How I Ended Up Singing In Front Of 4 Million People As a Complete Amateur

After seeing what was probably one of my best ever “No Scrubs” by TLC Karaoke performances at Fridays work drinks, one of my colleagues asked me if I wanted to sing with his choir during the Rugby World Cup for the France-Italy game. 

Unfortunately his choir was double booked that weekend so they needed a few more singers. He would be going to Brighton to sing at a conference there. 

He was also kind of shocked by my overly excited reaction. I realised that being from Germany, he had no idea how big rugby was and that we would be performing in a stadium with 80 thousand people (let alone another 4M on TV). 

I of course said yes and just like that I was scheduled to sing at Twickenham stadium.  

We all met at 10am on game day, were handed out the lyrics for both anthems and told to start learning them off by heart. Lucky for me I already knew the french one but most of the others didn’t, let alone speak the languages.

We spent the whole day practicing and I found out that most of the people there were also not regular choir members, some of them didn’t even really know how to sing and were just helping out. 

As we got closer to game time, I could see the stress on the Conductors face who was getting more and more concerned by the fact that some people still didn’t really know the lyrics. 

And everyone else was freaking out because they were terrified of getting the words wrong on TV and embarrassing themselves in front of so many people. 

When it came to 8pm and we were ushered out to the middle of the field, the roar of the french supporters singing “Allez les bleus” was making the whole stadium shake.

The players came out in front of us and we started singing the anthems. The noise from the crowd was so loud that we couldn’t really hear ourselves but I still belted out “La Marseillaise” like I was about to go to war. 

Once we’d walked off the pitch and I had waved off the crowd as if doing my Olympic gold medal victory lap, I messaged all my friends and family asking them if they had seen me.

Of course, none of them had as the TV cameras had been filming the players during the anthem and the choir was only slightly visible in the background. 

After all that stress from my fellow choir members, no one had even paid attention to us. 

Have you ever done something where you thought everybody was watching, but in fact no one even noticed? 

So often we think that all eyes are one us when most of the time people’s attention is somewhere completely different. We’ll do things thinking some imaginary jury is watching our every move and feel the exact kind of pressure as if there actually was one. 

This gets magnified when we do something embarrassing, our attention can get consumed by it and we automatically become sure that everyone else is watching. This is called the Spotlight effect. 

The best way to reduce this feeling and feel more confident in these moments is to question how real it is. 

So next time this happens to you, ask yourself “Is it just me obsessing about this? Or are people actually looking at me?”  

The reality is that the people you think are watching YOU are probably more concerned about the fact that they think YOU are watching THEM.

But what if they are actually looking at me?

Well then at least you will know for sure that there’s an actual reason to be embarrassed 😂

Another lesson I drew from this event is that there is really no point in comparing yourself to others, or making assumptions about how people are doing. Things might look great from the outside, but we can never know the internal struggles that might be going on inside. 

In our case, we might have looked like a very professional choir but half of us had absolutely no idea what we were doing. 

I think this happens a lot in the workplace and is one of the main causes of imposter syndrome. We make assumptions about how confident other people may feel and compare ourselves to this made up reality. Then we feel miserable because we are not doing as well as how we think others are doing. 

The irony of it all is that so many times, the person who is making us feel like an imposter probably feels like an imposter themselves BECAUSE he/she is comparing themselves to us (Just like with the Spotlight effect). 

So next time you try to compare yourself with someone else at work, remind yourself of the above. 

Remember that you are exactly where you need to be at this point in time and if you are going to compare yourself to anyone, make sure it is only with your past self.  

We are all on different journeys and we are all just winging it. 

Let me know your biggest spotlight or imposter syndrome moment in the comments!!