JERRY Seinfeld once pointed out a survey that found that speaking in public was most people’s number one fear.
Number two was death! By his reckoning this meant that at a funeral most people would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy.
Like Jerry I am a stand-up comedian by trade. And like Jerry I’ve suffered vicious deaths on stage.
I understand why actual death may seem more palatable than the humiliation of a failed attempt to be funny in public. Like an injection, death by public speaking looks worse than it feels. But you haven’t really lived until it’s happened to you.
People regularly say to standup comics: “I don’t know how you get up there and do it” or “What you do for a living is my idea of hell” or ‘You’re mental”.
But with every passing year it becomes less impressive. In many ways riding a horse is quite like performing stand-up comedy.
In the old days it was quite exotic but now everyone knows someone who claims to be doing it. The first time you straddle the beast you do so in a state of constant fear for your life.
'In many ways riding a horse is quite like performing stand-up comedy'Your instructor might tell you: “You have to show him who’s the boss” but when you first stand on stage to tell jokes, the audience — like the horse — know all too well who is the actual boss.
They can both decide whether you live or die based on their mood or the colour of your spinning dickie bow.
But falling off a horse, like dying on stage, is essential to learning to ride and becoming a fully formed person. And that is the key thing to remember if any of us are ever going to overcome this fear.
Here are my other tips.
1 Get over yourself
The main reason most people are reluctant to stand up in front of other people and speak is because we are paralysed by the fear that they will either not like us, stop liking us or start to question why they ever liked us in the first place.
Move past this fear by remembering that most people are too wrapped up in themselves to give a toss about you and whatever it is you have to say in the boardroom, in class, at the wedding, or in court.
2 Embarrassment is fleeting, regret lasts a lifetime
“Well done. You made a total balls of your speech!” is about the height of the abuse you will get after making a hames of an opportunity to speak in public.
If you know it’s going to go badly and there is no way to get out of it, just remember that (provided nobody posts it on YouTube) this moment of mortification will pass but the regret you will feel from never standing up to say your piece will haunt you late at night when you’re trying to pluck up the courage to approach a member of the opposite sex who you know in your heart is way out of your league.
3 It’s a story to tell
If you don’t make a tool of yourself every now and then you just become one of those people who listens to other people telling hilarious stories but never has one of their own to tell.
You don’t want to be one of these people. They make us all feel uncomfortable.
Making an absolute show of yourself is essential to building character. It’s why schools put on plays, armies wear elaborate uniforms and mums insist on dropping you to the door of discos.
4 Don’t try to be funny
People already think it’s funny enough that you are s***ting yourself about doing this speech.
Let the sweat running down your face and the shake in your hands be the joke. If you insist upon attempting a joke be fully prepared to admit that the joke did not work or people will think you are deluded.
5 Who cares?
Every time you feel anxious about speaking in public remind yourself that there are people dying in the world.
This speech, whatever it is, in the broader scheme of things couldn’t be less important — unless it’s an appeal against a conviction in a criminal court. That’s quite important. You’re entitled to be worried about that.
See More: Comedian, Jarlath Regan, Public Speaking, Tips
