Stay in Character (Don't Leak)
Never broadcast your internal insecurities — the audience can't see what you feel, so don't show them
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 92%
When you speak, your senses are heightened and every stumble feels enormous — but the audience cannot see your internal state; you look like a normal, competent speaker. Most people 'leak' by acknowledging the mistake (nervous laughter, 'I'm not making sense right now'), which forces the audience to view everything through that lens. The solution is simply to not share your insecurities: stay in character from beginning past the ending, and let it be. This creates a reinforcing loop — you get the reaction a confident person gets, which actually makes you more confident.
Origin
An Ultraspeaking cue from Tristan de Montebello ('stay in it'), reinforced by the peak-end rule for why the ending matters most.
Core principles
- 01People cannot see what you feel — internal noise is invisible unless it's 'through the roof'
- 02Leaking pops the audience's bubble and forces a negative lens onto content they were fine with
- 03Most people you watch are actually nervous; they just look confident by default
- 04Staying in character produces confident reactions, which reinforce real confidence
How to run it
- 1
Assume your feelings are invisible
Internalize that the insecurity, rambling, or weird word that feels like an elephant in the room is not visible to your audience — they see a normal, competent speaker.
Pro tip Walk around and observe that most people speaking in meetings feel some nervousness you can't detect — proof it's invisible.
- 2
Don't leak — put your best foot forward
When a word comes out weird or you feel off, do not laugh nervously, apologize, or announce it. Keep the train moving; if there's a crash on the roadside, the passengers won't see it a second later.
Pro tip The cue is 'stay in it' — and 'the worse it gets the more I'll say just stay in it.'
Watch out Announcing the mistake is like a pilot saying a red light is blinking and might be really bad — now every tiny bump reads as disaster.
- 3
Stay in character all the way through and let it be
Hold character from the start, through the ending (which means ending strong), and then let it be — resist the urge to hedge or re-do.
- 4
Collect the confident reaction
Notice that people respond as if you were confident, because that's what they saw. That feedback quiets the internal listener over time.
In the wild
De Montebello says when a speaker breaks state mid-exercise ('can I go again, that really sucked'), he polls the audience: 'is anyone surprised?' Every time the room says no — 'I thought you were doing great, I was completely with you.'
→ Demonstrates the speaker's internal sense of failure was invisible; the leak, not the mistake, was what would have damaged the impression.
After each game Lenny wants to say how bad his performance was but forces himself not to; he catches himself hedging mid-sentence and stops.
→ He internalizes the lesson in real time and reports it as 'a really powerful lesson.'
Common mistakes
Believing 'being upfront' about a stumble makes it okay
Lenny's instinct — flagging 'I know this isn't great' to make it acceptable — actually shines a light on a problem the audience would otherwise ignore, like a comedian saying 'sorry that bombed.'
Nervous laughter or hedging after a weird word
It signals 'I also noticed that came out weird,' forcing the audience to reinterpret you through a lens of incompetence.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anxious speakers who self-sabotage by apologizing, hedging, or nervous-laughing during meetings and talks
Not ideal for
The ~10% who genuinely over-project certainty and would benefit from questioning their claims rather than projecting more
From the transcript
“nobody can tell people cannot see what you feel even though it feels that way”
“what most people do is they self-sabotage they start leaking and they break character”
“the solution is that is just don't share your insecurities put your best foot forward and stay in it the whole time”
“the Q I use for myself is stay in it and the worse it gets the more I'll I'll say just stay in it”
“most people speaking up in meetings are feeling a level of nervousness but you can't tell unless it's through the roof”
From the episode
Why most public speaking advice is wrong—and how to finally overcome your speaking anxiety
Tristan de Montebello (CEO & co-founder of Ultraspeaking)