For years I’ve been teaching a story I first learned about from Tony Robbins, then researched myself. It’s about Carly Simon and Bruce Springsteen. In short, Carly Simon stopped performing because of “performance anxiety” and Bruce Springsteen loves performing because of his “passion” and “excitement” but when asked for details, both describe their physiological experience very similarly. Both have “butterflies in the stomach,” both have “tingling” and rapid heartbeat and sweaty palms.

So what are they experiencing? Is it anxiety? Is it excitement? Both? Neither? I think it’s a mistaken question, because the physical sensations are not the emotion or the experience by themselves, but only in combination with the mental appraisal, the meaning given by the individual. And that tells us that emotions can be changed, both by changing the physical sensations (for example through postural changes) and by changing the meaning.

This is finally getting some attention in the research and I love these very simple experiments by Alison Wood Brooks, showing that the best strategy to deal with “performance anxiety” is not to attempt to calm, but rather to re-appraise them as “excitement.” And that this can be as simple as just saying, “get excited!”

When I use strategies like this with clients who have had “speaker’s anxiety,” it is always inspiring to see how quickly they can transform. “I’m so nervous.” “Ok, then it’s time to get excited.” This exchange transforms pacing with a worried look into a heads up rapid step, clapping hands, ready to charge the stage. And it’s a different experience for the audience because they are happy to help a speaker manage their excitement. Think about the difference between a speaker who comes on stage saying, “I can barely talk because I’m so nervous,” and a speaker who says, “I can barely talk because I’m so excited.” It’s easy for the second speaker to engage the room by saying, “so we’re going to do a couple of things to use up some of my excited energy so I can get calm enough to talk.” That feels great for an audience.

How can you use this? And to add in the concept of emotions as habits – what old habit of “anxiety” can you change to a new habit of “excitement?”

To your dreams!