Dharmesh Conquers Stage Fright

A story about how Dharmesh Shah overcame severe stage anxiety to become capable of speaking in front of large audiences by breaking down public speaking into learnable skills.

"I wanted to become someone that can give a talk in front of 25,000 people on a stage. That seemed like an insurmountable task for someone like me who had never done that. I didn't have stage fright - I had severe stage anxiety. Stage fright is thinking a spaceship is going to come down and suck you up because you were so bad. Stage anxiety is wishing a spaceship would come down and suck me off the stage right now.

So I broke it down: Don't pass out on stage. Then learn about storytelling, learn about writing, learn about slide design, learn about humor. I did all those things - read books, took classes on all those components of public speaking. In aggregate, I'm okay now. I can do that. Then it's just practice and doing it over time.

If I can do it, anyone can do it. Most things are actually skills, not talent. You can start with zero. I would have been voted least likely to ever start a company in my entire generations of family. Public speaking was not something I had talent for until I went off and did it."