First posted 30 October 2021 on IMD intranet.

Is stage fright common among professionals? How do they cope with it? And what can business people learn from it?

It turns out that studying how stage artists experience and manage stress can inspire all of us. Look at this image and identify your first emotion:

For most of us, there is a twinkling of the fear we call stage fright.

Artists are expected to perform flawlessly day after day, with no room for error once the show starts. One could imagine that performers know their part so well and are so used to playing it that delivering the performance is just daily business. Yet, “a survey of a German orchestra in 2012 revealed that nearly one-third of the musicians were taking Valium or beta blockers. What musician, singer or conductor has never experienced clammy hands, a lump in their throat or shaky legs before going on stage? […] Over the centuries and even today, a number of artists have put their career on hold (either temporarily or permanently) to deal with this handicap, not always in a very healthy way. Stage fright has made life a misery for thousands of musicians and singers, including Glenn Gould, Renée Fleming, Vladimir Horovitz, Frédéric Chopin […]” (1)

But it gets even worse, as artists face far more uncertainty over their professional future, including livelihood, than workers in most other industries. Take casting for example, where the show director gets to pick the performers for an upcoming show from a pool of highly qualified contestants. It is a highly disadvantageous numbers game with a small number of winners and a majority left empty-handed. Bob Fosse’s semi-autobiographical film All That Jazz shows the intense ups and downs of the lives of a Broadway cast, starting with the tension of casting, and never really giving them a moment of safety or peace.

So yes again, performers face acute challenges that most of us encounter for only short periods. How do they cope? It turns out that artists can draw on the mental resources that are what makes them artists in the first place.

Researchers at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence tried to measure in artists and other creative individuals the intensity of psychological vulnerabilities and strengths. Subjects were assessed for their psychological vulnerabilities such as stress, anxiety, and depression. They were also assessed for their psychological resources, such as self-acceptance, personal growth, positive relationships, autonomy, hope, and ego resilience.  Creative individuals are not uniquely better off (happier) or worse off (as the stereotype of the suffering artist implies). Rather, they balance vulnerabilities and resources. It is likely that their resources help them respond to the challenges they face, writes study co-author Zorana Ivcevic Pringle (3).

I remember seeing a few years ago violinist Joshua Bell stop playing after the first notes of a concerto because his violin was out of tune. He smiled at us and quipped “Well you see, it can still happen to me”. He showed his human fallibility, shared his vulnerability and made the audience feel privileged to have experienced at that moment the real person behind the world famous musician. It took self-acceptance and a sound ego for Joshua Bell. And looking back, it was a master class on how transform a mistake into a bonding moment. 

Let us admit then that artists have strong mental qualities that put them at risk and at the same time give them the strength to achieve their artistic endeavors. If balancing them happens unconsciously, is there a way for non-artists to do the same, consciously?

I envision a 3-step method to address stressful situations:

1. Create a toolbox with two compartments filled with:
   1. Our mental vulnerabilities.
   2. Our psychological resources
      
2. When anxiety hits in, go to the first compartment of the toolbox and take out the vulnerabilities that are being played.
   
3. Then open the second compartment and pick the resources that you will use to counter the vulnerabilities.

It is about dissecting almost clinically the resources and the vulnerabilities to match them as precisely as possible for a particular case. Interestingly, I found that often the resource and the vulnerability are two sides of the same mental coin. I’m planning to write a bit more about this and about the 3-step stress tool box to make more accessible.

I’m curious to hear about your interest and experience – Let me know!

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Disclaimer – I am not a trained psychologist, and while I did my best to reflect what I read and understood from the sources listed below, interpretation mistakes are possible. Do not hesitate to communicate them to me and I will gladly correct as needed.

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Sources

1. https://www.francemusique.fr/en/stage-fright-making-life-misery-musicians-and-singers-15583
2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078754/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
3. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artists-psychology-yale-study-1848138
   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creativity-the-art-and-science/202004/the-apparent-paradox-creativity
   https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-24847-001?doi=1