What does it mean to be nervous? Is it a form of excitement? Maybe it’s a bit of anxiety? Or maybe it’s just a lack of confidence.
Public speaking is a top fear that mostly people can relate to. Why is it that we are nervous to speak in front of others? Or even nervous to speak in front of friends and family?
Believe it or not I actually don’t love speaking in front of crowds. You might think oh here’s this guy that does a weekly podcast/blog and is showing his daily life through social media without a filter and of course he wouldn’t be nervous to speak in front of crowds. WRONG.
In my college days at Chico State I loved presenting in class. Mostly once I got to my major classes and was confident in the topic(s). I always got nervous tho – my heart would beat a bit faster, I’d get a little hot, and to calm myself down I’d clench my fist as tight as I can and slowly breathe and count down from 10. I found this practice very helpful in calming me down. Now, to this day I have always deferred to Sergio to speak at the Young Professionals events. I mean of course if I have a beer or three in me then I don’t have any problem speaking at all. Having said all this tho, I really have made a conscious effort of putting myself out there to more crowds. I have at least 3 speaking engagements with a crowd of 200 people or more scheduled for the next 4 months or so. The first of which is our Improv event next Tuesday at the San Jose Improv. Let’s talk about this…
So, we expect about 100 people or so to attend the Improv event. The format will basically be that Sergio and myself will do a few minutes of banter followed by a 20-30 minute Podcast interview with the GM of the Improv to discuss the building history, Improv history and his work ethic that got him from immigrant with no money to GM of the Improv, along with stories from past famous comedians. We’ll be sitting down with several mics and actually the lights are really bright. The only thing different about this than our normal podcast is we will have somewhere around 200 eyeballs watching us. The more I think about it, the less nervous I become (which sounds counter intuitive). At first I was really nervous; especially since it’s the Improv and it’s just implied that we need to be funny. However, once we really dived into the content of the Podcast and the show format I realized hey, I’ve done 42 podcasts with Sergio already – we got this! So, I’m at a state of mind right now where I’m feeling confident and ready. It’s coming up quick. Would love to see you all there. You can find the details at MeetUp.com/WhatUpSV – it’s also posted all over our Instagram and Facebook – both handles are @WhatUpSV.
In terms of the rest of the event. After our live Podcast we are going to have 4 comedians finish out the show. Rivest Dunlap who happens to be a friend of the Pod and past guest is actually Carlos Mencia’s Nephew – the guy is hilarious.
So just to wrap this up and bring it full circle… this blog is about being nervous and overcoming that “fear”. If you’re struggling with this, I urge you to really look at why you’re feeling this way and try to find a way to be more confident. AND for those of you that have no fear in speaking in public – what tips do you have for the rest of us?! Comment Below – would love to hear them 🙂
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