Stephane Marchand

  Lauren Bonvini is a Seattle-based stage fright coach who helps performers, speakers, and creatives work through performance anxiety and build confidence, presence, and self-trust. Stage fright can feel incredibly isolating. Even though millions of people experience performance anxiety, many assume they are the only ones struggling with it. They watch confident speakers, performers, creators, and professionals and believe everyone else somehow knows how to stay calm under pressure. But confidence is often misunderstood. Most confident people are not fearless. They have simply learned how to stay connected to themselves while feeling discomfort. They’ve developed the ability to move through fear without allowing it to completely control their behavior. That distinction matters. Performance anxiety is not just about speaking or performing in front of others. For many people, it’s deeply connected to visibility, vulnerability, and fear of judgment. It’s the emotional experience...

 Lauren Bonvini is a Seattle-based stage fright coach who helps performers, speakers, and creatives work through performance anxiety and build confidence, presence, and self-trust. Stage fright is often misunderstood as a sign of weakness or lack of preparation. In reality, it’s a deeply human response—your body gearing up for a moment that feels important. Whether you’re stepping onto a stage, entering a meeting, or presenting in front of a crowd, the surge of adrenaline is your system doing exactly what it was designed to do. The challenge isn’t the presence of fear. It’s how you relate to it. Why Stage Fright Feels So Overwhelming When performance anxiety hits, it can feel all-consuming. Your heart races, your thoughts scatter, and your body tightens. This happens because your nervous system detects a perceived threat—social judgment, failure, or the unknown—and activates a protective response. But here’s the key insight: your body doesn’t distinguish between danger and imp...

  How manageable moments of visibility can help build confidence, self-trust, and steadier communication Lauren Bonvini is a Seattle-based stage fright coach who helps performers, speakers, and creatives work through performance anxiety and build confidence, presence, and self-trust. Stage fright can make speaking, presenting, or performing feel much harder than it needs to be. For some people, the fear appears before a major event. For others, it shows up in everyday moments, such as speaking in a meeting, introducing themselves, asking a question, or sharing an idea out loud. What makes stage fright especially frustrating is that it often affects people who are thoughtful, prepared, and capable. A person may know what they want to say, but the pressure of being seen and heard can make it difficult to access that clarity in the moment. One helpful way to approach stage fright is to stop waiting for one dramatic breakthrough. Confidence usually grows through smaller, repeatable ste...