I help nervous senior leaders to deliver solid performances when the pressure is on.

Boardrooms, stages, TEDx, TV and crucial meetings.

Chances to shine or to sh your pants.

You aim to deliver your message and impress.

But severe nerves can ruin your performance.

When you’re in the spotlight you can’t hide. You don’t want people to see you struggling, shaking, sweating, stumbling or sounding panicked.

If you suffer from severe stage fright, common advice is useless:

  • “Just embrace your nerves”
  • “Just imagine the audience naked”
  • “Just tell yourself your anxiety is excitement.”

These are ‘mindset’ attempts to address a powerful innate survival response.

The problem starts in the nervous system.

It perceives a threat and you get hijacked by your innate survival mechanisms.  All your systems prioritise getting you out of there alive and in one piece. 

Severe public speaking anxiety is a neurophysiological condition.

Not a question of willpower or mental toughness.

You can’t eliminate or override physical symptoms with mindset and ‘reframes’.

In my clinical experience, the most effective solution to severe speaking anxiety targets the nervous system first. Where the body goes the mind follows.

The best way to deliver a confident performance is to have full access to your rational brain. When you’re in freakout mode your neocortex can go wholly or partially offline. This is the bit you need to remember your lines and answer questions.

Evolution has given you a nervous system that prioritises survival. So when it perceives a threat it quickly diverts maximum blood from the rational brain to your body to run away or fight the predator. Public speaking scenarios often provoke a threat state even without a physical threat to life and limb.  Better safe than sorry.

So you risk forgetting your words.

YOu risk scrambling, stumbling, and struggling to string a sentence together.

Looking like a rabbit in the headlights. And even if you manage to hide your anxiety, it will feel dreadful and you can’t perform optimally.

The most effective method I have found is to:

1 calm the nervous system

2 build safety and natural confidence

3 uncouple public speaking from the automatic threat response

4 treat and neutralise any past events and traumas that fuel this fear

When you feel calm and in control you can present with impact:

Demonstrate your expertise.

Deliver your message with precision and clarity.

Look completely calm and in control no matter who is in the audience.

Build your reputation.

My method calms the body first. Then the mind can follow. And speaking in the spotlight becomes possible and even fun.

I hope you have found this helpful.

Feel free to reach out if you’d like to discuss your current situation and what you want to achieve.

Confidentiality guaranteed.

Rooting for you.

Olivia