Stay Long Enough

I don’t fear public speaking — I enjoy it. But the first two minutes on stage, my voice tremors and my throat constricts. Oh my God — they can hear how nervous I am.

But in just a few minutes I settle down and slip into my natural voice — the one I recognize.

I read a speaking tip once that has stuck with me: everyone in the audience wants you to succeed. Nobody wants to sit through a bad presentation — that’s torture — so the entire room is rooting for you, even if only for selfish reasons.

Those first few minutes are less than 10% of the time at the mic. Once you settle in, the other 90% is pure joy. Trying something new, hard, or different has an uncomfortable entry point. But if you can stick with it — hear and feel your nervousness — you just might get to the other side. Not because you’ve mastered it. Because you endured it.

And that idea about the audience rooting for you — it may not even be true. But it works.

When I walk on stage, I don’t know what the audience is thinking. I can’t know. So I borrow a belief that helps me get through those first two minutes - long enough to settle in and find my voice.

In Beyond Belief, Nir Eyal writes that beliefs are tools, not truths — not something we have to prove or defend as fact, but something we can hold onto when we need them. Beliefs can steady us when doubt starts flooding in.

We already carry so many beliefs about our shortcomings and potential failures as if they are truths. So why not try the opposite? Why not choose the belief that moves us forward?

Doubt and belief are doppelgangers — always present. Doubt never goes away. But belief can be summoned from what you stayed for — the things you got better at, the moments you exceeded your own expectations. That’s what moves you forward. It’s the only way to get better, to learn, to stretch, to become more fully yourself.

Writing is harder than speaking because it becomes a permanent record of your thoughts. I am still in that early 10% — the uncomfortable beginning. I write more drafts than I publish, held back by what others might think — or by doubts about something as small as punctuation.

Doubt masquerades as fact. It feels true. But it isn’t any more real than the belief that the audience wants you to succeed.

Since we can’t know for certain what others think of us, we get to choose.

I try to choose the belief that helps me stay — long enough to get through the beginning and find my voice.