Managing Performance Anxiety
In this episode of The Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about performance anxiety and why it can affect even the most experienced professionals. My guest this week is Dr. David Lee Fish, a former music professor who now helps people navigate speech fright, stage fright and competition anxiety.
David shares his own experience of freezing during an early performance and the shame that came from believing he was the only one struggling. We explore what’s happening in our bodies when we feel judged or threatened and why our internal “bodyguard” can make high-stakes moments even harder.
We also discuss a different way to respond when anxiety takes over. David explains how mindfulness can help us redirect our attention, why the middle of a stressful moment is the wrong time to debate our fears and how everyday activities can become opportunities to build the skills we need when the pressure is on.
About My Guest
David Lee Fish, Ph.D., works with professionals who are excellent at their jobs but fall short of their potential when they speak in front of others, whether in formal presentations, team meetings, online sessions, or job interviews. His approach to performance anxiety has an unusual origin. He developed it independently through Zen practice, then, years later, discovered that Jon Kabat-Zinn, who brought mindfulness into mainstream medicine, had learned from the same Korean master. They arrived at the same place independently of one another. His counterintuitive method has helped professionals reclaim the confidence that anxiety was suppressing.
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Connect with David:
Website: https://riseupeight.com/
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Transcript
Kim Meninger
Welcome, David. I'm so excited to have you here, and I would love to start by inviting you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, hi. Thank you, Kim. I'm delighted to be here. As we spoke about just before we started recording, I love the concept of your podcast. It's certainly something that many of us, maybe most of us, have experienced a time or three in our careers or other dating lives, even all sorts of ways we felt like imposters, right? So you're doing great work, and, and I certainly applaud that. So all right. So I am Dr. David Lee Fish. I am a was a professor of music, the director of a popular music program here in North Carolina. So I taught you know songwriters and guitarists and you know singers. I'm now into what we call the third act of my life, and this is one of the main hustles that I have going, which is helping people with performance anxiety. And perform, there are three basically three flavors of performance anxiety. There's speech fright. There's stage fright for you know that performers experience, like the musicians I taught, actors, magicians, dancers. Then there's also competition anxiety, which you know athletes and but even like game show contestants can experience. So it's interesting, Kim. Even though 75% of us, study after study, have shown, broadly speaking, 75% of us experience this sort of anxiety when speaking, performing, or competing in front of others-you know, there's not much out there that, to help people. You know, you know the common wisdom. You know, prepare, over-prepare, take deep breaths. Imagine the audience in their underwear. You know, so none of those I think are a very useful solution in the grand scheme of things. And I actually stumbled onto something that is, I think, a very effective solution that we can get into as, as we chat here.
Kim Meninger
Absolutely, and I love that you said that because that was my first thought too. Was that old picture people learned to write? And if it were that simple, then nobody would struggle with performance anxiety, right? But obviously, that's not working, and we need a better solution. So I'm excited to dig into what you're thinking about, and can you help us, you know, or help me understand? At what point did you decide there's got to be a better way? Were you noticing it coming up more often? Like, how did you realize this is a problem that needs a better solution?
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, I was a really hot shot young saxophone player, even in high school, and I got because of that. I got a chance to be, pardon me, to be in the backing band of, of a big act national musical act when, when it came through town, and this was my so Kim. This is my first big gig, right? 10s of 1000s of people in the audience. I froze, and so the only thing that you know sort of brought me out of that was the director of the group that you know the, the Zach brought with him, shouting at me, "Play, damn it! So from a so you know from a young tender age, I knew that you know stage fright was something I was prone to. Got into college, I majored in music and you know in performances or sorry in ensemble rehearsals and practice and lessons, I did fine. But get me in front of an audience, and especially if the stakes were high, that you know that stage fright, that performance anxiety would rear its ugly head again. So from that time on, I knew I had a problem, and I thought it was only me. And it's kind of like what you say about imposter syndrome. I thought, well, it must be only me because none of you know my, my music professors really aren't talking about it. My fellow musician, you know, music student. Aren't talking about it, so I just well, there must be something wrong with me. So then, fast forward a little bit, and when I became a professor and started professing what, what I thought I knew, you know, like especially in faculty meetings where you know you would get up and say your thing, and then you know Mr. Professor Fumple would get up and say, "Well, Professor Fish, you obviously have not, right? Yeah, it would it would come back now in in the form of speech fright, right? So you know I, I knew that I had an issue, and again, as far as I knew, I was the only person that was, you know, suffering from this given that nobody hardly ever talked about it.
Kim Meninger
And I think that that is worth spending a moment on because, like you said, I I say the same thing as people often feel like they're the only ones who struggle with this because they just don't see it around them. They can't see what's happening on the inside when other people are engaging in conversation, performing, etc. And so we think everyone else has it all together. Everyone else has it all figured out. Oh, must be me. And I'm glad you gave that statistic too about 75% of people because I think we mask it well, right? Most people don't fall apart in that situation; they just suffer silently and wish that it were easier.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, I remember a therapist friend once saying, "Never mistake the smooth outside of others for your jagged inside,” You're not seeing their jagged inside typically, but, you know, at least for 75% of us, when it comes to performance anxiety, it's there.
Kim Meninger
Absolutely, and so you know there's a lot of superficial pep talk type of support, like you mentioned earlier. What do you think really needs to happen for us to better navigate these types of situations?
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, to understand that, let me tell you a little bit of why it happens and how performance anxiety happens. I've boiled it down to three factors. One is you do your thing in front of others, you speak, and you know, or you perform, or you compete. Now, so and then the second thing is there's an audience. Now that audience can be just one person, so it could be a job interview. It doesn't necessarily, necessarily have to be a formal performance or presentation. All right. So the second factor is that the audience is judging you, or at least you feel like they're judging you. Right. It actually doesn't matter much whether they're really judging you or not, as long as you're feeling like they're judging you close enough. Right. Then the third thing, and this is what performance anxiety hinges on: if the judgment were negative, it would constitute some sort of threat. Sometimes that threat is very clear and obvious. If it's job interview, you don't get the job. If you're inter, you know, if you're auditioning for Juilliard, you don't get into Juilliard, right? Other times it's more existential and has more to do with your self-worth, maybe your professional standing, your you know how others see you as a professional, right? But, but there's always some sort of threat there. What happens is what's called the sympathetic nervous system, which is beyond our conscious thinking, picks up on that threat like an internal bodyguard, and it leaps in to try to protect us. Unfortunately, the only way it knows how to protect us is what it was built for hundreds of 1000 years ago was when we were confronted by a man-eating tiger, right? So it, it prepares us to fight, flee, or freeze, like I did in in that show, right? So by pumping adrenaline into our system, right? Which is you know often now, now a certain amount of adrenaline that can, can be you know effective and helpful as, as a performer as a competitor, too much is counterproductive. So that sympathetic nervous system internal bodyguard in many cases is maladapted to help us deal with the threat we're experiencing.
Kim Meninger
I'm glad you said that. I, I really love the way you call it an internal bodyguard because that's how I see it as well, and it's, it's a well-intentioned security presence, right? [Yeah.] And I love that because I often say that too is that we just don't distinguish between the threat of a of a tiger and a social threat like you're describing. So I've…
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, that sympathetic nervous system doesn't differentiate. It doesn't know. Yeah.
Kim Meninger
Yeah. So then, where do we go from here? Because I think this is really critical for people to understand. I often, I often say that this understanding has significant implications for how we see ourselves and our confidence. Because if we don't understand that this is what's happening, we perpetuate a narrative that we're not good enough, right?
Dr. David Lee Fish
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So I've appropriated a phrase from Tai Chi, and, and, and I use it different what it was than what it was originally meant for, but I still like it. It's embrace tiger, return to mountain, and the embraced tiger. It's not the man eating. Well, it could be the man eating tiger. It that's the moment when you're doing your thing. Going back to my you know three part formula here. That's when you're speaking, you know, in a committee meeting, or you're giving a presentation, or you're in a you know performance review, or you're in a social gathering, for that matter. All right. So that's the embrace the tiger moment. In that embrace the tiger moment, that's when your internal bodyguard kicks in, and that is the wrong moment to try to debate it, to try to stop it, to try to you can't really. It's, it's again not part of our conscious thought. That's why it's sympathetic nervous. It's part of the autonomic nervous system, right? It's, it's beyond our, our thinking capacity. Plus, even if you could debate it while you're speaking in front of us, you don't want to spend your concentration on that, right? You, all right. So, so that's where now mindfulness comes in, or at least mindfulness as I learned it, as it was taught to Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of mindfulness. Now, John brought together a number of different influences for, for creating modern mindfulness, and but one of them was he studied with a Korean Zen master, Sang San, that I also studied with. I didn't know him at that time. I didn't know about this until much later on. And Sung Sun had had this wonderful. He was great because you know a lot of you know Zen is very esoteric, right? And, and, and it's meant to be, and it's meant to be beyond logical thinking. Like what's the sound of one hand clapping, you know, and, and Song San would use those koans as a teaching tool, but he was also much more pragmatic about what Zen was at the heart of it, and he boiled it down to this all-purpose precept, which is only go straight. Don't know. Keep don't know mind. Right. So let's say you're in a speaking situation. You're giving a presentation. Right. The only go straight is giving that presentation, and that's very much in the Zen tradition of when you walk only walk, when you eat only eat, you know don't be having other thoughts inter you know interfere with that experience and be here now if, if you will. So the only go no don't only don't know the only go straight don't know part of it. Keep don't know mind is when that internal bodyguard steps in to try to protect you. That's not the time to be debating with it whether you're an impostor or not, right? It somehow. Has, has there has been a signal? It's received a signal that you think you feel you're an impostor. I'm going to step in to protect you, right? So now is again not the time to be debating it whether you're an imposter or not. You want to concentrate. You want to do the only go straight part of it. Just concentrate on your speaking. As far as he, thank you. That's wonderful. I don't know if you're right or wrong. I can't think about that right now because I'm speaking. I'm concentrating on speaking. So you accept it rather than trying to fight it, squash it, conquer it, right? Okay, so, so now that's the embrace the tiger moment. What I think you were talking about is more the return to mountain part of it. When you're out of that situation, now's when you can have a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, you know, sit back and ruminate on. Now, why was I feeling that, right? You know, talk to you know trusted friends about it, that sort of thing. And then so maybe the next time you embrace the tiger, maybe it won't be so bad, but when it is, and when you're in the moment, just accept your internal bodyguard trying to protect you, right? And, and just return your attention to your speaking. And often you'll need to do this over and over and over and over again. [Yeah.] That's par for the course having to do that.
Kim Meninger
I think that's important to reinforce too, because I think that especially the people who tend to feel this way are often the high achievers who set very high standards for themselves, and so they might feel if I try that and I don't do it right the first time, then I'm not good enough. I'm not doing it, right?
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, even that is don't know. Am I doing well? Am I doing well with this with this presentation? Don't know. Just keep going. You know. You know. Only, only go straight. Yeah. So no, absolutely. And oh, and, and oh, high achievers often experience this more because the threat level is increased.
Kim Meninger
Yes, that's a very good point. And I, you know, I find just as somebody who has experienced a lot of imposter syndrome and a lot of anxiety over my lifetime, I actually find what you're talking about to be very comforting because it doesn't feel like oh I am just you know I missed a step or something I'm doing something wrong. It's like no, this is biology. This is just how our nervous system works. And if we can find peace in that, that makes it easier to do some of the other things that you're talking about.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, absolutely. And, and don't fall into the trap of what therapists call a dead man's goal-that I'm ever necessarily going to get over this forever. I've certainly experienced. I think we were talking about imposter syndrome a time or three in my life, and I probably will again, depending on what the situation is, right? You know, you know. Hear me doing this with you. I'm really feel comfortable, Kim. You put me on a TED stage saying the same thing. I bet the imposter syndrome is going to pop up and say, "Oh, you don't belong with these other TED people. They're, they're wise and profound, right? So, and in the moment, okay, thank you. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're not. I don't have time. I'm only gonna go, go straight and do this TED talk.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, yeah. So, going back to the idea of practicing this, Did you feel like it took a while to be able to tune out that voice that's really gets louder and louder because it wants to protect you? Like that, I think that part about mind the, the mindfulness part that can be really tricky is allowing that to be there and just not give it the attention that it's craving in that moment.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Thank you so much. This allows me to introduce my prop. Now you would think I'd use this quite often as my prop. You think I'd learn have learned how to do this. I have not. This is really simple to do, Kim. Right? You just bounce the ball off, off the, Oh, I can do it. Look at that. This is. I'm a genius. It's just bouncing the ball off the paddle, right? It's a paddle ball, just because people won't be able to see it. But yes. Yeah. Oh, okay. All right. Oh, that's right. We're just audio. All right. Yeah. So, so that that was a paddle ball, friends, like the type that's in blazing saddles, right? So, all right. So, you know, it's easy. You just bounce the ball off the paddle, but to do it, it takes practice, and that's one of my quibbles with Mick mindfulness. That they miss the fact that you need to practice mindfulness. You know, that's what we were doing in the Zen Center for hours a day was returning our attention to our mantra or our breathing. So there, there are all sorts of wonderful exercises that you can do. This and just concentrating on your breath is a wonderful one. You can do it while you're waiting in line at a store, right? A time that you, you know might you know do texting, or you might yeah I know start worrying about what you need to do after you get out, start getting frustrated because the line the line is like look at that idiot in front of me that you know has more than 12 items and instead of that just practice your breathing, and any time, or concentrate on your breathing. And any time extraneous thoughts come to mind, just re you know refocus your mind on your breathing. Right, that's what you need to do to build this skill. You know when you're in the mountain, when you've returned to mountain, so that when you get in front of audience, that you're adept at. Oh, I did. I'm just returning my concentration. Returning my concentration.
Kim Meninger
Yes, I mean it's just so important because I always think of everything that triggers us in some way as having a before, during, and after, right? And how and how we respond to it. And so I love how you say that in the moment is not the time to debate this. That there's just not that it's not the place for that. But there is space before and afterwards, to reflect, to practice, to just build those muscles.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah.
Kim Meninger
So that we are stronger when we step into the room.
Dr. David Lee Fish
You, you hit you said it great. That that's exactly it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Kim Meninger
And so, do you think that there is a? I mean, so you, you gave us this practice tip, right? I think there are a lot of people who are very busy and who are feeling very overwhelmed in their lives right now, and we live in a particularly overstimulating world [Yeah.] for people who are feeling like I don't have time for this, this is too like this is just too much, right? What would you say to that?
Dr. David Lee Fish
But we do brushing your teeth is a perfect time to practice mindfulness. Just concentrating on the sensations of brushing your teeth, you know the feel of the bristles, you know the, the feel of the toothpaste in your mouth, you know its aroma, its smell. So any washing dishes, folding laundry, right, commuting, sitting at a stoplight. Stoplight mindfulness is a really great practice. Where just at least during that time of that right of that red light, just to only you know just concentrate on, on your breathing. Now you can try a mantra, and there are no magical mantras, right? And in fact, there's a very famous Zen koan or Zen sorry about a Zen monk who achieved enlightenment by saying a mantra over and over again. And when his Zen master asked him what mantra, he said, "Well, you know, I used the one that you gave me straw sandals. I didn't give that. That wasn't it. You, you misheard me, right? So, so you can use ah you can use Coca Cola or peace or you know or, or whatever you want. There's nothing magical about the mantra, right? So but if you can just say just saying a word or phrase over and over, you know, an affirmative phrase is great. That that's you know that just that during the red light, and, and when your, your mind's going to wander, it will wander. Just bring it back to, to saying that phrase.
Kim Meninger
Yeah, I mean, I think I'm thinking of that almost like an anchor, right? It's, it's something that orients you. And are there any other tips you have for people to? Sometimes I think about the power of like visuals or just it's something that kind of keeps them focused on what's in the room at that time. It's tricky. I am. I am really somebody who struggles a lot with this because I am not comfortable being alone with my own thoughts. I've got my podcast on all the time. I'm constantly like just immersing myself in stimuli, and so I think there's, there's a way in which I you know silence is almost really uncomfortable for me.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, yeah, yeah no absolutely I, I appreciate that greatly you know I think partly that you know, so to go along with Song, what Song San said about keep don't know mind, he would also say keep before thinking mind, right? That and, and this is very much again within you know the, the Zen tradition that we are not our thinking, right? That there is an there is a truer self, a more fundamental self that isn't the dualistic, dualistic, you know, a conscious thought us, right? You know, Descartes with I think therefore I am. Well, that's the whole problem. You know we boil down to us being us that we're thinking. Well, no, there is. If you buy into this Zen approach, no, there is, and that's actually the truer self, right? So I, you know, it is a quest, Kim. I can't give you a, you know, a handy dandy, you know, tip to do this. Other than there is that you and you know it, and almost all of us know it because it, you know, flow or peak moments like when you're engrossed in reading a book or something or other, and your kind of thinking mind falls away, Paul Simon song-he has a wonderful phrase. Have you ever experienced a period of grace when your mind takes a seat behind your face? Right. So you know a lot of, of Zen is getting to that experience of you know taking of your mind taking a seat behind your face, right? And that's now this is meditation. Now we're kind of mindfulness is not necessarily meditation. They're connected, but they're not. But this is why meditation can be so such a wonderful anecdote for our busy lives and our busy minds that you force yourself for 15 minutes to sit there and repeat that mantra, or to sit there and, and, and you know concentrate on, on your breathing, right? And I, you know, I and I think opening that window a little bit each day, I think many people who do meditate say that it just kind of changes the complexion of, of their existence to, to a significant extent.
Kim Meninger
Thank you for that. I think that is a really powerful reminder again of the importance of practice. Not expecting this instant and just really trusting in in the process too.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's yeah. Again, one of the things I hate about you know like stage fright, speech fright. You go online, and what you're going to find is 10 tips to conquer your speech fright. That's nonsense, right? And, and that feeds into our you know our modern approach to things that oh I just need to read that nine art that article on how to keep my house organized right you know I've probably read 20 of those and haven't you know I probably if I did one of them I'd first of all I'd have to practice doing it.
Kim Meninger
That's right. That's right. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, David. This has been really enlightening. It's been helpful to me personally. I really appreciate that, and I know it is to others as well. And so, for people listening who want more of you, where can they find you?
Dr. David Lee Fish
Best way to do it, you know, I'm, do several of the socials, if you will. Mainly LinkedIn, so they can find me under David Lee Fish on LinkedIn, or better way I think is just my website, which is Rise Up Eight with eight spelled out E-I-G-H-T. So Rise Up eight dot com, and there you will find three courses. Two of them are active, and the third one we're still building out. You will find Speak with Confidence, Perform with Confidence, and the one we're still building out is Compete with Confidence. Right, and you know, there's even a free trial lesson, so that includes a mindfulness exercise in it, and how it applies to the you know the solution that I've developed for performance anxiety.
Kim Meninger
Wonderful. Well, we'll make sure that the show notes include all of those links. And thank you so much for being here and for what you're doing.
Dr. David Lee Fish
Oh, Kim, yeah, thank you. And, and again, what, what a brilliant concept for a podcast. You know, I'm, I'm sure you're, you're helping many individuals with it.
Kim Meninger
Thank you.
