Before we dive in, quick question:
Every now and then when I do a Live with someone, I get something like “this is my first one, any tips? “
I get it. Because I used to be that person too.
So I invited Dr. Jane Bormeister - speech scientist, psycholinguist, and rhetoric coach based in Berlin, to come on and talk about exactly this. How to speak confidently on camera, in front of people, or on a Substack Live when you have no idea who’s watching or what their faces look like.
This post is the written version of that conversation we had. For anyone who missed the live, or who prefers to read.
The one fear that beats death
You’ve probably heard the statistic.
Global surveys consistently find that public speaking is humanity’s number one fear. Not dying. Not heights. Not spiders.
Talking.
In front of people.
Jane confirmed this immediately. And then she went further: “Same for me at the beginning.” This is someone with a PhD in speaker anxiety and 20 years of professional coaching. She was terrified too.
Which tells me something important.
It’s not a personality flaw. It’s not a sign you’re “not built for this.” It’s just the brain doing its job….and doing it very badly in a the modern lives we live today.
Jane is doing a free rehearsal room next Tuesday, so if you need to prepare yourself better for an upcoming speech, this is the best place to do it.
Jane’s worst presentation ever
Jane told a story I want you to remember every time you feel embarrassed about a speaking situation.
Her first university presentation.
She lost her chain of thought completely. Red face. Stuttering. Body rigid. The audience — bored students who’d been half-asleep — started grinning. No one wants to be in that kind of situation.
And then her professor pulled her aside afterward.
He said: “Jane, your presentation topic was the symptoms of stuttering. I’ve never seen one person demonstrate all symptoms simultaneously. Usually it’s one person, one symptom. But you showed everything described in the literature.”
She thought: not my game. Full stop.
But here’s what actually happened next.
What she did instead of quitting
She wanted to run. She said that directly: “If I could have run away, I would have taken that option.”
But she couldn’t.
So the second or third time she had to present, she tried something different. A breathing technique. And a mental anchor: “I’m just telling people what I’m talking about. Not more, not less.”
That’s it. That single thought calmed her down enough to function.
Later she met her mentor - the original Captain Rhetoric - a speech scientist who gave her a completely pragmatic toolkit: body, voice, and words. All the tools that work under pressure, just when you need them.
She built her entire practice on that foundation.
Today she brings that to you through her Substack:
Why your brain is treating a live like a bear attack
This is the piece that made everything click for me.
When you get nervous before speaking — the racing heart, the shallow breathing, the frozen mind — that’s fight-flight-freeze. Your brain can’t tell the difference between a fake threat (like a demaning audience) and a real physical threat (like a hungry bear running after you in the woods).
You’re standing in front of ten people on a Substack Live and your nervous system is screaming: bear. Run.
Obviously unhelpful.
The whole point of every technique is to get yourself out of that unconscious survival response and back into your thinking brain. The rational brain. The one that knows nobody is going to eat you.
Two techniques I personally use, both from neuro-linguistic programming:
The exhale technique. Not deep breathing — specifically, a fast, sharp exhale through the nose. Like as if you cought a cold and you want to clear your nose. Do it 10–20 times before you go live. In the elevator, in the bathroom, wherever you have 60 seconds alone. It releases accumulated stress from the body. I’ve been doing this for years. It works instantly.
The number technique. When you feel panic rising, start naming random numbers in your head. 13. 25. 96. 100. Whatever. The moment you activate that rational-counting part of your brain, the emotional panic can’t dominate. You can feel your body calm down in real time. It sounds absurd. It absolutely works.
Jane added her own favourite: exhale before you start speaking. Don’t rush to fill silence. Stand, exhale properly, make eye contact, and then start. “The inhale takes care of itself,” she said. “Focus on the exhale.”
The blind spot nobody talks about
Here’s something Jane said that stuck with me.
We have a huge blind spot about ourselves as speakers.
You can evaluate other people clearly. You can tell within 30 seconds whether someone is engaging or not, whether they’re at ease or not, whether they’re worth listening to or not.
But you can’t see yourself the way others see you.
You know this already from your own voice on a voicemail. You hear it and think: is the phone broken? That’s not what I sound like. But your friend listens and says the phone is fine.
That gap - between how you experience yourself speaking and how others experience you - is where most of the suffering happens.
The fix isn’t a “mindset shift”. It’s work.
Record yourself. Watch it back. Not to cringe and spiral, but to actually see what’s happening. Where you speed up, where you go quiet, where you lose the thread. Then record again. Correct. Repeat.
Old but gold, I’ve tested it for years. It works.
Remember the 5 Ps of public speaking: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.
Jane is doing a free rehearsal room next Tuesday, so if you need to prepare yourself better for an upcoming speech, this is the best place to do it.
The discomfort of watching yourself back is temporary, but the improvement is visible and permanent.
The expert trap
This was the most uncomfortable part of the conversation.
Jane works with a lot of experts. Academics, scientists, senior executives. People who genuinely know everything about their subject. And some of them cannot hold a room for three minutes.
She described three patterns she sees over and over:
Too fast. High energy, rushing, overwhelming. The audience can’t keep up.
Too flat. Deep content delivered monotonously. Important ideas that don’t land.
Too much. Information overload. No structure. The audience gets to three or four points and then their brain gives up.
And here’s the thing she said that I keep thinking about.
Even the smartest person in your audience will probably absorb three, maybe four things. That’s it. After that, their attention runs out. Not because they’re not engaged. Not because you’re boring. Just because that’s how human attention works.
So you have to choose.
What are the three things you actually want people to leave with? Lead with those. Structure everything else around them. More is not more.
I also told a story about a masterclass I recently attended - I’ll be honest: the presenter read from notes so fast that even I couldn’t follow (and I do listen x2 almost every video on YouTube). Read it all out loud and then just... closed. No questions. No back-and-forth. Zero connection with the audience. Just: “That’s all for today, goodbye.”
No speaking, just transmission.
I mean, if you’re just reading your slides, send me the script. I’ll read it at home.
The point of presenting is connection. Not information transfer. You could do information transfer with a PDF.
Jane is doing a free rehearsal room next Tuesday, so if you need to prepare yourself better for an upcoming speech, this is the best place to do it.
The shift that changes everything
Here’s the reframe Jane kept coming back to.
When you’re nervous, your attention you on yourself. You’re thinking: my voice is trembling. My body is shaking. I forgot what I was about to say. What do they think of me?
It’s all me, me, me.
When actually it has to be all about them - the people watching. Redirect that attention outward. To them.
I’m speaking because I want them to understand something.
So the right question is not How do I sound? It’s What do they need? Are they following? Can I make this clearer? Should I ask if it makes sense?
When you’re genuinely focused on the other person, there’s no room left to panic about yourself. Not completely, but enough.
This is also valid for writing. The more I focus on whether the person reading my content is getting what they need, the less I’m performing. The more I’m just... talking to someone.
Substack Lives are the same. The chat is there. People are commenting. Talk to them.
What to do if you have something coming up
Jane announced something I want to flag here.
She’s running a free Rehearsal Room — happening next Tuesday — with three speaker spots and twelve listener spots. You come, you have five minutes to present whatever you’re working on, and you get feedback from the room.
Not coaching or consulting, just a real people, real audience (not the mirror), with real reactions, and the chance to find out if what’s in your head actually lands the way you think it does.
Because sometimes you write a whole narrative that seems funny or moving or brilliant, and you say it out loud and nobody reacts. And sometimes you say something offhand and the room laughs and you think: that’s the thing.
You don’t know until you test it.
Bottom line
Public speaking is scary because it’s supposed to be. Our human brains aren’t broken - it’s just working on old software.
The fix isn’t confidence. It’s tools, practice, and a shift in where your attention goes.
Exhale first. Name some numbers if you need to. Record yourself. Watch it back. Focus on the audience, not yourself.
And then do it again. It gets easier. Jane started by demonstrating all the symptoms of stuttering simultaneously. She now coaches people professionally on how to convince under pressure.
You’ll be fine.
You’re fine.
You’re absolutely fine.
Yana
P.S. If Substack still feels overwhelming, check out this link.
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