You're in front of the decision-maker, finally. You imagined this moment and what you would say. But when it's your turn to talk, your mind goes blank.
It's like your thoughts just vanished. Your body tightens. Cold waves of anxiety flush through your body. You start talking, but you're not sure what you're saying.
That isn't because you're bad at sales.
It's because your brain just got hijacked.
The invisible deal-killer: Amygdala hijack
When your nervous system detects threat, your amygdala takes over.
Doesn’t matter if the threat is physical (a bear in the woods), social (getting booed on stage), financial (getting sued), or imagined.
When the amygdala takes over, your body shifts into fight, flight, or freeze.
Blood flows out of your prefrontal cortex (reasoning, strategy, language).
The part of your brain that wins deals just went offline.
This saved cavemen. But in sales, you aren’t in mortal danger. You’re in imagined fear. And that costs you.
I suffered from all of this before I finally got a handle on it. I'm going to show you a technology that can help change your state so that this doesn't happen to you.
No, it's not AI.
AI can tell you the perfect objection response, in real time. But if you’re brain has been hijacked, and you can't think coherently, you won’t deliver it in a way that lands.
Why “calming down” doesn’t work
If you wait until you’re in the room to regulate your state, you’re already behind.
You might recover, but you’ll be fighting uphill.
Elite professionals win before the conversation even happens. They walk in with their state already set.
The Pre-Engagement State Protocol (2–5 minutes)
Here is a simple system to change your state. Use these three steps to flip your body into coherence before a high-stakes conversation:
Step 1: Segment Intending (45 sec)
Most people walk into a meeting with 10 other tabs open in their mind. Their attention is scattered, thinking about details from their last call, Slack messages, the fight they're having with their partner, how much they want a vacation. Your monkey mind is endless.
Segment intending is a simple system you can use to deliberately choose the energy and outcome you want for the next “segment” of your day.
You turn into a Hollywood script writer for each mini-segment of your life.
Close your eyes. Ask yourself:
“How do I want this meeting to go?" (see it going that way)
"How will I feel at the end of the meeting if it goes that way?" (feel it)
“How do I want them to feel by the end?” (e.g. eager to move forward)
Visualize the end as if it already happened.
Step 2: Tapping (60 sec)
Even if you feel calm, your body holds tension from stress and thoughts of doubt. These affect your micro-expressions, which flash across your face in a split second giving away how you truly feel. You can't fake how your micro-expressions and energy radiate from you, but you correct it so that you are sending an attractive, trustworthy signal to others.
Traditional Chinese medicine has been in use for thousands of years. Acupuncture is based on how energy flows through your body and can unblock where your energy is stuck.
You don't need needles to unblock your energy, just the pressure of tapping on specific points with specific language. You can research tapping and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), but I'm going to give you a short cut, so you can get results faster.
Here’s what to do:
Tap the side of your left hand with your right fingertips.
Say the doubt: “Even though I sometimes doubt my abilities…”
Then: “I fully and completely accept myself.”
You will feel something when you do this. At minimum, you will feel more calm and relaxed. You'll probably start smiling. That's how you know your energy has shifted.
You’re telling your body to let go of unnecessary tension so your signal is clear.
Step 3: Coherence Breathing (90 sec)
This isn’t deep breathing for relaxation. This is synchronizing your heart rhythms with your brainwaves into a coherent state. This is the most efficient physiological state for focus and communication.
Inhale 5 sec, hold 4, exhale 5.
Place your hand on your heart. Recall a moment of gratitude, pride, or love. For me, this is when my kids tackle me with a hug.
Hold that feeling as you breathe.
Research shows this increases heart rate variability (HRV), which is directly linked to adaptability and emotional regulation.
Why this works
When you combine intention, physical release, and coherent breathing:
Your amygdala reads “safe” before the meeting starts.
Your prefrontal cortex stays online even under pressure.
You walk in with a physiological signal of confidence that people feel before you speak.
The real edge in the Age of AI
Your competitors will use AI to prepare. They’ll have perfect scripts. They’ll run competitive battlecards.
But they’ll still lose deals to you because they freeze when it matters and continue to say things from a state of incoherence.
The real edge in the Age of AI, isn’t what you know, it’s whether you can access it in the moment. It's how human you can be. It's how authentically you connect with others.
You can’t outsource that to ChatGPT.
You can’t code it into your CRM.
You can only train it into yourself.
Your move this week
Pick one upcoming conversation that matters.
Run the 3-step pre-engagement state protocol.
Notice how it changes not just your performance, but the way people respond to you.
If you do this every time, you won’t just survive high-stakes moments. You’ll own them.