Networking Kills: Success Through ServingShembull

Serving Erases Fear of Failure 

As a professor and entertainment lawyer in Nashville, I teach artists that the key to overcoming stage fright, the fear of bombing at a live show, is to understand that the stage is a place where you are honored to present your audience a gift. You are there to love and serve your audience, not just to receive their adoration and affirmation. Your voice, musicianship, melody and lyrics make up a beautiful, supernatural, creative gift, and you are vulnerably serving your audience by offering them joy, hope, perspective, empathy and love—a gift to transform their hearts and lives that night and beyond. It’s always about the audience. It’s not about you as the artist. See the “power” of that gift and make that your focus—not finding your identity in the applause—then the spotlight becomes a place of love instead of place of fear with the risk of failure. When your work is focused on serving others the fear of failure is gone.

Reflection

How have you typically overcome fear when stepping into a new situation or speaking in public? Recall a time in your life where you have seen the supernatural power of prayer bring peace into a difficult or new situation. Where can you use that serving principle to also overcome fear in your business, social, or school setting?