This is one of the hardest lessons my clients go through: the only way you are going to be good on stage is by devoting the time to learn what you are like on stage.

It is one thing to envision a speech and practice it repeatedly in your head. It’s another thing to perform this speech in a real-life setting in front of one or more human beings.

Certain phrases which read wonderfully on page, or sound amazing in your head, could be awkward, flat or just plain awful in a real-life setting. Jokes may not work. Arguments may not be clear.

You may not know how to use the best of your natural talents. Your voice may be too loud, or too soft, or not clear enough. You may not know where to stand or what to do during certain moments.

There are a thousand and more other possibly annoying things that you will never know about your speech until you actually get up on a stage and perform it.

Don’t get me wrong, there is no such thing as a fatal flaw in public speaking. There is no single characteristic of a speech, or a speaker that can’t be turned into an advantage. A powerful vehicle for one’s unique identity.

The key is having the time to learn about your characteristics and figure out what to do with them.

The worst time to learn about an interesting element of your public speaking is at the same time when your audience is learning about it. You never want to be as surprised as your audience.

And preparing for such possibilities is fairly easy: just devote some time each week to a little stage work.

You need not go crazy or comprehensive. You can do an open mike night; do Toastmasters (a great organization); call in a colleague or two and stand in front of them in your office; do a presentation in your living room in front of your dog. Fifteen minutes a week is good. Half-an-hour and you are on the road to be amazing.

It’s hard to underestimate all the benefits of this practice. You get used to the sound of your voice. You figure out how to breath [a lot of people lose their breath the first time on stage]. You learn how fast you should talk [the average person talks between 100 to 150 words per minute]. You figure out what to do with your body, your hands, where to look and how to move.

You also get a wealth of ideas on how to improve your speech that you would never get by just rehearsing it in your head. You can discover that one passage can be better said this way, in comparison to the way you originally wrote it.

Sometimes, you come up with entirely new things to say.

Stage-work is also the key strategy for dealing with the biggest ailment public speakers face: stage fright.

Some people would rather die that go in front of a group of people and speak. It’s a shame, because it can be a fun and rewarding experience and does wonders for the creation of ideas and new possibilities, etc. It’s one of the foundations of being a leader.

Spending time on stage, working, performing and goofing around is the most powerful tool for fighting stage-fright. You get used to the experience of being in front of an audience, and this familiarity breaks down the fear dramatically. You also get good at what you want to perform, and the competence gives you a powerful confidence, and even pride, that is infectious. It becomes its own kind of rush.

And, perhaps most importantly, you learn that when you make a mistake on stage, it’s not the end of the world. It can actually be an opportunity to do something new and interesting.

Ditto for the experience of a non-appreciative audience. So, the audience didn’t like your joke, or was rude, etc., it won’t kill you. It never does.

But you won’t get any of these benefits if you don’t do it.

Getting on a stage and practicing, frankly, is an exercise like any other.

You just have to do it and work your public-speaking muscles.