The quarterly review is going well. Your slide is next. Then the VP joins the call, and something shifts. Your mouth feels dry. The numbers you knew this morning suddenly feel far away. This is the moment most people want to know how to overcome stage fear.
Here is the honest answer: you don’t wait for the nerves to go away. You learn to speak well while they are still there. In practice, that means three things. Use the nervous energy instead of fighting it. Have a plan for the moment your mind goes blank. And judge yourself by what you said, not by how you felt while saying it.
Stage fear doesn’t mean something is wrong with the way you speak. It shows up when the stakes are high and the people in the room matter to your growth. That’s why you can be sharp one-on-one and still go quiet when seniors are listening.
What is stage fear, and why does it show up only in some rooms?
Stage fear is the nervousness you feel before or while speaking in front of others. Most people call it the fear of public speaking. Its formal name is glossophobia.
At work, though, it rarely depends on how many people are listening. You can talk through a problem with your manager without a second thought. Put the same problem in a quarterly review with three seniors watching, and your body reacts very differently.
There is a reason for this. Stress researchers have a standard lab test for triggering stress: a short speech in front of a panel that judges you. A 2022 review of this research notes that two things make it so stressful: being judged, and having little control over what happens.
So your body isn’t reacting to the audience. It is reacting to what is at stake: your rating, your next role, how the VP sees you. Stage fear is not a measure of your ability. It is a measure of how much the moment matters to you.
Can people see how nervous you are?
Much less than you think.
When you are nervous, everything feels loud from the inside. Your heartbeat, your dry throat, the small shake in your voice. It feels so obvious that you assume everyone can see it.
But people only see what shows on the outside. Your VP only sees someone answering a question. Psychologists call this the illusion of transparency: we think our nerves are far more visible than they really are. In a 2003 study, Kenneth Savitsky and Thomas Gilovich asked people to give short speeches, and the speakers consistently rated their own nervousness as more visible than their listeners did.
Think of the last Teams call where you heard your own voice shake. Nobody mentioned it. Most likely, nobody even noticed.
This matters because worrying about looking nervous adds a second layer of fear. And that is the layer you can drop. Once you stop trying to hide your nerves, you have more attention left for what you came to say.
“You get to experience your fear live.”
Jasmine Kaur, senior applied data scientist
Why doesn’t “just calm down” work?
Because a racing heart doesn’t slow down on command. What you can change is the name you give the feeling. Nervousness and excitement feel almost the same in the body. So instead of telling yourself to calm down, try saying, “I’m excited.”
A 2025 study found that people who said “I am excited” before a speech felt more excited, even though their nerves did not go away. That is the point. The nerves stay, but how you carry them changes.
Say it to yourself before you unmute.
What can you do in the minutes before you speak?
For many people, the wait is the hardest part of stage fear. Picture the Monday stand-up. You have a lot to cover: what your team shipped last week and the two escalations you finally closed on Friday. Five people speak before you. You stop hearing their updates because you are running through yours in your head.
This is where your breath can help. Try the cyclic sigh. Breathe in through your nose, take one more short sip of air at the top, then breathe out slowly through your mouth. Repeat two or three times.
Think of a pressure cooker. You can’t turn off the heat midway, but the whistle lets the steam out. The long breath out works the same way. The nerves stay, but they stop piling up.
One honest tip: don’t try this for the first time outside the conference room. Practise it for a few minutes each day in the week before a big presentation, so it feels natural on the day.
If you are wondering how to overcome fear of public speaking, start here. It takes a minute, and nobody on the call will know.
What should you do when your mind goes blank in the middle of speaking?
You are halfway through the quarterly review. You have just shown the revenue slide. You open your mouth to explain the dip in Q2, and nothing comes.
Here is what is actually going on. You haven’t forgotten. The answer is still in your head. Under pressure, your mind just struggles to reach it for a moment. That moment passes, if you give it room.
1. Pause. Don’t rush to fill the silence. Take a breath and look at your slide or your notes. A three-second pause feels endless to you. To the room, it looks like you are thinking.
2. Repeat your last line. Say again what you just said. “So, as you can see, revenue dipped in Q2.” If you were asked a question, repeat the question. “You’re asking why the timeline slipped.” Hearing your own words often brings the next thought back.
3. Go back to your main point. Every update has one thing you want people to remember. Maybe it’s “the client is happy” or “we’re on track for March.” If you lose your place, return to that line. You can pick up the details after.
4. Say you’ll come back to it. Sometimes a senior asks something sudden on a Teams call, and the number is truly gone. That’s fine. Say, “Let me check the exact figure and send it to you by the end of day.” Then do it. In most Indian offices, this is seen as a careful answer, not a weak one.
A blank mind means you are under pressure, not unprepared. And pressure passes.
What do you do with the fear after the meeting?
The meeting ends, but the replay doesn’t. That night, you go over the one answer that came out jumbled, again and again.
Try this instead. Before you think about what went wrong, write down one thing that went fine. You answered the client’s question. You closed the update on time. Start there.
Then remember this. Every meeting you get through with the nerves present is proof for the next one. You were nervous, and you still did it.
And once the fear feels lighter, you can work on the craft itself, ideally with regular speaking practice and feedback rather than one big presentation a quarter.
“You come here as a hesitated person, and you come out as a confident person.”
Akhilesh Bhadouriya, head of finance and chartered accountant
Your work deserves to be heard in every room, nerves and all. Start with our ₹149 live session.
Frequently asked questions
Is stage fear normal for experienced professionals?
Yes. Experience doesn’t remove the nerves. It often raises the stakes, because the rooms get bigger and the audience gets more senior. What changes with practice is how well you speak with the nerves present.
Can stage fear go away for good?
Usually not, and that’s okay. The goal is not to feel nothing. It is to stop the fear from deciding how you speak. Regular, guided practice is what gets most people there.
Why does my voice shake when I speak in meetings?
It’s part of your body’s normal response to pressure. Your voice may sound shaky to you, but it is usually far less noticeable to others. A slow breath out before you begin can help steady it. To steady the voice itself, try the pace and pause techniques in our voice modulation guide.
How do I answer when a senior suddenly asks me something?
Pause and repeat the question back to buy a few seconds. If the answer still isn’t there, promise it by end of day, then send it.
When is stage fear something to get professional help for?
If it makes you avoid meetings, turn down roles, or lose sleep for days before you speak, it’s worth talking to a mental health professional. That isn’t a weakness. It’s the same as seeing a doctor for a pain that won’t go away.
References
Gu, H., Ma, X., Zhao, J., & Liu, C. (2022). A meta-analysis of salivary cortisol responses in the Trier Social Stress Test to evaluate the effects of speech topics, sex, and sample size. Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology, 10, 100125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpnec.2022.100125
Parrish, S. (2019, November 4). Illusion of transparency: Your poker face is better than you think. Farnam Street. https://fs.blog/illusion-of-transparency/
Poynter, M., & Pasqualini, M. S. (2025). Getting excited about public speaking: A replication. Psychology of Language and Communication, 29(1), 254-265. https://doi.org/10.58734/plc-2025-0011
Savitsky, K., & Gilovich, T. (2003). The illusion of transparency and the alleviation of speech anxiety. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 39(6), 618-625.
Yilmaz Balban, M., Neri, E., Kogon, M. M., Weed, L., Nouriani, B., Jo, B., Holl, G., Zeitzer, J. M., Spiegel, D., & Huberman, A. D. (2023). Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood and reduce physiological arousal. Cell Reports Medicine, 4(1), 100895. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2022.100895
