Glossophobia affects approximately 75% of the population. I know this because I have spent a significant portion of my adult life researching it, in the way that people research things they are desperately afraid of, hoping that understanding will dissolve the fear. It doesn't, but the research is comforting in its own way. At least I know I'm not alone.
My fear of public speaking is not the ordinary nervousness that most people describe — the butterflies, the dry mouth, the slight trembling. It is a full physiological emergency response. My heart rate doubles. My vision tunnels. My hands shake so badly I cannot hold a piece of paper. In college, I failed a presentation course because I could not make myself stand at the front of the room.
I became a researcher specifically because it was a field where I could do important work without being required to stand in front of people. I published papers. I got grants. I built a career that was, by most measures, successful. I just never spoke at conferences. I always had a reason.
The TEDx invitation came from a colleague who had heard me describe my research at a small departmental meeting. She submitted my name without telling me. By the time I found out, the organisers had already confirmed my slot. I said yes before I had time to think. Some part of me must have been tired of saying no.
What followed was four months of the most intensive work I have ever done on myself. I found a speaking coach named David who had worked with people with severe glossophobia. He was direct: 'The fear won't go away before the talk. The goal is to give the talk while afraid.'
We worked on the content first — a fifteen-minute talk about my research on decision-making under uncertainty. Then we worked on the delivery. Then we worked on the fear itself. David had me give the talk to an empty room. Then to him. Then to him and two colleagues. Then to a room of ten people. Then twenty. Each time, I was terrified. Each time, I got through it.
The night before the TEDx event, I did not sleep. I lay in my hotel room running through every catastrophic scenario: forgetting my words, fainting, vomiting on stage, the audience laughing. David had told me to expect this. 'Your brain is trying to protect you,' he said. 'Thank it for trying, and do the thing anyway.'
I stood in the wings watching the speaker before me finish her talk to warm applause. My heart was hammering. My hands were shaking. The stage manager gave me the nod. I walked out into the lights. I found the red dot on the floor that marked my spot. I looked out at the audience — four hundred people — and I began.
I don't remember most of the fifteen minutes. I remember the first sentence, which I had rehearsed so many times it came out automatically. I remember a moment about halfway through when I made a joke and people laughed, and something in my chest loosened slightly. I remember the last sentence, and then the applause.
The talk has been viewed 340,000 times. I have given three more talks since then. I am still afraid every single time. But I have learned something that no amount of research could have taught me: the fear and the doing can coexist. You don't have to wait until you're not afraid.
