I received a text message from my sister this morning. She’s an office manager at a growing company and has to do a ten minute presentation in front of a large crowd tonight and wanted some tips on public speaking. Specifically, the text asked “”How do you speak publicly without projectile vomiting everywhere?” (oh we Youngs certainly have a way with words).

You always hear that bullshit statistic about how public speaking is everybody’s #1 fear and #2 is death. Any performer will tell you that after a bad show the best compliment a pitying audience member will give afterwards is “I could never do what you do”. If you go to the ACME Comedy Company (or whatever big comedy club is in your city) open mic on the first night after New Year’s the list will be flooded with first timers who made a resolution to get over their fear of public speaking.

There has to be some explanation for this, right? Some evolutionary reason that people are afraid to speak in front of an audience. Every other weird quirk and fear always boils down to predator evasion. Goosebumps, sweat, even laughter. Maybe predators were attracted to the loudest member of the heard back in caveman times or something.

Whatever the reason, my sister asked for some advice and as a comedian who has spent years performing in bar basements, VFWs and VFW basements for crowds of up to and sometimes above 20 people, I have learned some of the secrets to speaking in front of crowds without going all Linda Blair Exorcist on them. Here’s what I shared.

Experience.
This one really didn’t help her since the presentation is tonight but it is important. If you want to get comfortable in front of an audience you’re going to have to put yourself up in front of a bunch of audiences. Not a performance went by in my first year of comedy that I didn’t visibly shake before, after and during. Everybody is nervous their first few times on stage and if they aren’t they’re sociopaths. Call the police because they’ve probably got a closet full of skin-suits.

Breathing.
It sounds stupid but when you’re nervous you don’t focus on your breath and you’re probably taking short, quick breaths and just making yourself more anxious. Any yoga hippie will tell you that deep breaths help a lot in calming you down. It slows your heart rate, gets oxygen to your brain and when you’re focusing on your breath you’re not focusing on the stuff that will just make you nervous.

Disdain.
This one’s the hardest but, in my opinion, the most important. The reason you’re nervous to speak in front of people is because you want their approval. The best way to beat this is to no longer crave their approval by thinking yourself above it. I’ve said this to numerous new comedians and said it to my sister this morning. “See the audience? Fuck those guys. Fuck ’em. You don’t need them. They need you.” It seems counter intuitive because the whole reason you’re stepping on stage is because you want them to think you’re funny / liked your business proposal / be moved by your eulogy etc. but if you don’t care about what they think you won’t be worried about them not liking you and you can get on with telling your jokes / submitting your business proposal / deliver some final words for uncle Bob etc. If they don’t think you’re funny / a good businessperson / paid proper respect to uncle Bob etc. fuck them. Their opinion doesn’t matter. You’re on that stage because you’re supposed to be up there and fuck anybody who thinks otherwise.

This is why that old cliche of “imagine the audience in their underwear” exists. If they’re sitting there in boxers and granny panties they seem silly and not worth the anxiety.

None of this is obviously true. You’re on stage because you want the audience to like you but if you can convince yourself otherwise you’ll find yourself considerably less nervous.

wikipedia had three pictures under their "audience" article and all of them were of people not having a good time

Seriously, fuck those guys. What do they know? Assholes.