Lights, Camera, Fever! Going Blank At TEDx
In German, the phrase for “stage-fright,” is Lampenfieber, which translates to “Light Fever,” and is a more accurate description of what happened to me.
I memorized my TEDx talk weeks in advance. You could have found me rehearsing at the beach or in my backyard. I mumbled it out word for word each night while brushing my teeth. I don’t know the German phrase for “overly-prepared,” but you get the idea.
Still, when the audience took their seats and the spotlight found me, das fever rose fast. Everything flowed for the first two minutes, but then, a pulsing started in my ear. My mind went white-paper-blank. There was a long, awkward pause. Too dramatic to be intentional. I was told later by one of the video editors that my brain freeze was, “Eight seconds and painful to watch.”
But thanks to that brilliant editor (thanks, Jim!) you can hardly notice in the video. If I wasn’t telling you now, you’d never know.
So, why am I telling you?
It’s a special kind of euphoria that comes just before you witness a disaster. The free fall of panic just before it’s too late. Think of the on-screen protagonist about to walk into a deadly trap. Who can look away?
Now picture me on stage. Hair combed, teeth white. So prepped and ready. So sure of myself it’s almost boring. And then…blood draining despair. I felt the terrified mirror neurons of the audience spread from the front row to the balcony in an instant.
I’m not your speaker coach, but if you asked me a sure-fire way to engage an audience, I’d tell you to Do Something Wrogn. Because if anyone wasn’t listening before, I certainly had their attention now.
No one wants to see the tight-rope walker fall. But oh how we relish that sudden gust of wind…
To be truly vulnerable, to be authentically authentic, it’s not enough to “own your truth.” The audience must be forced to carry your burden as well. If only for a short gust of wind. Think of the suspicious incongruences in a new friend. The typo that makes you re-read the sentence. Spinach in the teeth. These are the secret handshakes that form a bond.
Punch lines are forgotten by the time of the curtain. But an inside joke is like trauma. It can last a lifetime.
It’s for the best that those eight seconds of Lampenfieber are cut out. I think it may have distracted from the overall message of the talk. But part of me wishes it was still there for the world to see. Part of me wants to share those eight seconds of panic with thousands of viewers.
That contagious fever.
The collective rush of a packed audience begging, “Please don’t make us watch you fall.”
To see how it ends, use the link below. If you have the nerve…
