Even after nearly 30 years of facilitating workshops, I still get nervous in certain settings. My heart races, and I need to consciously settle myself.
It happened again this week, which made me think that you might find these three strategies just as useful as I do.
All take less than 10 minutes. I pick whichever is most socially acceptable for the moment (you'll see what I mean):
- Ten minutes: Andrew Huberman's Non-Sleep Deep Rest. This one has been a game-changer for me. Even when I don't focus properly for the full 10 minutes, I'm noticeably calmer afterwards. And I'll sleep better that night, regardless of when I do it. Watch on YouTube.
- Two minutes: Stick your tongue out as far as it will go for 40 seconds and focus on your breathing. (Hence the ‘socially acceptable' point!) I find the tension in my jaw and neck releases, often followed by an involuntary shudder. I do this in the shower, but it works anywhere.
- One minute: Run your wrists under cold water for 7 seconds. This is a new one for me. The results are striking: in trials with 3,000 soldiers, cortisol dropped 52% within 90 seconds and heart rate fell an average of 22 beats per minute. It works by cooling the radial arteries, signalling the hypothalamus to downregulate stress immediately.
Try one before you deliver your next presentation. See if it makes a difference.
More soon,
Davina
PS – If you have any other strategies that work, I’d love to hear them.
PPS – Thanks to Brian Edler for sharing NSDR with me. It’s brilliant.
Whenever you're ready, here are five other ways I can help you:
Elevate, the book – helps leaders set their teams up to set up a new dynamic across their team that will elevate everyone’s skills, helping the team get better, faster decisions.
Engage, the book – helps individual contributors prepare papers and presentations that leaders can approve without reworking.
Engage, the self-paced course – supports both individuals and leaders prepare more insightful papers and presentations for senior leaders and boards.
Extreme Clarity, the 2-hour workshop – introduces techniques for structuring your messaging.
Board Paper Bootcamp, the 2-week program – helps you clarify and convey complex ideas to senior leaders and boards.
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ABOUT AUTHOR: DAVINA STANLEY
I love what I do.
I help senior leaders and their teams prepare high-quality papers and presentations in a fraction of the time.
This involves 'nailing' the message that will quickly engage decision makers in the required outcome.
I leverage 25+ years' experience including
- learning structured thinking techniques at McKinsey in Hong Kong in the mid 1990s before coaching and training their teams globally as a freelancer for a further 15 years
- being approved to teach the Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto in 2009
- helping CEOs, C-suite leaders and their reports deeply understand their stakeholder needs and communicate accordingly
- seeing leaders cut the number of times they review major papers by ~30% and teams cut the amount of time they take to prepare major papers by ~20%*
- watching senior meetings focus on substantive discussions and better decisions rather than trying to clarify the issue
My approach helps anyone who needs to engage senior leaders and Boards.
Recent clients include 7Eleven, KPMG, Mercer, Meta, Woolworths.
Learn more at www.clarityfirstprogram.com
(*) Numbers are based on 2023 client benchmarking results.
