Estimated reading time: 12–14 minutes

Key Takeaways:

• Public speaking anxiety is common. You are in the majority, not the minority.
• Fear shows up in your thoughts, your actions, and your body. All 3 are real.
• The root cause is almost always self-focus. You are thinking about you, not them.
• The moment you shift from performing to serving, everything changes.
• Confidence is not a gift. It is a skill. And skills can be trained.

Table of Contents

• What Is Public Speaking Anxiety?
• How Common Is Fear of Public Speaking?
• How Public Speaking Anxiety Shows Up
• Why Do So Many People Fear Public Speaking?
• Public Speaking Anxiety at Work
• Public Speaking Anxiety in Students
• How I Learned to Overcome Public Speaking Anxiety
• Strategies That Actually Work
• When Should You Seek Professional Help?
• Can You Completely Eliminate Public Speaking Anxiety?
• My Pre-Speech Routine
• Public Speaking Anxiety: Final Thoughts

Let me start by telling you this: You are not weak. You are not broken. And you are definitely not alone in this.

I know what public speaking anxiety feels like. Not in some distant, theoretical way. I mean the kind that makes your knees buckle. The kind that makes your chest tighten and your brain go completely blank at the worst possible moment. The kind that has you looking at the exit door and seriously considering whether to run.

I can hear someone saying right now, “Well, Rene, that is easy for you to say. You speak for a living.” Come on. Let me tell you something. I was not born this way. Not even close.

When I arrived in America at 21 years old, I had $5, two shirts, one pair of pants, and no English. No high school diploma. No college degree. No credentials of any kind. And eventually, I decided I was going to become a keynote motivational speaker in America. You should have heard the laughter.

But here is what I want you to know. I learned to beat public speaking anxiety. Not by being fearless. By being trained. And if I could do it, you can too. Let me show you how.

What Is Public Speaking Anxiety?

Public speaking anxiety, sometimes called glossophobia, is a specific form of performance anxiety. It shows up the moment you have to speak in front of other people and your brain starts screaming, “What if they judge me? What if I embarrass myself? What if I forget everything I was going to say?”

There is a difference between normal nerves and the kind of anxiety that stops you cold. Feeling a rush of energy before you speak is normal. That energy means you care. It means you want to do well. That is actually a good sign.

But when fear causes you to avoid opportunities, when it causes you to stay silent in rooms where your voice belongs, when it has you losing sleep for 3 days before a 10-minute presentation, that is when it becomes a real problem worth solving.

I did not know the word glossophobia when I started. I only knew that before my first Toastmasters speech, my heart was pounding like a galloping horse. My chest tightened. My knees buckled. The proverbial butterflies started flapping their wings inside my stomach. I looked at the exit door and thought hard about using it.

Does this sound familiar to you?

How Common Is Fear of Public Speaking?

Research tells us that between 40 percent and 75 percent of people experience anxiety when speaking in front of others. In many surveys, fear of public speaking ranks as one of the most common fears in the entire world. Some surveys put it above the fear of death.

Think about that for a moment. More people are afraid of standing at a podium than of dying. That tells you how powerful this fear really is. It also tells you that if you struggle with it, you are in the majority. Not the minority. The majority.

I have spoken for executives, engineers, military leaders, and sales professionals across America. Some of the most decorated, most successful people I have ever met have pulled me aside after a speech and admitted quietly, “Rene, I still get nervous every single time.” They just learned to manage it. They learned to use it instead of letting it use them.

You can do the same thing. Right? Right.

How Public Speaking Anxiety Shows Up

Public speaking anxiety usually shows up in 3 ways: in your thoughts, in your behavior, and in your body. When I finally learned this framework, it helped me understand what was actually happening to me. I stopped thinking I was falling apart. I started thinking, “Oh. This is just how fear works.”

In Your Thoughts

This is where it starts. Before you ever walk on stage or stand up at a meeting table, your mind begins attacking you. “I am going to forget my words.” “They will see I do not know what I am talking about.” “What if I look like a fool?”

I know this kind of thinking well. Before my very first Toastmasters speech, the mistress of ceremony began reading my introduction. Inside my head, I screamed, “Oh no! I am not ready!” I had defeated myself before I said a single word out loud. That mental movie I was playing was creating my fear in real time.

In Your Behavior

Anxiety changes how you act. You avoid presentations whenever possible. You over-rehearse every sentence until you sound like a robot. You rush through your slides as fast as you can, trying to escape the moment instead of owning it.

I remember giving an early talk where I spoke so fast you could barely understand me. My native language, Haitian Creole, is already fast by nature. When I am nervous on top of that? I take off like a rocket. I was not speaking. I was sprinting.

In Your Body

This is what most people feel first. Rapid heartbeat. Sweaty palms. Shaking hands. Dry mouth. Tight muscles. Trouble sleeping the night before. Your body reacts as if you are in genuine danger. As if you are face to face with something that could hurt you.

I have felt all of it. Every single symptom. Because you and I are wired the same way. The body does not know the difference between a tiger in the jungle and a conference room full of people staring at you. It just sounds the alarm and lets your mind figure out the rest.

The good news is that once you understand what is happening, you can stop being a victim of it and start taking control.

Why Do So Many People Fear Public Speaking?

Here is the thing. At the core of public speaking anxiety is fear of negative evaluation. You and I are wired, all the way down to our biology, to care about belonging. When we stand in front of a group and all eyes are on us, our brain reads that as social risk. It says, “What if they reject me? What if I do not fit in after this?”

For me, it went even deeper than that.

I grew up in a small village in Haiti where I was teased constantly. I was told I would never become anything. I was told I was too poor, too sick, too limited by where I came from. So when I stood in front of people, being judged publicly felt genuinely dangerous to me. It was not just nerves. It was old pain.

And then on top of that, I was speaking in a second language. I could not always find the right words in English. I found myself isolated even in crowded rooms because of the language barrier. I knew I had something to say. I just was not sure anyone was going to hear me the way I meant it.

But here is what I realized. The audience is not your enemy.

Most people sitting in front of you want you to succeed. They are not there hoping you fall apart. They are there because they hope you will give them something useful, something real, something they can take home and use. They are on your side before you say the first word.

When I shifted my focus from “What will they think of me?” to “How can I serve them?”, everything began to change.

Public Speaking Anxiety at Work

Here is the truth that nobody wants to say out loud. In today’s world, how you communicate is just as important as what you know. Presenting in meetings, pitching ideas, leading town halls, speaking at conferences. These moments shape your career. They shape how people see you. They shape how much influence you carry in a room.

I have worked with leaders who are absolutely brilliant behind closed doors. They have great ideas. They see things other people miss. But the moment they have to stand up and present to a room, they freeze. They stumble. They play it small. And their brilliant ideas never get the attention they deserve.

Does that sound familiar to you? Am I right about you so far?

Public speaking anxiety at work shows up in ways people do not always recognize. It is the person who stays silent in a meeting even when they have the answer. It is the leader who avoids town halls because they are uncomfortable with questions from the crowd. It is the professional who lets someone else present their idea because they are afraid of being in front of people.

That silence has a cost. It costs you promotions. It costs you influence. It costs your team the benefit of your thinking. And it costs you the confidence that only comes from doing the thing you are afraid to do.

Confidence in communication is not about ego. It is about contribution. It is about making sure your voice is in the conversation, because the world needs what you know.

Public Speaking Anxiety in Students

Students carry this fear intensely. Oral presentations, speech classes, group projects. The thought of standing up in front of their peers and being evaluated can feel absolutely unbearable.

I understand why. When you are young, peer judgment feels like the most important thing in the world. You are not afraid of bad grades as much as you are afraid of embarrassment. You are not afraid of failing the assignment. You are afraid of the moment right after, when you walk back to your seat and think everyone is whispering about you.

I have spoken at universities all across America. Students come up to me afterward and say, “Rene, I would rather write a 10-page paper than give a 5-minute presentation.” And I tell them the same thing every single time.

Speaking is a skill. It is not a personality trait. You were not born either good or bad at this. And skills can be trained.

The sooner a young person understands that, the sooner they stop waiting to feel confident and start building confidence the only way it gets built. Through practice.

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How I Learned to Overcome Public Speaking Anxiety

I did not beat this overnight. Let me walk you through what actually happened.

My first Toastmasters speech was called an icebreaker. You are supposed to talk about yourself. Simple enough, right? Not for me.

The mistress of ceremony read my introduction. My heart was pounding like a galloping horse. My chest tightened. My knees buckled. I looked at the exit door and thought hard about walking right through it.

Then she called my name. “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our fourth speaker for the evening, Rene Godefroy!”

All eyes turned on me. I leapt out of my seat and hopped to the front of the room. I grabbed that podium and I hid behind it. I forgot who I was. I forgot where I was from. I just started talking. Fast. Very fast. Because my native language, Creole, is already quick by nature, and when I am nervous, I take off. I rattled through that speech at a hundred miles an hour.

When the timekeeper held up the “2 minutes left” signal from the back of the room, I started filling every second with “uh… uh…” I closed with, “Thank you, Madame Toastmaster,” and walked back to my seat to catch my breath.

I felt like a fool. I was embarrassed. Within 3 minutes on that stage, I had made just about every speaking mistake possible. I broke every rule there is.

But I did not quit. Right? Right.

Now here is the part of the story that really matters. I was working as a doorman at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, carrying bags and parking cars, 14 years at that job. Whenever a professional speakers conference came through, I would greet the speakers at the door. I would look them in the eye and say, “Sir, my name is Rene Godefroy. I am your doorman today. But I have a dream. I am going to be a motivational speaker just like you. One day we will share a platform.”

Some of them smiled. Some of them nodded politely and kept walking. But I kept saying it. Because I had to hear myself say it.

Here is what I also did. At 11 o’clock at night, when my shift ended and every one of my coworkers headed home, I went in the other direction. I walked straight into the empty ballroom where the conference was being set up for the next morning. I stepped up onto that platform. I claimed that audience as mine. And I gave my speech to rows and rows of empty chairs.

The chairs were not very responsive, of course. But I was programming my subconscious for what I knew was coming.

One night, a coworker saw me in there talking to an empty room. He leaned in the doorway and said, “Man, are you losing it? You are talking to yourself!” I said, “I am not losing it. I am building it.”

That is the truth right there. I was building it.

Now here is the part that almost stopped me cold. A man I knew, someone I considered a friend, heard about my dream of becoming a speaker. He sat me down and told me straight: “Corporate America will never pay you to speak. Not with your accent. And you cannot write a book. You have no credentials. Who is going to read it?”

Man, that stung. I will not pretend it did not.

But I looked at him and I said, “You know what? You need to get out of my face. Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? Are you my maker?” I told him, “Yes, I have a PhD. My P stands for persistence. My H stands for hope. My D stands for dream. And you had better be nice to me now, because one day I may autograph my book to you.”

And I did write that book. And it became an award winner. That is called life. That is how this works.

But the biggest shift was not about practice or persistence. It was about a question I asked myself one day.

Watch this. I can say this one better out loud than on paper.

I thought: if I walked into a room with my arms full of gifts, and I gave one to every single person in the room, would I feel fear? Or would I feel joy?

Joy. Of course I would feel joy. Because I would be giving, not performing.

So I started seeing every speech as a delivery of gifts. My stories were gifts. My failures were gifts. The lessons from growing up in poverty in Haiti with no electricity, no running water, sleeping on the floor. Those were gifts too. Hard-earned ones. But gifts.

I was not going up there to perform. I was going up there to give.

That one shift changed everything for me. And it can change everything for you.

Strategies That Actually Work

Look, there are proven approaches to overcoming public speaking anxiety. I have used many of them personally and I have shared them with leaders and teams across America. Here is what actually works.

Challenge the Catastrophic Thinking

When your mind says, “I am going to fail,” stop and ask yourself: “Where is the evidence for that?” Most of the time, your fear is making up a story. It is exaggerating the risk and ignoring every time you have succeeded.

Before my first Toastmasters speech, I imagined failure so vividly it felt real. That mental movie was causing real physical symptoms. The moment I learned to question the movie, I started taking back control.

Build Courage Through Gradual Exposure

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it simply: do the things you fear, and the death of fear is certain. I believed that. I still believe it.

Start small. Speak in front of a mirror. Then speak to a friend. Then to a small group of 3 or 4 people. Then to a room of 10. Confidence does not come before the action. It comes because of the action. You and I both know this to be true. Right?

I went from rattling off an icebreaker speech to an empty room at 11pm to speaking on stages for Coca-Cola, Aflac, Verizon Wireless, and the United States Army. Not because I was born fearless. Because I kept stepping forward when stepping forward was the last thing I felt like doing.

Use Your Body to Calm Your Mind

Here is what most people miss. Your body and your brain are in constant conversation. When you stand tall, take slow deep breaths, and relax your shoulders, your brain reads that as a signal: we are safe, we are ready. Calm posture produces calmer thinking.

Try it right now. Sit up straight. Take a slow breath in. Hold it for a moment. Let it out slowly. You feel that? That is your nervous system settling down. Use that before every presentation.

Seek Feedback and Practice Intentionally

Join a speaking group like Toastmasters. Work with a coach. Record yourself and watch it back even though it is uncomfortable. Skill reduces fear. Every single time.

When I first attended the National Speakers Association conference, I had saved every tip from my doorman job for months just to afford the registration. I was not a member. I barely had money for food. But I showed up. And I introduced myself to every professional speaker I could find. Woody Allen said that 99 percent of success is just showing up. I showed up. And my world started to change.

Shift Your Focus From Yourself to the People in Front of You

This is the big one. Anxiety feeds on self-focus. The more you think about how you look and how you sound and what people are thinking about you, the worse it gets.

But the moment you say, “I am here for these people, not for myself,” the anxiety loses most of its power. You stop being the subject of your own attention. The audience becomes the subject. And serving people feels completely different from performing for them.

When Should You Seek Professional Help?

I want to be honest with you about this. If public speaking anxiety is severely affecting your work, your relationships, or your daily life, it is possible that it overlaps with a broader form of social anxiety. In that case, working with a licensed therapist, particularly one trained in cognitive behavioral therapy, can be powerful.

Therapy is not weakness. It is strategy. The same way you would call a mechanic when your car will not start, you call a professional when your mind needs tuning. There is no shame in it. There is only the decision to take yourself seriously enough to get the right help.

There are evidence-based treatments, including CBT, exposure therapy, and other proven approaches, that have strong research behind them. If you need that level of support, go get it. Your voice matters too much to leave it stuck.

Can You Completely Eliminate Public Speaking Anxiety?

Let me be honest with you. That was never my goal.

Even today, after 20-plus years of speaking on stages all across America for Fortune 500 companies, I feel energy before I walk out. My heart still beats a little faster. My body still gets ready. And I am glad it does.

The difference is I do not interpret that energy as danger anymore. I interpret it as readiness. My body is saying, “Rene, we are preparing for something important.” And I say back, “Good. Let us go.”

You do not need zero anxiety. You need command over it.

There is a version of you that feels the nerves, acknowledges them, and walks forward anyway. That is the version you are building toward. And every time you speak, even imperfectly, you get a little closer to it.

My Pre-Speech Routine

People ask me all the time, “Rene, what do you do right before you go on stage?” Here is exactly what I do.

First, I remind myself of 3 specific things my audience is going to receive from me. Not vague things. Specific ones. “This person is going to walk out understanding why they keep getting stuck. This person is going to walk out with a strategy they can use tomorrow morning.” I get clear on my gifts before I go give them.

Second, I close my eyes and I visualize one person in that room who needs hope. Someone who woke up this morning feeling stuck, feeling like the path ahead is blocked. I imagine that person. I picture their face. I think: this speech is for them.

Third, I take a slow, deliberate breath. Shoulders down. Feet planted. And I say quietly to myself: “Rene, you are here to serve.”

That is it. That simple shift moves me from performer to giver. And everything that follows comes from a completely different place.

I remember the first time my maman saw me speak. She was sitting in the front row at a major conference, and I recognized her face in the crowd. She was in tears. Not sad tears. The kind that come when something you prayed for finally becomes real right in front of your eyes. That woman had watched me grow up with nothing. And there I was on that stage.

The crowd gave her a standing ovation.

Man. Think about that. A standing ovation for a woman who never had running water, never had electricity, but raised a son who believed enough to keep going.

That is what speaking is about. Not the applause for you. The moment when your story gives someone else permission to believe.

Public Speaking Anxiety: Final Thoughts

Here is what I want you to take away from everything you just read.

Most people feel this fear. Not some people. Most people. The difference between those who stay stuck and those who rise is not that one group was born confident and the other was not. The difference is training. And perspective. And the willingness to keep going when every nerve in your body is telling you to stop.

I came to this country at 21 years old with $5, two shirts, one pair of pants, and not a single word of English. I worked as a janitor. Then a doorman for 14 years. I gave speeches to empty chairs at midnight. I was told by people I trusted that corporate America would never pay me to speak.

Today I speak for companies like Coca-Cola, AT&T, Aflac, Verizon Wireless, and the United States Army.

Not because I was fearless. Not because I was naturally gifted. But because I made a decision. I decided that my fear of staying silent was bigger than my fear of speaking. I decided that the people in those rooms deserved what I had to give. And I decided that no condition is permanent.

No condition is permanent. Right?

Your message matters. Your ideas matter. Someone in that next room, the next meeting, the next presentation, needs to hear what you know. They need your story. They need your perspective. They need your voice.

So here is what I want you to do. Start small. Speak somewhere this week. A meeting, a phone call, a Toastmasters group, a mirror. Just start. Do not wait until you feel ready, because that day may never come on its own. Readiness is built by doing.

The next time your heart starts racing before a presentation, do not panic. Pause. Take a slow breath. Shift your focus from yourself to the people in front of you. And remember what I told you.

You are not there to perform. You are there to give.

That is how a boy from a small village in Haiti with no electricity, no running water, and no English learned to speak on stages across America. Not all at once. One speech at a time. One empty room at a time. One icebreaker at a time.

And you can too.

Now go do it.