Most of us have suffered from stage fright to some extent. When people are asked what they fear the most, speaking or singing in public is often rated in the top 10.
Edwina Halliwell always loved amateur dramatics and singing, but in her teens a horrible audition changed everything.
Two years ago she had planned to sing for her husband at their wedding. Again the nerves returned and she froze.
Campbell Live followed Ms Halliwell on a personal journey to enter the spotlight once more, as she prepared to enter her kind of hell by walking onto the stage at the comedy classic in Auckland.
She is usually a bubbly, confident person, until I ask her to stand on the stage.
"Feel really nervous, legs are like jelly," she says. "I just want to get off the stage."
Many famous performers have suffered from stage fright. At the peak of Sir Laurence Olivier's career he became worried he would be too tired to remember his lines. Barbara Streisand did not sing in public for 27 years after forgetting the lines to several songs at a concert in 1967.
Fifteen years ago Ms Halliwell loved performing and singing until she went to an audition and froze when she tried to sing.
Karen Ross knows what she is going through. Ms Ross uses NLP or neuro-linguistic programming techniques to help individuals and organisations, here and overseas, change their behaviours.
It is about the brain and how it works with the body.
"It's about how we learn, our behaviours, our thoughts, our feelings, our habits are created, and by knowing how they're created we know how we can change them," says Ms Ross.
At the moment Ms Halliwell associates the stage with fear.
"The way it's stored can be changed quite easily," says Ms Ross. "It was probably set up in a matter of seconds, so that gives you can idea of how quickly it can be changed," says Ms Ross.
First she helps Ms Halliwell imagine what it will be like when she is performing and enjoying it. She then introduces the idea of a 'trigger point' to help her relax.
Ms Ross identifies a point on Ms Halliwell's hand and connects that to a sense of calm. She encourages Ms Halliwell to touch that point when nerves start to take over.
But will it make a difference? Two weeks later we went back.
It went "really well", says Ms Ross. "We've had two sessions together and she's ready to sing."
So ready, she headed to the Ivory Lounge in Auckland, determined to sing for her husband Duncan, something she had wanted to do at their wedding two years before.
And as quickly as it came, her stage fright disappeared. She sang to her husband, and while the nerves were still there, the person who could not even stand on a stage was now singing to an audience.
It was an incredible change, and even she could not quite believe it.
"Oh my god, I can't believe that, it's just amazing."
The therapy had helped Ms Halliwell confront her fear, and changed the feelings associated with performing in public.
"When I'm working with a client I can't be sure until we make some changes, whether that one thing will generalise and help the person feel relaxed with everything or there might be more than one thing," says Ms Ross. "And in Edwina's case, it was one thing."
"The difference between before the coaching and after is now, I really just wanted to do it and I didn't care what it sounded like, it was just really important for me to do it," says Ms Halliwell. "And it was just such a dream to get up and sing in front of all those people."
It might not have been her greatest performance but it was certainly one of, what she hopes, will be many more.
"It's been really great to see and watch the confidence build up," says her husband Duncan. "You couldn't hold her back this evening, which is a major transformation from where it's been before."