The Stage as Home: A Former Musician’s Insight on Leadership, Nerves, and Owning the Room

Before I was a leadership coach and author, one of my life vignettes included being a touring rock musician, sweating under hot lights, learning to command a room with nothing but an instrument (guitar, synth, bass), a mic, and my own nervous system. Those years gave me one of the greatest leadership experiences of my life: the stage.

It didn’t start out with confidence. My first performance I ran under a table, hid and cried. The next day, I bolted to the bathroom, my nerves setting my stomach on fire. I dreamt of failure, of freezing, forgetting, falling apart. Even now, I still have versions of those dreams: arriving unprepared, something breaking, everything going wrong.

Because when you’re a touring musician, unpredictability isn’t hypothetical. It’s nightly. Sound systems fail. Amps die mid-song. Tech glitches. Bandmates forget lyrics. Vans break down. Roadies disappear. You arrive in a new city each night, race the clock, perform under pressure, and crash wherever you can for a few hours before doing it all again.

And yet—you go on.

I’m grateful that those conditions are no longer my daily reality. But it was inside that chaos that I learned something enduring: how to make the stage feel like home.

Home wasn’t about comfort. It was about belonging. I stopped fighting the spotlight and learned how to interact with it. I learned to channel nervous energy into intentional movement, to grow comfortable with visibility. I learned how to play while watching, tracking both my band and the audience, sensing engagement, knowing when to push forward and when to pause, speak, or let the moment breathe.

Reading a room is a form of intimacy.

Creating something together—moving to the same beat, dancing, breathing, responding—is a shared act of creativity, connection, and belonging.

What I didn’t know then, but teach now, is that nerves originate in the amygdala, the brain’s threat detector: fight, flight, or freeze. Through breath, posture, and joy, we can regulate that response, lowering cortisol while increasing oxytocin and testosterone. What began for me as raw adrenaline and dopamine eventually became embodiment.

And that lesson translates directly to leadership.
 

In the workplace, leaders must also learn to work the room, to read an audience, to breathe with them, and to help people feel that they belong in what’s being created together.
As leaders, we need to treat the stage as our home.

To move, speak, and take up space as though we’re moving through honey, slow, grounded, magnetic. This kind of embodiment remains one of the most powerful tools I teach today. Nerves aren’t the enemy; they’re information. Fuel. With intention, they become a way to re-center rather than retreat.
 

Small acts of choreography—where you stand, how you pace, when you pause, when you hold still—can transform a speaker from tentative to unforgettable.

The stage isn’t just a physical platform. It’s a metaphor for leadership itself: a place where presence, intention, and emotional connection shape how we’re experienced.

From rehearsal rooms to corporate keynotes, rock music taught me how to step forward, stay grounded, and lead with courage and authenticity, connection and confidence, no matter the room.

Join me in my workshop coming up on January 21st 10-11:30am pacific. In this interactive 90-minute session, participants will learn how to transform nervous energy into grounded presence, align body language and vocal delivery with intention, and connect authentically with their audience. Register now!