Pre-Performance Jitters: How To Turn Nerves Into Excitement

 

Training for Speakers, Entertainers & Performers ~

 

Sitting next to my wife and daughter at Church on Father’s Day, we sat ready to give our talks.  My wife and daughter had theirs written out, I sat empty handed as I had barely thought about the talk due to prior time constraints.

Noticing the uncontrollable bouncing of her knees, I watched my beautiful pre-teen nearly go into a mental meltdown prior to her 3 minute talk.

If you’re a performer, speaker, entertainer, then you know this feeling all too well.

I leaned over to her, held her hand, and said, “Honey, you know how you feel right now?  Do you feel sick and nervous, like you’re going to explode?”

She nodded fearfully.

“Crazy enough, this is how I feel every time I go on stage to do my job,” I said.

She said she was terrified to speak in front of her friends, family, and congregation.  I understood and then reminded her,

“The speech will be over before you know it.  If you can turn your nerves into excitement that is what Olympic athletes train their entire lives to do for that one shot at gold.” 

She stood up, gave her speech, and knocked it out of the park.

It wasn’t because of anything I said, surely she was still scared to death, but the point is we all have some type of pre-performance anxiety and it can either help us deteriorate into absolute terror, or it can amp us up into another sphere of awesomeness.

I hope you’ll choose the latter.

The past few years I have had more nerves than I ever had when I began my career nearly 20 years ago.

Why the shift?

Because I had gone from my zone of absolute comfort as an Entertainer to a zone of complete terrifying horror as a business Speaker.

I would lose sleep for months, gain and lose weight, and work myself into a frenzy.

I know what it feels like to lose your mind in preparation of a presentation and it is not good for you.

I still fall into this trap once a year, such as when I spoke at the National Speakers Association to launch my new message The Promise to an audience of professional speakers leery of my ability as a Speaker instead of Entertainer, all while carrying the secret they were putting me in the Hall of Fame 2 days later.  Talk about pressure.  That was my Olympics.

I have the same feeling as I type this.  I am speaking in front of over 20,000 people at the most coveted speaking gig one can get in my profession as of next week.  In fact, I turned it down last year as I felt I wasn’t ready.

So I write this not only out of inspiration for you, reader, but also as a reminder to myself to live what I know works.

Turning the nerves into excitement and anticipation for the great moment before you is tricky, but here’s what I do:

1. Practice as if I’m on stage – clicker in hand, in a suit, one shot per day all the way through it, even if that means you try it 10 times in sections, go all the way through once per day.
2. Mentally walk through the presentation and envision my success – the standing ovation, the roar of the laughs, the landing of the stories and points, the cheers and business cards and future gig opportunities flowing to me.
3. Eating, breathing, living the message – if I know it so well, inside and out, even though I have a disability for memorization none of that matters if I have internalized the message and can say it 10,000 different yet competent ways.
4. Taking a Break from it – once in a while it’s important to step away from the material and the practice.  You must relax and put it in God’s hands, knowing you have done all you can.
5. Embrace this as Your Moment – you have one chance, you live for this and were born for it.  Why not just go out and kill it?

There are articles and videos proving the same, and I’d love to know what works for you.  Here are a few good things to watch and read in order to prep for your next big event:

Elite Daily

Outside

 

Remember to turn the nerves into excitement, and yes, you’ll most likely land the gold.

And if not, at least you’ll get silver, which it was Seinfeld who said that’s like the first of the losers award.  Oh man!  Hahahahahahah!