Master Public Speaking Anxiety with Tristan de Montebello

You were born to speak

Tristan de Montebello’s starting point is that speaking is already in you.

“As long as they’re mixed with other human beings in an environment where people are speaking, humans just pick up language, and they can do so perfectly. It’s not just words, of course, but you can’t do that with math. You can’t do that with writing. For speaking, it’s something we do naturally. It’s something that is written in our DNA.”

He also knows what it is like to lose access to that natural ability.

“I used to freak out when I had to speak in public. The first time I can remember vividly having that feeling was being on a stage and not knowing how to use my arms. It felt like I had these two poles instead of having hands. All I felt was, ‘Please get me out of here.’”

Tristan trained hard enough to reach the finals of the World Championship of Public Speaking. A few weeks later, a five-minute impromptu talk to fourteen people on Zoom brought the old feeling straight back.

“Going back to zero. My heart’s beating out of my chest. It’s beating so hard I can feel it in my ears and I feel like I’m going deaf. I feel like I’m no longer myself. I want to run away again. I’m supposed to know how to do this.”

“It’s as if I had been learning Spanish on Duolingo for six months and then I finally meet a Spanish speaker and all I know how to say is, ‘My mom is a tall farmer.’”

Competitive speaking had taught him to write, memorise, and choreograph one kind of speech. It had not taught him to trust himself when the words were still forming.

Stop pointing at the stain

Tristan compares a stumble to finding a small stain on your shirt. It can take over your attention while barely registering for anyone else.

“What you feel is so different from what people see.”

He calls it “leaking” when a speaker turns the audience’s attention towards their insecurity: apologising for a fumbled word, announcing that they are rambling, or explaining that they have gone blank.

“If you’re blanking, realize that you look like you’re taking a pause. Compose yourself and start speaking again. Nobody will be the wiser.”

Composure allows the moment to pass without adding a public commentary track.

Conduct your energy

In early coaching sessions, Tristan and his co-founder watched lively, three-dimensional people become monotone as soon as they stepped on stage. Some shrank. Some went rigid. Others turned their energy up to ten and left it there.

They began conducting speakers with one hand, raising and lowering the intensity as the person spoke.

“They would turn into these magical three-dimensional beings who had all kinds of contrast and energy. Nothing had changed. I did not teach them anything. All I did was help them modulate their energy.”

Range was already available. The game interrupted the habit of holding one defensive tone.

Practice

Play conductor

1. Choose a harmless topic. Speak about a meal, a place, or something you learned this week.
2. Ask a partner to conduct. Their hand moves from low intensity to high intensity while you keep talking.
3. Follow immediately. Do not plan how to sound. Let volume, pace, pauses, and physical energy change.
4. Use the full range. A high level can be intense without shouting. A low level may include silence.
5. Notice what feels unfamiliar. Spend another round near that edge.

Tristan’s instruction is to surrender to the numbers or the conductor’s hand and release the urge to manage every choice.

Leave impress mode

Tristan hears a “public speaking voice” as soon as it appears. It comes from trying to manage what the audience thinks.

“Impress mode is when you are putting your agency onto your audience. All of what you’re trying to express is coming from a place of, ‘What are they thinking of me?’”

Express mode uses different questions:

“What am I really trying to say? Who do I want to be? What is my intention right now? What’s alive for me right now?”

Tristan locates the overlap between speaking and nervous system work here. When the audience no longer feels like the enemy, attention can return to your own body, intention, and words.

“The more you try to express, the more impressive you become.”

Build proof through reps

Spontaneous speaking asks for trust. Tristan thinks that trust needs evidence.

“I have to be able to say, ‘I got this.’ But I have to believe myself. To believe it, I need a stack of proof behind me.”

His training uses short games, repeated attempts, and immediate feedback. One game pairs two random ideas and asks the speaker to connect them before they have time to filter the answer. Another uses sentence starters such as “At a high level, what I’m trying to say is…” and trusts the rest of the sentence to arrive.

These are small risks. Each one gives the nervous system another memory of speaking, wobbling, and continuing.

Tristan describes what can grow from those repetitions:

“There’s a feeling of home here that I can find anywhere I go. It doesn’t matter if I’m on a stage in front of a thousand people or if I’m one-on-one with somebody who I find super impressive.”

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Continue exploring

• Browse the masterclass guide library.
• Read How to Conquer Public Speaking Anxiety.
• Explore Practical Tools for Improving Your HRV.