I&#x27;ve performed solo as an amateur musician exactly once (to an audience of about 100), and spoken publicly exactly once (to an audience of similar size). Admittedly a decade separates these two events, but when I performed as a musician (violist, playing a piece I had very thoroughly memorized and mastered when I played by myself or with my instructor) I did absolutely terribly, the anxiety ruined my performance.<p>In my mind, I performed like someone who had just picked up the instrument when in fact I had been playing for 10 years. The reality is of course a bit different, but that&#x27;s the perception of the performance I remember, and I definitely did not perform the piece anywhere near as well as I had when practicing.<p>The public speaking twelve years later, which I had never done before (short of a couple of roles in school theatre), went great. I had minimal anxiety and I honestly thoroughly enjoyed the experience. This happened at General Assembly, back when they had both a for-profit educational system and a coworking space in NYC (and the company I work for was working out of there). One of their employees asked me to give a presentation of our product as the final presentation of a demo day they were having for one of their immersive web development classes.<p>I guess I just had impostor syndrome as a violist performing solo (had no problems in the orchestra, though obviously violists don&#x27;t get much exposure in most orchestral works - not all though!), and didn&#x27;t as a professional web developer with ~8 years of experience following presentations of people who literally had 10 or so weeks of experience, even though I&#x27;d never really spoken publicly before and my presentation was _entirely_ ad libbed; they literally asked me to present about an hour before the demo day presentations started.<p>I&#x27;m very curious if I&#x27;d be able to handle the public speaking as well as I did if I had to follow people who I perceived to be my peers and betters, but I&#x27;ve not yet had an opportunity to test the hypothesis; when I performed on the viola, the people who went before me I viewed as better musicians than myself, and I have no way of knowing if that was what set my performance anxiety off until I put myself in a situation where I feel like I&#x27;m not as good as the people who are performing with me.