I've performed solo as an amateur musician exactly once (to an audience of about 100), and spoken publicly exactly once (to an audience of similar size). Admittedly a decade separates these two events, but when I performed as a musician (violist, playing a piece I had very thoroughly memorized and mastered when I played by myself or with my instructor) I did absolutely terribly, the anxiety ruined my performance.
In my mind, I performed like someone who had just picked up the instrument when in fact I had been playing for 10 years. The reality is of course a bit different, but that's the perception of the performance I remember, and I definitely did not perform the piece anywhere near as well as I had when practicing.
The public speaking twelve years later, which I had never done before (short of a couple of roles in school theatre), went great. I had minimal anxiety and I honestly thoroughly enjoyed the experience. This happened at General Assembly, back when they had both a for-profit educational system and a coworking space in NYC (and the company I work for was working out of there). One of their employees asked me to give a presentation of our product as the final presentation of a demo day they were having for one of their immersive web development classes.
I guess I just had impostor syndrome as a violist performing solo (had no problems in the orchestra, though obviously violists don't get much exposure in most orchestral works - not all though!), and didn't as a professional web developer with ~8 years of experience following presentations of people who literally had 10 or so weeks of experience, even though I'd never really spoken publicly before and my presentation was _entirely_ ad libbed; they literally asked me to present about an hour before the demo day presentations started.
I'm very curious if I'd be able to handle the public speaking as well as I did if I had to follow people who I perceived to be my peers and betters, but I've not yet had an opportunity to test the hypothesis; when I performed on the viola, the people who went before me I viewed as better musicians than myself, and I have no way of knowing if that was what set my performance anxiety off until I put myself in a situation where I feel like I'm not as good as the people who are performing with me.
I'm the opposite, I went through a period of about 15 years performing as DJ [1], I've performed in front of anything from 100 to several thousand people and not had a problem, but public speaking overwhelms me with anxiety - sometimes with as little as 4 or 5 people (if I see them as 'better' than me - I work in healthcare software, so deal with clinicians a lot).
It's totally frustrating because in every other aspect of my life I'm a very confident and positive, don't suffer from any anxieties, and am very much in control. I have little tolerance of can't, that is, I usually don't let fear of trying or other's lack of ambition stifle me. So to have something totally irrational take control over me, like it does, is bizarre.
I'd genuinely love to fix it at some point, but I'm in those situations infrequently, so I'm not convinced I'd be able to really nail it.
I couldn't imagine speaking in front of a bunch of American doctors. I'm stereotyping, but as a group they have huge egos, and are trained to be critical. This has just been my experience.
In reality, they are very well trained mechanics. That last sentance is curtesy of Dr. Dean Edell. I miss that guy.
We put doctors on pedestals in the states. I have found very few deserve this special treatment.
I'll get beat up over this post. I don't care. To the person I'm writing to, I had a horrid fear of public speaking. I actually got through college with only one public speaking engagement. It was a sweaty train wreck.
As I've aged, public speaking got to the point where my pulse doesn't even flinch.
Indeed. It's totally irrational, most of the doctors I know aren't that smart. Yes, they're very good in the area of their specialism, but more often than not they let their extreme expertise in one area cloud their judgements/abilities in other areas. I've had clinicians telling me how long they think it should take to develop a feature in our app for example. Even if they were an expert in software development (which none are) then it's still very arrogant to assume knowledge of our system and how we developed it.
Obviously this is a blanket statement, I'm sure this doesn't characterise every clinician. But I have seen this a lot.
In my mind, I performed like someone who had just picked up the instrument when in fact I had been playing for 10 years. The reality is of course a bit different, but that's the perception of the performance I remember, and I definitely did not perform the piece anywhere near as well as I had when practicing.
The public speaking twelve years later, which I had never done before (short of a couple of roles in school theatre), went great. I had minimal anxiety and I honestly thoroughly enjoyed the experience. This happened at General Assembly, back when they had both a for-profit educational system and a coworking space in NYC (and the company I work for was working out of there). One of their employees asked me to give a presentation of our product as the final presentation of a demo day they were having for one of their immersive web development classes.
I guess I just had impostor syndrome as a violist performing solo (had no problems in the orchestra, though obviously violists don't get much exposure in most orchestral works - not all though!), and didn't as a professional web developer with ~8 years of experience following presentations of people who literally had 10 or so weeks of experience, even though I'd never really spoken publicly before and my presentation was _entirely_ ad libbed; they literally asked me to present about an hour before the demo day presentations started.
I'm very curious if I'd be able to handle the public speaking as well as I did if I had to follow people who I perceived to be my peers and betters, but I've not yet had an opportunity to test the hypothesis; when I performed on the viola, the people who went before me I viewed as better musicians than myself, and I have no way of knowing if that was what set my performance anxiety off until I put myself in a situation where I feel like I'm not as good as the people who are performing with me.