Dave Wood

The third step is to control your breathing.

So I just tap back into my breathing and through the nose.

hold for a few seconds out through the mouth.

My body, when you control your breathing like that, your body is sending very clear signals to your brain that you're in control.

Doesn't mean you're not stressed and a bit overwhelmed and a bit anxious.

It just takes you from being the passenger to the driver.

So I did a little bit of breathing.

I then went through, did a body scan, found where I was holding tension, let it go.

I then went up there and smashed it, right?

And so it's easy to go down one road of getting more and more wound up and losing control in the moment.

But it's also easy to apply these simple mental tools, mental skills, stress control skills to take you down a different path that gives you, again, more control, better response, flexibility, more access to your wisdom, more creative decision making.

And it's simple stuff, but it's not easy because in that moment, I was in a reactive state.

You know, my brain's in that beta brainwave state.

I've got high sympathetic stimulation.

Everything is geared up for reactivity in that moment because my brain doesn't know the difference between getting up and botching it up in that talk and an actual survival situation.

Back in the day, I would have been hunting or going into battle.

And so I love doing this stuff now because –

I want to go forward in life.

That feeling I had in that moment of being overwhelmed, I want to find it again.

I'm now trying to look for that experience again.