identifying the fear and then being like, "Okay, yeah." So I might go on stage and forget my lines. I have other actors to help me. I might have a whole speech and forget my way midway. I might stumble across my words. Okay, I'm allowed to be imperfect. It's creating a compassionate way to speak to yourself.

There's really something interesting about— normally, if I experience a fear, I don't want to be rejected. I don't want people to think I'm weird or judge me or say something about me, or not give me the money, or I don't want to make the mistake. It's like I'm trying to avoid it. But what you're actually saying is you get to embrace that too.

Yeah.

And then something happens when you embrace it.

Yeah. You become gentler on yourself. It's like shame also. There can be shame in it. Shame of being seen. Shame of making a mistake. When you embrace it, there's less space for shame.

Yeah. How does shame play with stage fright or performance anxiety? What's the relationship? In your experience?

I think that shame is what differentiates stage fright from general fears. It's like, all right, when you're afraid of a bear attacking you in the woods, that doesn't have shame involved. But when you're afraid of public speaking or singing in public or presenting, there's usually an element of shame to it.

Right. And you were also saying something about self-consciousness as well.

And self-consciousness.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. You're inherently self-conscious. Stage fright doesn't happen without self-consciousness. Like, oh, what if I, what if I, what if I— kind of a solipsistic self-consciousness. And another intellectual hack there is to put all your attention on something else, like all your attention on your mission, or put all your attention on someone else, your best friend in the front row, or your co-founder right across from you at the table when you speak, or your teammate who's right on board with you. But putting your attention on something else, not on yourself.

This feels like the start of the transition into, oh, when I step on stage, this is what I can do. I can actually put my attention on the people who are really on my team or index on, I know that people have my back.

That's right. And even picture yourself at the front, like the prow of a boat, and you have everyone behind you at your back rooting for you.

Nice.

And you put everyone you want back there, like all of your heroes and great public speakers and orators or people who've done great fundraising in the past. Like just put them all in the back and feel their support, can also help while you're actually doing it. And breathing can also really help while you're doing it. If you do go blank, what often people do is they'll forget a line or forget where they were in a speech or what they wanted to say next, and then they hold their breath and start beating themself up. When you're stuck in the mud, the tires start spinning. The more you hold your breath—

It's like tourists.

Yeah, you're just digging yourself into the hole more. Whereas if you can go, "Oh, that thing's happening. I had told myself this might happen. It's okay that it's happening, and I'm just going to breathe and feel my body." Being in the body often can motivate you to remember what the next thing was. The breath.

I have to say, you're like my model for being in the body in moments on stage. We've facilitated together a number of times where I mean, A, I'll get into my head sometimes going, oh, I need to prepare, I should have my notes. And one thing I notice is when you're teaching, it feels like you have the capacity to remain very internal, like in the body when you present. And if you've forgotten things, I know we have this story that goes around where you had a concussion. You went skiing, you had a concussion, and we go do this retreat and you outed it. You were like, I'm struggling to remember You're gonna remember things. It's gonna happen. A lot. And what I noticed was, even when that would happen, there would be a blip, you'd misspeak, or you'd have a mistake, it felt like a permission to just be human with you. Of like, "Oh, that doesn't need to even be perceived as a failure. It's just another piece of what's in the room." Yes. And I imagine, like, when you're acting, you must forget lines all the time.

All the time.

Like, okay, how do you weave that into something magical?

Yeah. And I think that people who might invest in your company or your team, we want to connect with each other's humanity, not some bigger-than-life perfect image. Like, we want to connect with reality and humanity. And so when I blubber, I always mix up my words and I go, there I go mixing up my words again. I just call it and name it and it de-shames it for me. And it's like, oh, look, I can laugh at myself. We don't call this company the Art of Perfection. It's the Art of Accomplishment. Like, you're going to be highly imperfect. So just naming it and it's like, ah, have a good laugh. People connect with it. It's human.

People totally connect with that too. That sense of, oh, wait, you don't have to be so self-conscious that you can't just be in that humanity too. We don't have to disconnect in that moment. Yeah, that's all right. We can all just be here with you and 'Oh, you forgot your words. Okay.' And we have a laugh like that. Like, all right. Yes.

Yeah. It brings a certain realness and sweetness to it. I actually think that on stage when something happens or an actor forgets their lines, it's a gift. And I think that happens too when speakers are speaking and they forget where they were. It's a gift they're giving the audience of like hanging in the unknown, like What's gonna happen here?

Ah!

They made it. Okay. Oh, they didn't make it. What's gonna happen next? And we all get to sit in the unknown together.

That speaks a little bit to the magic of what happens in an improvisational moment where we actually are leaning into that space of, "Wow, I could be very afraid of this blip." And actually, there's an opportunity. Yes. Yes.

I mean, you know, we say, like, "This could be a dumpster fire." We actually really invite the chaos. To permission ourselves, like, "This could go all to hell, and that's okay." And I think that's quite useful with stage fright. There was a young ingenue actor I worked with who would get such stage fright, debilitating stage fright, that she would be throwing up backstage. And she actually, several nights, couldn't make it onto the stage. They had her understudy come in. And she was working on this, we were working on it, and she discovered that she thought she had to be Meryl Streep when she came out. And she's 24, 25 years old, and she's— comparing herself to a woman who has like 3 decades of experience. And she realized like, oh, she was expecting not just perfection, but beyond expectation perfection. And when she saw that, I'm allowed to fuck up, and that intellectual like permissioning, like I'm allowed to not do this perfectly, let her get on stage. So yeah, this could be a dumpster fire. Permissioning, like, this could all go to shit. That's okay. Can really help.

Yeah, there's a really good distinction. It doesn't mean I'm inviting and want the dumpster fire to happen.

That's right.

And I am here for it. I have signed up for whatever happens here. I trust there's a reason when it does, almost too, of like, when that blip happens, there could be magic and I'm gonna trust it. Yes. Okay.

Yeah.

And I have prepared, I've given myself permission. I am allowed to. All right, let's see what happens now. Let's go. Yes.

Yeah. It can actually lead to the beautiful moments, the precious moments. I saw a perfec— I saw a— Oh, there I go doing it again.

Nice. That's amazing.

You're welcome. I saw a performance of The King and I on Mount Tam, and it was windy, and the set started falling over. And the actor playing the king, he's supposed to be an asshole, and he just started yelling at everyone to, "Get the steps!

Get those back up!" And it—

this was 20 years ago. I've never forgotten that moment. It was like one of the greatest moments in theater ever. Because something real happened, and he had to respond in real time. And it was like the whole audience was like, "Oh, shit, what's gonna happen?" And then he pulled that out. He's like, "I'm the king!" He's like, "I'm the king!" And he's like barking at everybody. It was genius. And that's available to us when we're facilitating a retreat, when we're leading a meeting. When we're making a presentation. I used to almost say, pray for an accident, like pray for a fuck-up. It's a gift.

I love that orientation too, of there's the layer of, I wanna prepare. It sounded like prepare to the point that my body has the calm it needs.

Oh yeah. If you're having stage fright, for sure prepare, right? The prepare until your body's like, okay, I got it. I know what I'm gonna say. And give yourself all the support you need. If you need a cheat sheet, if you need notes, If you're presenting, you get those.

Yeah.

Like, give yourself all the support you need and prepare, prepare until your body's like, okay, I got it. It's in the body.

Mm. It's in the body. And so now when the mistake comes, I'm also prepared for the opportunity of that. Right.

And prepare for the mistake. Like, a mistake is going to happen.

Mm-hmm.

It is impossible to be perfect. Impossible.

Right.

Like, pray for it.

That's an extra step for sure.

That's bonus points.

Bonus points for prayer. Yes. So then you're on stage, you're going through it, you've got those moments. So sometimes I have full body reactions, like my palms start to sweat.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

I smell my own sweat. I, I'm, I'm, I can feel my voice getting a little bit off. Yeah. Ah, yeah, exactly. And so all of those nervous system level things, what do you recommend in that moment? What, what happens for stage fright?

So it's great. The sweaty palms, it's like, how much can you enjoy sweaty palms? When else do sweaty palms happen when it's enjoyable? Usually when you're holding hands with your lover in a movie theater or walking around. Like, how much can you enjoy those physiological reactions would be the first thing. And can you breathe and go, oh, my hands are really sweaty. That's cool. That means I have a lot of energy to get through this.

Yeah.

Or, oh, my voice is getting high. What do I need? A breath. When I would start teaching in the early days, my voice would always be really up here because I was like excited and nervous and excited and nervous. So how do you bring it down? And what I like to do, and when you're teaching you can do this, if you're on stage you can't really pull it off, but I like naming like, "Oh my God, I'm really excited to be here right now." Or, "I'm really nervous about this." And that instantly changes things. But if you're on stage, you can even go, "I'm excited and I'm nervous right now." Internally say it and acknowledging it, not resisting it, not fighting it, not trying to make it go away in the moment, but embracing it like, "Oh, this is what's here. Great. This gets to be here. I get to be nervous on stage," usually instantly changes the reaction to it.

Yeah, there's a really big difference to the way we are describing that relationship to stage fright versus The classic examples I've heard, and this might just be in like the greater lexicon of overcome the fear, conquer the stage fright. How do I beat it? How do I make it go away, please?

This feels terrible and I really don't wanna feel it. I wanna acknowledge it does feel terrible. I have had stage fright, I have had panic attacks. It does feel terrible. And it's how do you support yourself first of all in it? I will still get anxiety before I'm doing something new. I'm suddenly gonna teach a class with 100 people or do different work with a different team than I've ever done, and I'll feel the little like, ooh.

Yeah.

What do I need the day before? What's the downtime? What's the walk in nature, the hike or a hot bath that I need beforehand? What does my body need? What does my nervous system need afterwards to reregulate and come down? Mine is always like, go into nature and exercise, like, you know, gentle walk or hike.

Yeah, I like that on the back end. What do I need on the back end too? Because as a recovering perfectionist, but also the overachiever type, it's like I will push my way through an experience and just be glad I survived it rather than celebrate the fact that that just happened. That was— this was great. We're, we're recording a podcast today and I get to celebrate on the back end that it was so good. It was great. It went well. That experience too of, oh yeah, what's going to be be the piece for my nervous system, my body on the back end.

And the celebration, that's a really key piece. Like, yeah, did it!

Did it! Yeah, woohoo! Well done. In our company, you ran an exercise where we even celebrated when it didn't go well.

Oh yeah, celebrating all— I mean, that's how we learn. We learn from our mistakes. Like, they're to be applauded and celebrated and welcomed, and otherwise we're not going to grow from it. Yeah, right. Like, if we're beating ourselves up from our mistakes, we're not going to get the wisdom. Like, oh, what did work? What didn't work? How do we make that happen again? How do we make that not happen again? How do we learn from this? There's so much information in it.

Yeah, there's something about— oh, right. So when I experience that stage fright, the freeze, the thing that went off, getting to be seen and celebrated in the learning on the other end, that really can shift too. I feel like I've learned so much in my own arc because you, Joe, everyone just celebrates that was learning. You're learning. Of course, you're not gonna be Meryl Streep. You're gonna be where you are. Yes.

It's the learner's mindset, right? How do we really compassionately adopt a learner's mindset for ourselves so that we are always learning? Because we're never gonna get rid of it. I haven't gotten rid of it, and I've worked on this for 3 decades. Like, how do we reframe it so that we can welcome it and use it as well? Because there is a, a wisdom in stage fright. There's a real gift in it. I talked about you could take, like, shit and turn it into gold. This comes from an actor, actually, I worked with who was having, like, debilitating stage fright. And at some point, he called well into a run, and he was like, "Tara, now I get nervous if I don't have stage fright, 'cause it gives me all this energy to get through the show. And if I don't start getting butterflies around 5 o'clock, what do I do?" So perfect.

"This is my fuel. I need the fuel. Actually, this is good." Like, there's a really big reframe there.

It is. It's like a little fuel cell.

Stage fright is a fuel cell.

To get you through getting on stage in front of 500 people, or making a presentation to the board, or raising money, doing the song and pony dance show to raise money. It's the fuel cell to get you through and get your cause through and your message through. So how do we reframe it so we get excited about it and welcome it?

So we're gonna end with, of course, stage fright.

We're excited about it!

We're excited! We want it! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! It's so good.

So good. It is so good. It feels so good.

It feels very good.

Thank you so much for being with us. If you found it useful, please share it with a friend, whoever you think it would resonate with, whoever has stage fright, stage anxiety. And you can find us at artofaccomplishment.com and on X at Art of Accomplish and across all those social media places. This episode was edited by Reasonable Volume. Once again, thanks for being with us.