Being Ready vs Being Nervous | Ep 4

Arjun: 00:00:00

The difference between people who are nervous and those who are ready chemically, there is no difference.

But the difference tactically and the difference for you as someone who's listening to this when you're preparing for a big moment, is that you've gone through those reps and that you're fully ready. You've all experienced that long build up towards the big moment. Everyone's been through this.

Whether you were on this long walk to open the doors to a place where you're about to propose to your soon to be fiance, or it was a long hallway where you were walking through your school before entering history class, where you needed to actually speak or give some reenactment of a very famous speech, or it's down the hallway at your office where you're about to walk into the boardroom with all your superiors and give what is supposed to be this pitch or review that ultimately is going to dictate whether or not you get promoted this year.

Or for an athlete who's walking down this long corridor, tunnel, if you will, to enter the arena, to step onto the court the way a boxer goes down and cuts through the crowd before entering the ring, I call this the tunnel. And everybody has an experience or an interaction with the tunnel because it's the prolonged or stretched out moment before the big moment.

Now, along all this way, when you're doing this walk or this approach, there are certain feelings and emotions that are going to overcome you. And you're going to start feeling these at higher and higher degrees of intensity right before you actually step into that moment.

Now, I'm here to tell you that whether you are fully prepared for that moment or you're unprepared for that moment, the feeling, the actual chemical response, the physiological response, those butterflies are actually going to be the same.

Now that might actually shock some of you because I just told you two different states that you could be in either prepared or nervous, but yet at the same time, I'm telling you that the feeling inside is actually the same. And here's what I mean.

If I was to hook up a really well prepared athlete who's about to enter the tennis court, for example, and he's probably going to kick your ass, and he's been there a million times. Let's just say Roger Federer, who has said himself, I still get nervous before big matches.

Now how could a guy like that say that he's nervous when we all know he's really prepared? Well, he's entering in and let's suppose I hook him up to Some kind of a machine that can measure what's going on in his body and mind.

And then I hook you up to the same machine.

Now, of course, you are going to be nervous as shit because you're not prepared, you're not in his level, and you're probably going to get your ass kicked.

So if I told you as well that you're hooked up to the same machine, but that the reading that I'm going to get back as the doctor or the person who's running this machine, the reading I'm going to get back from both you and Roger Federer is going to be the exact same. You'll probably scratch your head and wonder why that is. It's all butterflies. We all have butterflies.

Whether you're nervous or you're actually prepared, the difference between someone who is prepared is that they have managed. They've been able to get those butterflies to fly in sequence. They've organized them into some sort of a line and have control over them.

Jimmy Fallon, who runs one of the best talk shows that there is in the world right now, he's one of the most engaging, magnetic, and entertaining personalities there is. He says that he will stop doing the show the moment he stops feeling nervous, before the curtains get drawn back.

oaching a final stage. It was: 2007

I was in the finals in Birmingham, England, and I'm about to go against the national champion from Argentina, who's never lost. And it's my first time. I've never even been in this moment. I've envisioned it in my mind a million times as a kid.

I've dreamt of it, I might win, and maybe I'm going to get to hear my national anthem played while I stand on a stage and have a gold medal around my neck. But I'm walking down this long hallway and I'm feeling all kinds of nerves, but I stopped myself right there.

And I don't know if I had been coached on this or if it was something that hit me. It's probably a little bit of both. But I told myself right there, you know what? I'm actually ready for this. We visualize this a million times.

I've dreamt of it since I was a kid to actually be in this position. And we have gone through the reps. All I need to do is just actually go out there. And execute.

And if I go back to the Roger Federer example, Roger Federer is actually in the exact same boat. He's hit a million shots, he's prepared.

He's won so many Grand Slam titles, he's been on the biggest stages in the world, performed under the brightest of lights, but yet he's saying he's nervous. What he actually is, is he's fully prepared. He's just anxious to get out there and do it. He's excited. He's ready.

And that feeling that you have inside as a performer, as a human being, as a student, as an employee who's about to give a pitch, whatever it is in your life, it's the exact same feeling that you have chemically and scientifically as someone who's not prepared, who's literally about to piss down the right side of their leg and maybe down the left side of their leg because they're so freaking nervous. Basically, they have no LFG energy. It's the total opposite of LFG energy right there. But they're feeling the exact same thing.

So the difference between people who are nervous and those who are ready, chemically, there is no difference.

But the difference tactically and the difference for you, as someone who's listening to this when you're preparing for a big moment, is that you've gone through those reps and that you're fully ready.

I've always said to every athlete that I've coached or anyone that I work with professionally, when you're walking down that tunnel, whether you're on the flight to the big events, you're flying overseas for some major tournament or major event that you're about to participate in, or you're walking down the hallway to give that pitch into the boardroom.

The thing that you want to ask yourself while on this elongated moments where it's just you alone with your thoughts, are, have I done everything that I needed to do to prepare for this moment? Because if you're ready, you're still going to have the same feelings, like I said, as being nervous.

But there's a difference there because you're actually fully prepared. You just need to go out and execute.

So for all of you who are preparing for something, or you have something big that's coming up, as you are starting to approach it, ask yourself those questions, have I prepared for this fully? Have I left no stone unturned? Have I done everything? Have I given everything to actually meet this moment head on?

And if the answer to that is yes, and be honest with yourself, because of course Guys, there's always some little extra thing we could have done. It's never going to be at a fully maxed out 100%.

But in being honest with yourself, if you say, yep, I have done everything, I gave everything, I haven't left anything out, you are prepared, and wherever the results may fall, they're going to fall right. However, that's going to land in your lap.

Because ultimately, at the end of the day, we can't control everything but the one side of the quotient or the equation that you had direct control over, which was your preparedness, you are in full command of. So here's what you guys are going to do in terms of making certain habits so that you can check in with yourself.

What you want to first do is recognize the feeling that you're having in leading up to a big moment.

And when you start to have those feelings or those emotions or those butterflies like we talked about, and we already went through the questions, you want to ask yourself, but check in, reassess those quick questions, and actually run through the exercise with yourself. So after asking yourself those questions, the answers that you have, you want to go a little bit deeper.

Because ultimately, guys, you need to find out, you need to know of yourself, is the level of preparedness that I've put myself through to meet this moment or do this big thing directly in line with the intended outcome, what I'm trying to actually get out of it? Because if it is, then you're going about this the right way.

And if it's not, if you don't feel that your level of preparedness is actually on par with this big moment or this big thing you need to do, then you need to ask even more questions of yourself and ask, is it something I even really want to do? Am I being forced to do this? Am I doing it for me or am I doing it for someone else? Now, I want to hear from you guys on this.

Whether you are watching this on YouTube or you've been listening to this online, I want to actually hear about big moments in your life. Did you actually feel that you were super nervous for those moments? Were you actually ready?

And maybe misinterpreting that level of preparedness for the anxiety that you feel from being nervous, Tell me more about your experiences and how you overcame them or actually prepared.