Being on stage is my life’s most beautiful oxymoron. It is a place of immense joy; I feel my most me, I feel home, like a fish in the water, like the key that fits just right, unlocking doors to great chambers, shedding light, bringing life. This is what I was born to do.

But there is another side to the stage. Being on stage is also a place of immense pressure, frustration and uncertainty.

“Am I delivering it right? Are my audience enjoying this experience? Do I deserve their attention? Should I try to hit that note, or will my voice crack and break?”

This exhilarating mix of the joy and the pressure of performance is one that I am sure many artists know well. And it translates across many fields: sports, business, politics, as well as the arts. That moment when all the work we have put in finally comes to a head, and we have the chance to prove ourselves, brings such an intense spectrum of emotions that it often imprints itself permanently onto our memories.

As an artist, I need both sides of the coin. Of course, the rush, the joy, the pure delight in doing something that I love is the motivation to keep doing what I do. I love the exchange between artist and audience; mutual benefit, giving and receiving, a wonderful unspoken contract of inspiration and affirmation. The adrenaline and love for my audience actually pushes me to try new things, to go higher, to give more. The performance I give on stage is often far better than in practice; and that’s because of the joy-adrenaline-rush.



But I also need to listen to the voice of doubt... when my brain kicks in to overdrive as I take to the stage and I question my every movement, word, position and note. On stage, I re-evaluate every artistic choice that I have made. It is a brutal, honest and split second process. I find out, very quickly, if I like the way something worked. I understand which songs create the mood I hoped for and which ones turn sour, which words create laughter and which ones fall flat, which notes resonate and which ones grate, which arrangements go on for too long and which ones hit that sweet spot.

We are often our own worst critics. We notice, and take permanent note of, our mistakes - even the ones that we know no-one else could have noticed. And so it is important to not be too hard on ourselves. As I watch back recordings from my shows, it is all too easy for me to find my failures and mentally notch them up on a blackboard as a debt that I will have to repay. But that is not the point. The point of the self-evaluating process is to point ourselves in the right direction, to push ourselves to be better in every way.

I am thankful for that irritating voice in my head that never lets me sit 100% comfortably on the stage. It stops me from getting lazy. It reminds me that my road is long, my skills are being ever honed, my tool kit is being ever expanded.

So as I set my oxymoronic stage, joy sits to my right, doubt to my left. And they propel me forwards, centre stage.