Shanli Liu shares three ways to stay calm in difficult conversations: focus on your next sentence instead of feared outcomes, break the talk into facts, feelings, and fixes, and acknowledge nervousness upfront using a template like "I may sound nervous, but my purpose isn't..."
How to not get nervous in a difficult conversation. Number 1, stop focusing on the outcome and focus on your next sentence, the very next words out of your mouth. You have to ground yourself on what you know, not in what you fear. And you fear their reaction, their response. You can't control that. Instead, focus on what's real, and that's what you have to say next. Number 2, to help with that, break the conversation down into bite-sized chunks. If you try to explain the whole situation in one breath, it puts way too much pressure on the outcome, and that's going to make you nervous. So separate them out. I like to do facts, then feelings, then fixes. It's going to give you quick little boosts and wins when you talk about each segment. And number 3, call it out. Tell them you're nervous, but you want to do it in a way that maintains your confidence. So I recommend this template: I may sound nervous, but my purpose isn't, my point isn't, my focus, my resolve isn't. And use that however you need. So try that and follow me.
