How to turn panic into power in business
So you have the big pitch. Or the big job interview. Or you have to walk out on stage in front of 4,000 people… And you know something goes wrong inside to sabotage you.
You know this because there are some horrible side effects of stress. They not only feel bad, they make you sound bad too.
You speak too fast. You feel yourself breathing shallowly. You rush. Your voice shakes. Your hands shake. You go blank. Your mouth gets dry. It is all a blur, you can’t even remember what you said, fight or flight.
I was working with someone recently who feels completely held back by this, and she was convinced that she could never change it. It felt to her as if it was a curse she was permanently stuck with. It meant that she spent days, even weeks, sometimes dreading big meetings or presentations, and it meant that in the middle of high stakes moments she would find herself speaking too fast, out of control, saying the wrong thing. All the worry was taking up a huge amount of energy and time.
But what I know, and what she discovered – to her and to my delight – is that panic can be turned into power much faster than you realise. There’s a kind of alchemy to do just that when you know how.
How to calm yourself down when you feel panicked
This alchemy is known scientifically as self-regulation (aka calming yourself down), and staying calm when you speak. We are often taught mindfulness and yoga and other tools to calm ourselves down. But we aren’t taught how to use them when we speak and we often aren’t aware of the big bad habit that derails our calm and confidence when we speak.
The single biggest derailer to your calm, and the key to turning panic into power? Cut the “gasp” (the mouth-breath that we do when we are stressed).
Think about the relaxed way you pause for breath when you chat to friends. Now think about how often you rush and pull the breath in through the mouth accompanied with an um or an er when we are nervous.
How to ‘cut the gasp’ in three steps
Here’s how to cut the gasp in three steps.
Step one: Notice it in yourself
I want you to do this now: pull in a breath by lifting up your shoulders and chest and gasping it into your mouth. Notice it has an effect on how you feel – you might start to feel more stressed, your thoughts may be speedier. Why? The body knows this as panic breathing and starts to create panic thinking. This leads quickly into fast panic speaking.
Step two: Notice it in others
Noticing it in others can also help. Here’s why:
- You will recognise the gasp by the sound as it comes via the speaker’s mouth.
- You will see it in the chest, as the shoulders and chest pull a fast panicked breath in quickly.
- You will feel it in a tension as you listen.
Or you might notice that the speaker is speaking so fast that you feel distracted or you might sense a tension and speed in the voice, you might hear the noisy chest breath you hear in nervous speakers. Gasping the breath in audibly via the chest and shoulders takes you straight to panic, because it’s what we do when we have to panic or run away. It’s effortful and it stresses out your system instantly.
Step three: Become self aware
The best way to do this is often by some self observation. Record yourself on zoom or on your phone as you speak.
If you’re not sure whether you gasp, record yourself when you are speaking – on film or just use the voice recording function on your phone. Can you hear a gasp? If you film yourself, you will see your shoulders and chest move as you breathe in, as well as hearing the gasp.
Then if you notice you are gasping do this as a practice. On every full stop slow down. Close your mouth and let the breath flow in through your nose like a lovely smell.
It will feel slow at first but when you keep doing it you will notice that you are much more calm, conversational and in control. You can stay calm, sentence by sentence because you have cut the gasp. Your panic recedes and your power emerges.
How stopping your inner chat can help
Inner dialogue, that ticker tape of chatter runs constantly telling us a story. It takes us out of sensory reality, the space we’re in, the elements around us, and down a rabbit hole of inner chatter that often repeats certain tropes…’they always do this…I’m bad at this etc etc.’
In my own life, I’m noticing that when I quieten that inner chatter, my awareness and presence dials up, that I really notice more, that connections are deeper because rather than being looped into my head, I’m looped into my heart and the room.
When you notice yourself panicking, get curious. What’s happening in your head?
If you’re on your own, you can begin to explore this. You can channel Eckhart Tolle when he says: “Close your eyes and say to yourself: ‘I wonder what my next thought is going to be.’ Then become very alert and wait for the next thought. Be like a cat watching a mouse hole.”
Start to notice when you do this that it takes a while for this next thought to appear. It is a way into presence. And when you take this still mind back into high pressure rooms, notice how a still mind often leads to congruent, present body language.
And that reads to others as presence. As gravitas. It’s a kind of magic, use it well!
Caroline Goyder helps the world’s best speakers transform nerves and tension into gravitas and presence. Over the last 20 years she has helped well over 20,000 people to overcome their nerves and self-doubt to speak with confidence, influence and authority.
