Episode #50 How to Deal With Stage Fright

I absolutely hated the prospect of public speaking. In fact, I was a whimp and ran away from every chance I had to speak in public. Careers are funny things, because at some stage you get to a point where you can’t run away from speaking to groups anymore. Now you would think that logically, I would have worked that out a lot earlier and prepared myself for the eventuality of having to speak in pubic. No. I hid from it , escaped from it, did nothing smart about preparing myself for it. I wasted so many years of opportunity to develop an ability to speak in pubic. Looking back I realize I actually limited my career trajectory, because of my fear of speaking in front of audiences. All those strangers staring at me. What if I made a mistake, what if I bombed the talk, what if I forgot what I was going to say? Today I have given over 530 public speeches, I train classes of businesspeople on giving professional presentations, I represent my company as the official face of the business, I do this Cutting Edge Japan Business Show every week. I often reflect that I should have gotten the training and started much earlier on this path. How about you? Are you like I used to be, also in denial? Are you holding yourself back like I was? Time to rethink and reflect on my errors and misjudgments about the importance of develop a facility as a public speaker. Let’s not be like me, instead I recommend you grab the skills and gain the confidence.

Before we get into this week’s topic, here is what caught my attention lately.

If you enjoyed George Orwell’s famous novel 1984, then you will enjoy this latest idea from the Japanese government. The cunning plan is to obtain information on all the elderly people’s financial assets, such as savings and securities, through the recently introduced My Number identification system. The idea is to identify who has money and then get them to pay more for their medical services. With Japan’s population graying and social security costs growing, the finance ministry insists that elderly people with large savings should make higher contributions to social security services, even if their incomes are low. They estimate that forty percent of married couples over sixty-five have at least twenty million in financial assets compared to less than five percent among couples aged under forty. So all of those who have been diligent, disciplined, careful money managers, stacking away savings for their final years after retirement from work are now in the cross hairs of Government big data. Getting old gracefully is about to get much harder in Japan.

In other news, the national health insurance program underwent a major reform at the start of fiscal 2018 that saw prefectures rather than municipalities begin managing the deficit ridden system to improve it financial base. The kokumin kenko hoken health system covers the self-employed, pensioners, non-regular workers and other people ineligible to join employment based health insurance programs. In fiscal 2016 it had a deficit of one hundred and forty seven billion yen. In fiscal 2018 the government doubled its support if the program to three hundred and forty billion yen. The use of further taxpayers money is expected to grow, as the number of aged members, who tend to go to hospitals more frequently, is only set to increase each year.


This is episode number #50 and we are talking about How To Deal With Stage Fright. Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Hands and legs quivering, knees knocking together, face turning red, pulse racing, mind whiting out – this is stage fright. The term is associated with the total melt down people experience when they get up on stage in front of an audience to speak. In Japan, there is even an association of stage fright victims who wish to suffer no more. Our exposure to the “stage”, broadly defined, is any occasion where we are required to get up and speak in front of others. This frequency increases as we get older.

Our work responsibilities are rewarded with a salary increase but also the obligation to give reports or speeches. We are innocently beavering away at our jobs, are recognised for doing well and given promotions or more responsibility. This is when we are forced to move out of our area of defined expertise and out of our Comfort Zone.

Tetsuya Miyaki is a typical example. He was a low level bureaucrat in a municipal government office. Promoted to become the head of a department, he suddenly found himself having to give public presentations, including to the municipal assembly. He immediately found that his ambitions had now out stripped his abilities. When he became the mayor of a city ward, the speech requirement exploded, and so did his stress. The opportunity to enjoy the fruits of hard earned prominence were removed, because this one piece of the work gamut was killing him. “I feel like I barely made it through my term”, he lamented.

Is Your Eye Off The Ball?

This is what happens to us. With no thought for the future, we plough along working hard, looking for the rewards but forgetting the escalation of expectations that go together with that. If we took our nose off the grindstone for a minute and looked ahead, we would realise that if we go further up in the echelon of organisations, our ability to speak in a professional manner will come with the territory.

I was the same. I had no vision of what the future would require. When I was younger, a friend of mine asked me to be his best man at his wedding. I deferred and suggested an older mutual friend instead, citing my lack of experience with such a daunting responsibility. The real reason was my terror of having to speak at the wedding, instead of just sitting there cool, calm and collected, eating, drinking and enjoying myself like everyone else. Did I look ahead and realise this is what comes with future responsibilities and go and get some public speaking training? No. I just avoided the issue at every turn, running away from every request like a scared rabbit.

Eventually, I gave my first public speech. It was in Tokyo in late 1983, in Japanese to an audience of young students at the Sundai Yobiko cram school and it was horrible. I was supposed to talk for thirty minutes but I finished in about eight minutes. When you still have twenty two minutes remaining to fill in, with nothing prepared, that is a daunting task. My nerves had severely ramped up my speaking speed, which is why I finished so quickly. I read the whole thing, looked down at my notes, never once looked up at my victims, didn’t smile, had no pauses, no gestures, no animation except high blood pressure giving me a big red face like a warning beacon.

I was stubborn too. Did I go and get training after this near death experience? No. I just kept on going along doing it the hard way. I ultimately gave hundreds of speeches in the course of my work responsibilities. I improved as I got more experience through simple repetition of the act, but I was still just an amateur bumbling along.

Then I Had A Revelation

I took the High Impact Presentation Course with Dale Carnegie and it was such an eye opener. Two instructors, everything videoed, massive personal coaching – it was amazing. I just kicked myself for all of the opportunity costs I paid by not doing this when I was younger.

I was an idiot. I could have spent decades polishing my speaking skills, growing my potential rather than hiding from the opportunity. I could have ramped up my personal brand big time, if I had been even half smart and gotten the training. Like Miyaki san, for long periods of my career I was in pure, self-inflicted denial.

So don’t be stupid like me – get the training. If you are going to get anywhere in your career, you will need this facility to not just speak competently in front of an audience, but to speak persuasively. It is not a matter of if, only a matter of when. Are you going to let stage fright get you? Are you going to knee-cap your career growth? Are you going to be petrified every time you have to get up to speak? Do something about it. As I discovered it is never to late to start.