004 | Fear of Public Speaking
From the Walk of Shame to the Walk of Fame
Welcome to Offscript — Issue #004. For leaders who’ve outgrown fear and the script that never fit. Each month, I share research-backed essays to help you have raw, honest conversations that will reset your mind. Influence authentically and advance strategically without sacrificing your values. Special webinar on Speaking Success Protocol – Deconstructing my Best Speech (that got a standing ovation!). Free for Society (VIP) members.
"The most confident speakers I know are absolutely terrified before they perform. This isn't a contradiction—it's the secret."
The Walk of Shame
The lights turned on. I walked onto the stage, heels clicking as they hit the parquet flooring, echoing through the hall. The audience ceased their chatter, and anticipation filled the air. My heart was pounding like a trapped deer in my chest. I tried to calm it using box breathing, but nothing was working.
I started. Hours of preparation all for this one moment. I felt scrutinized under the intense light. It didn't help that I spoke immediately after a speaker I felt intimidated by. Compared to her, I was nothing.
"Do I look stupid and incompetent compared to the previous speaker?" I asked myself. But it was too late to back out now.
With half my mind worrying about looking stupid and incompetent, the worst thing that could happen to a speaker happened. I forgot the next line.
I stopped, pretending the pause was planned and thoughtful, but inside, I was scrambling. My brain searched every corner of my mind, trying to recall the line. Miraculously, it popped into my head. To cover up my mistake, I spoke with more gusto, and my cheeks burned from the effort.
But was that actually the flush of shame reddening my face?
As my last word reverberated through the hall, the audience broke into rowdy applause. I smiled stiffly and waved as I walked off the stage. But as soon as I lowered my gaze, it instantly felt like a walk of shame.
Because I had failed. Despite all the hours of practice, I had forgotten my line.
What I didn't know then was that my mistake wasn't the problem—the story I told myself was.
The Destructive Relationship with Performance
But who could blame me?
In my work with leaders, I've learned that most fears have origins—whether it's the fear of public speaking, speaking up at work, or living under constant judgment.
For me, that origin was a hauntingly familiar and destructive pattern from my days as a concert pianist: over-practice to perfect a piece, become anxious while performing, make a mistake because I was worried about making mistakes, then walk off the stage in shame.
Under a notoriously harsh and emotionally unstable teacher, mistakes were not tolerated. I remember the performance when the worst thing that could happen to a pianist happened.
My fingers, stiff with anxiety and fear, struck the wrong note. I managed to make it to the end without breaking down and walked off the stage in shame. The audience applauded—they were none the wiser—but I was terrified. Awaiting me backstage was the death sentence.
My music teacher wagged her finger at my face angrily. Her shrill voice still rings in my ears: I was devoid of talent. A disappointment. Ungrateful to her kindness for teaching me despite being so untalented.
My one wrong note wasn't just a mistake—it meant I was a mistake.
Eventually (luckily), she grew tired of my mediocrity and passed me off to another teacher like unwanted trash. My compassionate new teacher tried to rebuild my confidence, but the damage was already done.
Eventually, my piano went silent forever. When I started working, I grabbed the chance to stop playing. "Too busy," I claimed. But the truth was: I never wanted to be under scrutiny again.
The fear didn't stay confined to music. For years, I avoided any stage, any moment where I might be judged and found lacking. It affected everything—my ability to speak up in meetings, to present ideas, to put myself forward for opportunities.
Performance anxiety had become life anxiety.
But life, in its wicked ways, always has other plans.
At 37, I ventured into entrepreneurship and found myself speaking on stages once again. Like coals that had never cooled, the performance anxiety came rushing back as if it had never left.
Rewriting the Story We Tell Ourselves
Desperate for a cure, I enrolled in speaking programs.
At one program, I shared that I was there to overcome my fear of public speaking. My classmate, an accomplished actor, said something that shattered everything I believed:
"The performance anxiety is something that will always be there. Even for actors. We learn to give it another meaning, another story."
Instead of hopelessness, I felt instantly relieved. I realized I'd been treating fear like a disease when it's actually part of being human. The real problem wasn't my fear—it was the faulty story in my head: that I needed to be perfect to be worthy. Just like my harsh piano teacher had convinced me decades earlier.
That's when I understood: we need to rewrite the stories we tell ourselves about what our emotions mean.
I see this same transformation in my Leadership Storytelling work. When I ask participants to write their "failure stories," something powerful happens. One leader told me the exercise transformed her biggest professional setback from a source of shame into a learning story that actually strengthened her credibility and conviction.
Research confirms this: when leaders reshape failure narratives, they turn setbacks into fuel for innovation. When we stop seeing mistakes as evidence of our permanent inadequacy and start seeing them as proof of our courage to try something meaningful, the fear naturally diminishes.
My Speaking Success Protocol
Understanding that fear was natural was only half the battle. I still needed to learn how to work with it practically. But first, I had to rewrite the fundamental story I was telling myself.
My New Story
Instead of "My fear means I'm inadequate and don't belong here," I learned to tell myself something completely different:
"I'm not here to perform and show that I'm worthy, but here to serve and share a message I truly believe will benefit humankind."
This shift changed everything. I wasn't on that stage to impress anyone or demonstrate my value. I was there because I had something meaningful to offer—something that could genuinely help the people in those seats.
The same hammering heart that used to signal "you're about to be judged" now meant "you're about to serve." The fear was still there, but it had a different job: reminding me that what I was sharing mattered enough to make me feel something profound.
Through many honest conversations with myself and my coach, I developed three performance standards that supported this new story:
Protocol 1: Connection Over Perfection
I stopped obsessing about flawless delivery and focused on two key elements: engagement and storytelling.
Did I create shared moments of laughter or recognition? Did my stories make people feel heard and seen? Success became about connection, not perfection.
Connected audiences become co-conspirators in your story—they laugh with you, lean in, and leave inspired.
Protocol 2: High Performance Routines
I got serious about protecting my energy and peak state before presentations. I said no more often, avoided energy drains like social media doom-scrolling, and created routines that supported optimal performance when it mattered most. Understanding my Cliftonstrengths answered a big part of the puzzle.
Understanding your CliftonStrengths helps you find the shortcut to your peak performance.
Protocol 3: New Perfectionism
Instead of manic over-rehearsal (I once practiced 60 times for a 60-minute keynote!), I channeled my perfectionist tendencies productively. I listed everything I feared could go wrong and prepared strategically for each scenario—forgotten lines, technical failures, hostile audiences. This gave me confidence without the anxiety.
Old Perfectionism: Doing everything perfectly.
New Perfectionism: Perfectly prepared for anything.
I will write about these in the subsequent posts so stay tuned.
The Walk of Fame
The real test came at the Women in Tech Global Summit. Three hundred people. I was nobody in that room, but I had my Speaking Success Protocol to guide me.
Backstage, my heart hammered just as violently as it had on every stage before. But this time, I said hello to the fear instead of fighting it. I walked onto the stage knowing I'd applied all three protocols—I was as ready as I could be.
As I spoke, I felt the familiar flush in my cheeks. But this time, I knew what it was—not the burn of shame, but the heat of being fully alive, fully present, fully engaged in something that mattered.
When I finished, the audience rose in a standing ovation. To my surprise, I was called back because they wouldn't stop clapping.
As I walked off the final time, I realized: my walk of shame had finally become a walk of fame.
The Speaking Success Protocol Webinar:
21 September 9 p.m. EST || 22 September 2025 9 a.m. Singapore
After countless speeches and refinements, I've perfected a protocol that actually works—proven by the standing ovation at the WIT Global Summit.
For the first time, I'm pulling back the curtain on the exact speech that transformed my walk of shame into a walk of fame. You'll see my Speaking Success Protocol in action, decision by decision, word by word—from opening hook to final applause.
What you'll get in this live session:
→ Complete speech deconstruction with my personal commentary on every difficult choice I made
→ The storytelling techniques that turned my deepest fear into my greatest strength
→ Protocol implementation in real-time—exactly how I applied each of the three protocols throughout the presentation
→ The "obvious but missed" techniques that separate good speakers from unforgettable ones
Live Q&A included—bring your speaking challenges and get personalized guidance.
To join the webinar, you have 2 options:
Purchase a single webinar: USD 59
Or join the Offscript Society (VIP) and have unlimited access to expert webinars and replays, Society chats, Q&As and events in Singapore. (Paid members can upgrade here too.)
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Here’s the lineup of events under the series “Break Up With Your Fear of Public Speaking”
The Speaking Success Protocol Webinar 22 Sept 2025 9 a.m. HK/SG | 21 Sept 2025 9 p.m. ET (Free for Offscript Society (VIP) Members)
Live on Substack with
25 Aug 2025 8.30 a.m. HK/SG | 24 Aug 2025 8.30 p.m. ET: Public Speaking - Getting StartedLive on LinkedIn 4 Sept 2025 1 p.m. HK/SG: Public Speaking - Getting Started
Live on LinkedIn 6 Oct 2025 HK/SG: Public Speaking - Personal Brand
Live on LinkedIn 7 Oct 2025 HK/SG: Public Speaking - Expecting the Unexpected