Brian Johnson explains Adam Grant's research showing that reframing fear as excitement improves performance in high-pressure situations like public speaking. Instead of trying to calm down, say "I am excited" to shift from a stop state to a go state.
Foreign. This is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class.
This one is on Fear Stop plus Go. Inspired by originals by Adam Grant, one of my favorite research studies ever. We've talked about this in Presence and the Upside of Stress. Here's the deal. You bring people into a labor, you stress them out. How do you stress someone out? Well, you ask them to speak in public, give an impromptu two minute speech.
Ah, I'm freaking out. Then what do you do?
Do you tell them to calm down, say, hey, I am calm. Or do you teach them to say I am excited? Well, as you know, if you've seen me talk about this before, this group outperforms this group. It's much better to say I am excited when you're feeling fearful and anxious than to say I am calm. Why is that? Let's review why this is so powerful. You have two different systems, a stop system and a go system.
Right?
And Adam Grant tells us that trying to. When you're feeling anxious and your heart is racing, you're getting nervous, you're starting to get a little sweaty, right? Trying to stop that instantaneously is nearly impossible. It's kind of like driving 80 miles an hour on the freeway and slamming on the brakes. Not a good idea. Psychologists call that a high arousal state. When you're in a high arousal state, like fear or anxiety fear, it's really hard to stop that instantaneously and get down to a mellow low arousal state. It's much better to go from fear, which tends to be, well, it always is, a negative high arousal state, to a positive high arousal state, which is enthusiasm or being excited.
Right.
I am excited. So excited. I'm combining letters. I'm excited is how you want to shift, right? But most people tell us, hey, calm down. Say to yourself, I am calm. Breathe deeply. What does that do? Well, it doesn't make you suddenly magically go from high arousal to low arousal. And then it stresses you out because you become more aware of, well, I'm not calm. Something must be wrong with me. I'm going to focus more on the negative aspects of what's going to happen. We want to discipline ourselves to see.
What'S awesome about it.
To shift from oh, I'm going to mess up to oh, I'm going to do great. But you know what, that's hard to do to shift your expectations in the moment. But it's not hard to say to yourself, I am excited. Reframe your fear. And as excitement. And then you use the high arousal state, positively activating your go system and it's like you press the accelerator rather than slamming on the brakes.
Then you get to have fun.
I am excited. This is what's happening right now is good for me. It's going to help me perform at a high level. I don't need to turn it off. I don't need to try to be calm.
I need to lean into it and enjoy it.
I am excited. Activate your Go system.
Great way to actualize your potential and.
Perform at your peak when it matters most.
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