In this candid monologue, Jake Burhans recounts his intense fear of public speaking during his freshman year at the University of New Hampshire, describing physical symptoms like shaking legs and near fainting. He explains that the anxiety—often experienced as "butterflies"—is most intense before stepping onto the stage, but dissipates once speaking begins. Burhans reframes nervousness as "eustress," a healthy stress that can enhance alertness, articulation, and focus. He advises adopting a mindset that accepts nerves as a natural part of the performance process, emphasizing the importance of shifting from anticipation to flow to improve delivery.
Chapters
Have you thought about like, uh, big group speaking engagements? Yeah, I used to be in college. I was deathly afraid of public speaking. Really? I never would've thought freshman year I had to do freshman year. I had to do a presentation for like our little group. Yeah. At UNH, dude, I almost passed out. I literally almost passed out. I just remember being in my suit, dude, and my legs literally shaking, shaking. And I was like, no one even mentioned anything after, but I'm like, everyone definitely saw my legs like straight up shaking. What I learned about public speaking too is that you always get the butterflies before, but the second you start speaking, it all goes away, right? It's always the anticipation. Then as soon as you're into it, you're in the flow, all the things, right? So just having that mindset shift of like, it's okay to be nervous, like to have the butterflies or the— Part of the game. The nerves is part of the game, right? It means you're excited. It means you care about it, right? But not getting mentally sucked into that and being like, Oh my gosh, I'm going to mess up all these things. Da da da. It's like, that's just part of it. Yeah. And then mentally you're calm. You got the little jitters in here, but they call that eustress. It's like a healthy stress, but it actually helps you perform better. You're more alert, you're more sharp, you're more articulate, you're more clear, you're more focused. You can work through your points better. Uh, so all that is good.
