Public speaking anxiety rarely announces itself as fear. Sometimes it shows up as a body that stops cooperating.
Tamara Laine was on set as an on-air correspondent when her whole body started shaking. Her heart raced. The words wouldn’t come.
She thought she was having a seizure. Or a stroke.
She got off set, went to a doctor, and found out what it actually was: a panic attack.
Earlier, in her twenties, Tamara was going out for Broadway roles that required singing. She’d prepare with a coach. She’d have it down perfectly. Then she’d walk in and buckle.
So she told herself the obvious thing: It’s not for me. I can’t do it.
The same wiring followed her to a national broadcast set, a job she never went looking for and said yes to anyway.
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Here’s the part I keep thinking about.
Tamara only ever felt her body react when she was reaching for something bigger than what she’d done before.
If your hands go cold before a keynote, a board presentation, or a promotion conversation, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re not ready or don’t belong in the room. Sometimes it means you’re doing something that feels genuinely difficult and unfamiliar. Give yourself a little grace for that.
But grace isn’t a tool, and Tamara went and got tools.
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After the panic attack, she started with a therapist and a page. She would write down the scenario she was walking into: the catastrophic version her brain was already running. Then she’d rewrite it, out loud, as the best possible outcome.
Two versions, side by side. And they almost never matched.
Because the disaster was never the room. It was the rehearsal.
She was projecting the worst-case scenario before anything happened, which was then causing the worst-case scenario.
You practice something enough times and your body learns it. That’s true of the talk. It’s also true of the catastrophe.
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The second tool is one you can use in public, right now, and nobody will know.
Box breathing. In for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four.
It’s what she does when she feels the stress climbing: sitting in the meeting, standing offstage, counting silently in her head.
She keynoted a conference this week. No panic attack. She still practiced, still talked herself through it, and still used the tools.
The anxiety didn’t disappear. She just stopped being at its mercy.
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Then there’s the thing that has nothing to do with speaking and everything to do with whether your career actually moves forward.
Tamara’s coach told her, “if your number one priority isn’t on your calendar, you’re not going to hit it.”
She pulled up her own calendar. Her top priority was landing a pilot customer for her startup.
Thirty days. Not one customer call.
She was busy. Investor meetings, conferences, tasks cleared every day. All of it felt productive.
None of it was the thing.
That’s a check any of us can run tonight, and it takes about ninety seconds. Open the last thirty days. Find the one priority that matters most this year. Count how many times it actually appears.
The calendar doesn’t flatter you. That’s what makes it useful.
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We also get into something quieter and harder: what it costs to be a collaborative leader who still has to decide.
Tamara is unusually honest about that tension: wanting everyone seen and heard, while knowing that at some point the decision is yours alone, and someone is going to be disappointed.
If you’ve ever mistaken your own empathy for indecision, that part of the conversation is for you.
Listen to the full episode with Tamara Laine wherever you get your podcasts. And if it lands, hit subscribe.
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Listen to the full episode with Tamara Laine wherever you get your podcasts — and if it lands, hit subscribe.
Connect with Tamara:
tools you can run in the room without anyone noticing is the part i want to hear. going back after a panic attack on live tv takes guts
A lot of my work is helping and reminding entrepreneurs and their leadership teams to make the #1 thing be the #1 thing. Simple and hard at the same time!