You reach the microphone, feel your hand tremble, and consider opening with an admission: you are terribly nervous. It feels honest. It might even earn a reassuring smile. But it also asks listeners to notice your anxiety before they encounter your message.

Here is the uncomfortable argument: announcing your nerves is usually a poor opening. Your audience deserves your honesty, but it does not need a running account of your internal state.

The Problem

Advice to admit nervousness has an understandable appeal. It removes the effort of pretending. It can make a formal room feel more human. Some speakers use it warmly and effectively.

The trouble begins when disclosure becomes a request for permission: please lower your expectations; please reassure me; please do not judge what happens next.

That opening gives you another task while you are already under pressure. Now you may search faces for signs that your admission worked. A neutral expression can become apparent disapproval. Instead of explaining your subject, you start monitoring whether people accept you.

There is also a quieter cost. You can begin to believe that you must explain your anxiety before you are entitled to speak.

You do not. A shaking hand is not misconduct. A nervous voice does not require an apology.

The Solution

The managing-nerves theme in Gerard Grogans’s Stand Up, Speak Up and Show Out raises a useful question: what should you manage privately, and what does the audience actually need to hear?

The distinction is not between honesty and concealment. It is between serving the message and reporting every feeling that accompanies it.

Prepare an opening that gives something. Write two sentences that establish a recognisable problem and explain what listeners will gain. Avoid beginning with an evaluation of your own performance. Give yourself a clear speaking task before anxiety offers you a different one.

Use a small physical reset. Before speaking, place your feet comfortably, loosen your grip on your notes, and allow one unforced exhalation. Then deliver the first sentence at a pace that lets you finish it without rushing. These actions are not a promise of instant calm. They are manageable behaviours when calm is unavailable.

Respond to disruption, not embarrassment. If your voice catches, pause. If your mouth is dry, take water. If you lose your place, look at your notes. Address the practical difficulty rather than attaching a verdict about your ability to it.

Sometimes a brief explanation genuinely helps. You may need a moment to settle, an adjustment to the microphone, or an accommodation. Ask plainly. The argument is against automatic self-disqualification, not against necessary disclosure or support.

Review usefulness before appearance. Afterwards, ask whether your central idea was understandable, whether your pace allowed listeners to follow, and whether your ending gave them something usable. Do not make the absence of visible nerves your definition of success.

Presence is not the performance of being untouched by pressure. It is the ability to keep directing attention towards something worth hearing.

The Key Takeaway

Manage your nerves through practical actions, rather than making an apology for them the audience’s first experience of your message.

Your Homework

Today, record a ninety-second explanation of something you know well. Write a two-sentence opening that names a problem and offers a useful insight. Before recording, settle your feet and release your grip. Speak without announcing or apologising for nervousness; pause if you need to. Watch once, checking only whether the opening is clear and the main idea is easy to follow. Record it again with one specific improvement to clarity or pace.

Start with those first two sentences today. Let your message arrive before your self-judgment, and keep becoming a speaker who can offer something useful under pressure.