If You’re Anxiety-Prone and Ambitious, This Is for You
This message is for a very specific group of people. If you self-identify as anxiety-prone, uncomfortable, introverted, or simply someone who prefers to keep to yourself — and you also have ambition — I want to talk to you.
If you want to influence others, lead conversations, or grow in your career, it can feel like you’re fighting yourself. It’s hard to step into leadership, business speaking, or even a simple team interaction when your body reacts with discomfort.
But here’s the idea I want to offer you: you may not be uncomfortable with people. You may just be uncomfortable with newness.
The Discomfort of New Things (Not the Discomfort of People)
It’s completely normal to feel uneasy doing something new — whether that’s speaking up in a meeting, facilitating a discussion, presenting to senior leaders, or stepping into a larger role.
Some people experience that sensation and call it excitement. Others experience the same sensation and call it fear or anxiety.
The difference isn’t the feeling.
The difference is the interpretation.
In our leadership presence coaching and leadership confidence training, we often remind clients that excitement and fear are both forms of energy. Your body doesn’t know the difference. It simply prepares you to meet the moment.
Energy Is Not the Enemy
You don’t actually want to be perfectly calm before a presentation. Whether you’re delivering a keynote speaking engagement, leading a shareholder meeting presentation, or stepping into executive presentation coaching, a little activation is useful.
Energy sharpens you. It focuses you. It helps you care.
In Leadership Presentation Coaching, we work with professionals who initially believe their nerves are a problem. But what they discover is this: when they welcome that energy instead of resisting it, their confident presence grows.
The same applies to virtual presentation skills coaching and hybrid presentation skills. The moment before you go on camera — that quickening feeling — isn’t sabotage. It’s fuel.
Create a Mantra for the Moment
Here’s the practical step.
When you feel that discomfort — that tightness, that sinking feeling before a meeting or presentation — respond to it deliberately.
Create a mantra.
- “Oh good. This will help me.”
- “This is energy I can use.”
- “This feeling means I’m growing.”
If you’re alone, say it out loud. If you’re driving and the thought of an upcoming presentation pops into your head and your stomach drops, speak to yourself directly:
“This is good. This feeling will help me.”
In executive presence coaching, this shift is powerful. Instead of fighting the sensation, you choose it. You welcome it.
Rewiring Anxiety into Excitement
Over time, your brain starts to associate that physical sensation with something positive. Instead of “I’m in danger,” it becomes “I’m stepping into something meaningful.”
This is how confident presence is built.
Not by eliminating anxiety.
But by transforming it.
In our work with senior leaders, business keynote speaker clients, and professionals seeking leadership presence coaching in Minneapolis and beyond, we see this again and again: the leaders who grow the fastest aren’t the calmest. They’re the ones who reinterpret their energy.
Choose the Discomfort
If you are ambitious — if you want to influence, present, lead, or grow — you will encounter newness. And newness comes with activation.
So instead of wishing the anxiety away, choose it.
Welcome it.
Give it language.
Because that energy, when directed, becomes leadership confidence. It becomes screen presence coaching in action. It becomes business speaking that feels alive instead of flat.
Welcome the discomfort. Choose it with a mantra. Over time, you’ll notice something remarkable:
The anxiety becomes excitement.
And the excitement helps you. Period.
No Comments yet!