Before her final race, injured and facing immense pressure, Lindsey Vonn’s 96-year-old coach offered a powerful reframe: "What is 60 seconds in your whole life?" This perspective minimized the moment's weight, freeing her to compete without fear and win a medal.
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A mental performance coach taught diver Molly Carlson to visualize fear as a piece of paper in front of her eyes. Instead of trying to destroy the paper, she gently shifts it to the side, allowing it to exist without consuming her focus, freeing her to perform.
The physiological states of anxiety and excitement are nearly identical. Relabeling the feeling by saying "I'm excited" shifts your mindset from threat-based to opportunity-based, improving performance in tasks like public speaking or negotiation.
In the moments before a race, Lindsey Vonn's mind is "pretty empty." All preparation and visualization are done beforehand, allowing instinct to take over. Thinking about technique at 80 mph is a recipe for disaster; performance must be automatic.
Shift your mindset away from a pass/fail evaluation, which fuels anxiety about uncontrollable outcomes. Instead, approach the situation as a curious exploration. This reframe lowers the psychological stakes, reduces nervousness, and allows for more authentic and effective engagement.
Lindsey Vonn views crashing as part of her job description and a necessary tool for finding her limits. Instead of avoiding the memory, she meticulously analyzes videos of her crashes to understand her mistakes and improve, treating catastrophic failure as invaluable feedback.
Steve Garrity maintains perspective during high-stress situations, like a 2 a.m. contract negotiation, by comparing them to his worst days battling cancer. This "perspective reframing" technique diminishes the perceived severity of current challenges, fostering grit. Any professional can adopt this by using their own past adversities as a benchmark.
Kobe Bryant framed his performance not as winning or losing, but as an opportunity to "figure things out." This curiosity-driven mindset relieves pressure, anchors you in the present, and makes it possible to enter a flow state, proving more sustainable than fixating on outcomes.
In crises, focus only on what's inside an imaginary "hula hoop" around you: your attitude and your actions. Surrender the outcome to external forces. This mental model, used by endurance athlete Dean Otto when paralyzed, prevents overwhelm and allows for clear-headed decision-making when stakes are highest.
Instead of viewing pre-performance physiological arousal as anxiety, reframe it as excitement or energy. Sam Harris explains that the physical sensations are nearly identical; consciously relabeling them connects the feeling to a positive desire to perform well, rather than a fear of failure.
By simply relabeling the feeling of stress as "excitement," you can trigger a different physiological and psychological response. This technique, known as anxiety reappraisal, can lead to measurably better performance in high-pressure situations like public speaking or presentations.
