Stage Fright Help: A Testimonial

Cassandra Gregg shares with us how she managed to overcome stage fright:

I approached StageCalm with some reservations. I had read several books purporting to offer solutions to the problem of stage fright, and once attended a weekend seminar on the subject. In each case, the problem was that these programs were very selectively targeted at one type of performance or another. I do not work in the entertainment industry, and am not a "performer" in the traditional sense. In the professional and academic arenas, however, I am often called upon to speak before groups of my peers, my mentors and sponsors, and occasionally my role models and heroes. Talk about sweaty palms!

The presentation of a "casual" speech to colleagues is, in many ways, very different from a theatrical or musical presentation. In a casual presentation, it is imperative that you be able to walk the fine line between sounding eloquent and sounding rehearsed. Your audience wants you to sound spontaneous and off-the-cuff, but does NOT want to hear you stammer and correct yourself (the way people do when actually speaking spontaneously). The other special challenge of this kind of presentation is the expertise of your audience. If you flub your lines at that podium, you can't just ad lib your way back to the script...

You either correct yourself, and quickly, or watch hands shoot up like weeds as your audience eagerly volunteers to correct your error. Sadly for me, I tend to blush furiously and completely lose my train of thought when publicly corrected.
Toss on top of all this the standard "everyone is staring at me"
nervousness, and I'm a wreck by the time I make it to the podium.

While I found a few pointers about breathing helpful, the programs I had tried in the past focused too much on stage performance to be of much use to me. To my delighted surprise, StageCalm is different! The tools are flexible enough to work with my non-traditional performance scenario, and already I have made significant progress toward my ultimate goal: consistently confident and comfortable presentations.

The biggest thing StageCalm did for me was to help me precisely identify and address the fears behind my stage fright. StageCalm's "Worry Control" guided me through an honest and thorough examination of my fears. In some cases, really examining the root of the fear was enough to eliminate it. Once I understood the fears that remained strong for me, it was easy to find the correct tools to help me minimize their effect on me. The Relaxation Training Manual was particularly helpful in showing me how to break free of what I had seen as the inevitable physical consequences of perceived stress. Now, even if I'm nervous, I can at least keep my body feeling calm.

Today, I got to put my newfound tricks into practice. My first speech since finding StageCalm was delivered to a relatively small group of eight colleagues. However, my boss was also present, which has traditionally been a major stage fright trigger for me. I can't say I wasn't nervous, but I was also excited and confident. My heartbeat stayed nice and even, I didn't get dizzy, and, best of all, I looked and sounded great! Not one stammer, ill-timed pause, or irrepressible blush. My boss couldn't stop raving about the improvement in my performance, and a colleague asked to use excerpts from my speech for his own presentation the following week!

I still have a way to go before I am as confident in front of a group as I would like to be, but, for the first time, I feel like it's possible for me to be at ease in the spotlight. On my own little stage, I can really shine!

Cassandra Gregg
Student
Santa Cruz, USA