Brace Yourself

How to survive the first 3 minutes of your talk

Skype University Hackathon 2016, Pitch Training. Photo by Maido Parv

Former U.S. President Barack Obama (and probable greatest speaker of our time), listened to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” to mentally prepare for his 2016 DNC speech, and the 24.4 million people who would watch it. At 00:53 Eminem spits a visceral set of rhymes on what it’s like to lose it on stage. To put it mildly, these two men could not be more different. One rapped his way up from a working-class Detroit neighborhood, the other an Ivy League lawyer who had to learn how to speak like a preacher rather than an academic. As for the rest, most of us know their respective stories.

Yet, it seems both had experienced sweaty palms, trembling knees, shaking hands, nausea, choking, and forgetting what to say next — all likely symptoms of their adrenal glands pumping their systems full of epinephrine, a.k.a. adrenaline, which peaks in about 3 minutes. The two men had apparently encountered stage fright early in their careers, and learned to push beyond it. One because he believed that anyone could do so, the other because living in trailer parks was not an option.

Whatever your reasons for getting on stage to speak, I’d like to give you a ‘cheat sheet’ to get you through some pre-talk jitters, and to survive those first 3 minutes of adrenaline assault. Why? Because a long time ago I choked, I cried, and as a result failed to recite Pushkin to my class at school. So here is a utilitarian stage fright first-aid kit, to be used to conquer those moments when our bodies and minds might betray us in the face of an audience.

1. Your body is a cage. So you may as well master it. Sleep. No, I’m not talking about a power nap. I mean the full 8 hours. Drink water. No coffee, no alcohol, no cigars — the stuff tightens your vocal cords. Nicht gut. Diaphragmatic breathing. Try it — the worst that might happen is you end up sounding like Darth Vader. Move. A run or a walk in the morning, and stretching 15 minutes before a talk. Do a downward-facing dog or whatever, as long as it is not in the middle of the conference hall.
2. Make a personal playlist. If you’re anxious, ambient and piano are good options. If you’re in need of some fire up your derrière, tracks with an ‘explicit’ label on them tend to work very well. Mine is called ‘Speak’, and yes it has plenty of Eminem on it.
3. Work the crowd before. Getting to know the folks in your audience will tell your amygdala that you’re on friendly terms with some of them and they won’t throw stones at you. That will come in handy when you’ll need to find friendly faces to make eye contact with in the audience.
4. The first and last 15 seconds are the most important. Have them memorized. Verbatim. Enunciate names. Yours and that of the company. Pause. Breathe. Look at the people. Keep going.
5. Get to know the stage. Get a grip of the mic and let it rip. Check the batteries on your equipment. Get intimate with the clicker. Try switching it on and off. Then do it again. Walk through your slides (yes, all of them). Try saying something nonsensical to the very back of the room to test the acoustics. It could be a childhood favorite candy brand, the name of your pet, or that favorite boy-band you used to adore that you’re ashamed of now. Loud and proud.
6. “And this, too, shall pass away.” The phrase helped Abraham Lincoln in one of his speeches. It might help you. Pride, fear, and anxiety are temporary.

This should work as an emergency-kit to get you through those moments of pre-talk terror. If there’s something specific and urgent drop a line at gleb@fundwise.me

This piece, in its current form, wouldn’t be possible without the bare-knuckle editing and guidance of Jen Geacone-Cruz. A print version of the article can be found in the column section of CoFounder Magazine.