Staying calm under pressure

You can’t think your way into being calm, but you can act your way there.

I remember sitting in a boardroom with Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, a global content delivery company that powers much of the internet. Back then, in 2014, a few fellow entrepreneurs from London and I were on a trip to San Francisco to get to know the local tech ecosystem, and Matthew kindly agreed to meet us. It was a great conversation for us, early stage entrepreneurs, but I’m sure it was the least important meeting that week for him.

Suddenly, his colleague entered the room and said: “Sorry to interrupt, but we have global connectivity issues”.

I thought that the meeting was over. After all, he had a serious issue at a global company that must have been affecting millions, if not billions, people worldwide.

With absolute calm, Matthew turned and asked a single question:

— Is John [the CTO] on it?

— Yes, he’s in the office.

— Tell John I’ll be with him when this meeting is over.

And then he turned back to us to continue the conversation.

Astonished, I asked if he needed to attend to the crisis, but Matthew replied that he had full trust in his tech team’s ability to investigate the issue. He didn’t need to get involved yet.

This conversation stayed in my memory as an example of a CEO making the right decision under pressure and without being distracted from whatever he was doing. He finished speaking to us and said goodbyes without any rush, as if it was the most normal day.

At the time, I imagined how I would have reacted in his place. My heartbeat would have gone up to 120. I would have apologised quickly saying that something really important came up and I would have rushed out of the boardroom. I would have gone to the tech team asking nervous questions, distracting them from investigating the source of the problem. I would have made the situation worse, not better.

Over the years, as a CEO myself, I learned how to panic less and make better decisions in an apparent crisis. There are many aspects to it, but one principle stands out:

Attend to the state of your nervous system before you attend to the state of your mind.

Let’s explore what it means.

How our nervous system works

When we sense a threat, our minds react with anxiety or fear. Maybe we notice that our thoughts are running in different directions, maybe we can’t find any resolution to our problems, maybe we seemingly can’t stop thinking about the problem.

One way to approach it is to think harder and finally make a decision you commit to. It kind of works, but it’s often not the best way. Furthermore, even if we make a decision, we often remain conflicted about it: what if we made the wrong one?

A better way is to attend to the state of your nervous system first. If your nervous system is calm, it will be so much easier to make a good decision. What I understand now about Matthew’s behaviour at that moment is that staying completely and visibly calm was what enabled him to see that there’s no reason for him to get involved in the crisis.

Your autonomous nervous system operates either in a sympathetic state (high alert, ready to fight or flight) or in a parasympathetic state (relaxed, safe, calm). These are two different physiological states. In a sympathetic state your heart rate is up and glucose is released (in case you need to fight or flight). In a parasympathetic state, you relax, your heart slows down and you may yawn (which is why a yawn is sometimes a sign of a shift to a parasympathetic state).

The point relevant to your life as a founder is that if you try to make decisions in a sympathetic state, they might not be as good as decisions that you make in a parasympathetic state. When we’re on high alert, our attention is narrowly focused on the issue at hand and it’s harder to see the complexity or the wider context. This is highly appropriate if you’re in a real emergency. But if we’re not, we will often make better decisions if our autonomous nervous system is in a parasympathetic state.

And here’s the thing:

You cannot think your way from a sympathetic to a parasympathetic state. But you can act your way there.

This is why telling a person who’s panicking to stop panicking is useless, but telling them to take a deep breath or giving them a hug can make an immediate difference.

So, how do you shift the state of your nervous system if you need to make a decision or just take the edge off anxiety? There are two tools that work great in the short-term: breathwork and movement.

Breathwork

A breathwork exercise can shift your autonomous nervous system into a parasympathetic state in a matter of 10-15 minutes, if not faster. A few options:

1. Box breathing. Five counts in, five counts hold on full, five counts out, five counts hold on empty. Do it for 5-10 minutes and notice how differently you feel.

2. Long out-breath. The key here is to breathe out longer than you breathe in. For example, four counts in, eight counts out.

3. Othership breathwork app is my favourite and is absolutely excellent. It’s an extensive library to calm you down or bring you up (and many other things) using just your breath. Here’s a free trial.

4. Train with Kasia, founder of and breathe who can teach you and your team how to work with your breath skilfully.

Having shifted your nervous system into a parasympathetic state, you’ll be in a far better position to deal with whatever it is your mind is doing. This is where your nervous system should be most of the time, by default. Your sympathetic nervous system is there for short-term emergencies, and yet so many of us live like that all the time. I know I used to. It sucks.

Spontaneous movement

Another tool is spontaneous movement. There are countless options here, but this guided video (under 20 minutes) is my favourite. I’ve done it many times and every time I return to this sequence, I feel very different by the end of it.

Long-term work

So, these two are great both on a day to day basis and as emergency interventions if your mind is going a bit crazy and you need it to operate well. How do you avoid getting into a sympathetic state in the first place? After all, what Matthew did in that moment wasn’t a breathwork exercise, he didn’t lose his nerve to begin with.

To achieve this, you need to practice it on a regular basis through somatic practices that bring your attention away from the mind and into the body, for example yoga or qigong (not necessarily the gym: that’s great, but different). Meditation can be quite helpful here to train your awareness of how your body feels in the moment. If you’re continuously aware how you really feel, you’ll be able to do something about it.

Takeaway

First, if you need to calm down, attend to your nervous system first and only then think about it.

Second, if you need an emergency intervention, use breathwork or spontaneous movement (not meditation).

Third, avoid getting overwhelmed under pressure in the first place, do somatic practices like yoga or qigong as well as meditation. It’ll take time, but it’ll make a big difference.

Remember:

Attend to your nervous system state before attending to your mind state.

How I practised it

This Friday I recorded a Secret Leaders episode about my upcoming book Startup CEO Succession: a Founder’s Guide to Leadership Transition. Dan Murray-Serter and I spoke about all aspects of leaving the startup you founded. Of course I was a bit nervous in the morning, all the founders I know listen to this show! So, how did I prepare?

In the hours before the recording, I didn’t revise my prep notes. I trusted that my mind would be sharp if my nervous system would be in a good state. So I did the Burgs sequence (Youtube video above) before meditating for 30 minutes focusing my attention on my body sensations. And then I left home on time to avoid being stressed by running late.

I think we did a great interview. You’ll be the judge of how calm I was when it hits Youtube and Spotify next month :)