17 Dec 2025 · 5 min
Brian Johnson explains why telling yourself you're excited works better than trying to calm down before public speaking. Research shows high arousal is easier to reframe as excitement than to suppress, activating a Go system instead of fighting your nervous system.
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, 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 lab and 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 to me 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. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that micro class. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson me two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living Membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas for from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Health Habits 101, et cetera. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish, and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.
