Body drives mind, not vice versa

Most people when they try to calm down, they use tactical reframes or maybe mindfulness or maybe reframing the situation in a positive light. But in my experience, working with the physiology, using what's known as a bottom up approach, primarily using the breath, it's just such a rapidly more effective way of shifting your state.

Afferent neurons are nerve pathways that carry sensory information from the body up to the brain, while efferent neurons carry signals from brain to body.

There's four times more afferent neurons going from the body to the brain as from the brain to the body. So by learning how to pull on the levers of our physiology, we can rapidly change our state. And then from there, by changing our state, that impacts the thoughts and feelings that we have.

98% of your nervousness is actually before you begin speaking. Once you begin speaking, almost all of your nervousness falls away, and that is the experience of most people.

What you resist will persist and what you fear will appear. When I think a thought like, Dara might think I suck and then I have a thought that I suck, that can become a self-enforcing negative feedback loop.

High performers in every industry feel the same internal triggers. They also feel lonely, bored, stressed, anxious, but they use that discomfort like rocket fuel to propel them towards traction.